The paramedics who found me on the pavement of that parking lot, almost a week ago, roused me from a slumber of - subsequent investigation found it to be almost an hour's time - mysterious then shocking origin. I'd suffered a head injury. The fog of semi - consciousness about this entire murky mess was lifting, of course, because the people assessing me, and shamelessly cutting my clothing open to wire me up, and refill my fluid bank through plastic tubes - they were pulling me out of it.I had been a bloody lump when found, and the fuzzy vision I had was like a birth caul over my face.
One voice in my head was chattering things like: This is embarrassing. Can I just go home? I'm so sorry for bothering you. WHAT HAPPENED? (There was amnesia). Another voice was, haltingly at first, answering the paramedics' orientation questions. Oh no, that voice echoed in my sore noggin. They've caught me. I answered a question too slowly! Now what? Now, I had crossed to the other side. I had become a person, like the persons I had gotten to know through interviewing them over years. Over decades.
"You're looking for nystagmus", I told the physical therapist who was evaluating me on Day 3. Day 1 took me through a night in Emergency; pinned in a gurney w/ heart monitor my tether. When my oxygen saturation dipped too low, I had to deep breathe every five minutes - even after I was fitted w/ nasal oxygen @ 2 liters! Following my 2nd head CT w/ contrast, I could get more than ice chips. An energy drought I did my best to remedy, after moving to a general room on the evening of Day 2. Standing the first time after getting a private bathroom, boy did the world go round for a bit. The walker and an escort helped on the first occasion to the toilet, but after the PT check, it became easier to walk. A few walks outside the room let me start my own therapy. I knew things to do.
I had been that PT. My years working with persons of all ages, after their suffering traumatic brain injury, helped me gather a toolbox of tricks, tools and strategies to help them to live their life. I found out that, after seeing people use patience in moving, concentrate to maintain erect posture, maintain a wide radius of gait support, and patiently react to the environment, - I could do it for myself. And the mental clunkiness, the clumsiness at accessing my mental files to share and to meet my needs - I've seen and done that before, how things change with patience, with routine and with practice.
So now, I feel akin with all the children and adults I'd gotten to know over the years; since 1985 to be exact. All the car crashes, shootings, electrocutions; all the snowmobile crashes, near drownings, domestic and other criminal assaults, the hangings, the syncopal falls, accidental head strikes, sports trauma, blast injuries and all the rest.
It's Day 7 now, and back to a regular schedule tomorrow. I feel different now, because I've become someone else - but still me. I remember a wise therapist saying at a patient's conference: you are your neurons, but you are not just your neurons.
Who will I become?
