Today I removed the garbage from my car.
Just a bag's worth, besides the returnable soda cans and the triple A tourbooks from my recent cross-country extravaganza.There was an old newspaper clipping and several sheets of photocopy from another survivor of traumatic brain injury regarding the protocol he wanted to have put in place in New York State. While I admired his effort, I figured it has already been done. According to the protocol the docs are always right about what they decide to do. The cost-effectiveness of the un-treatment I had gotten from the emergency room could have had dire consequences for me.
I was alert after the accident, having extricated myself from the car. I knew that "Monday was Halloween so it must be November." I knew the year. I knew that a guy had smashed into my car but not that my car had been runned into a house. I knew that the ambulance took forty minutes to get to my accident. The two ambulances were engaged in the accident down the street. The guy had caused a head-on collision after my accident and everyone down that way had broken bones and were being flown to a nearby trauma center. I knew that my list of meds was in my wallet in my pocket. I knew I had one hell of a headache, which the nurse claimed was from the oxygen. And I was having trouble following directions as x-rays were being taken of everything but my head. I had hit my head repeatedly on the ceiling of my car. Also back-and-forth between airbag and headrest.
I wanted to sue the hospital but the lawyer was strangely uninterested in that.
Screw the protocol.
The aftercare instructions neglected to inform me that I might have a concussion, never mind an official mild traumatic brain injury [abbreviated as m.T.B.I.]. I was more than mildly pissed as I began to realize that life had been altered on some deep cellular level.
Getting back to the junk in my car: There were also bunches of candy wrapper. Mute testimony to part of my problem with not losing weight. Mostly chocolate bars.
Some receipts for vet bills for the oldest kitty, who two months later is still ailing. This is in spite of getting most of the polyps surgically removed from her left ear and several return trips. She is nine. I don't know how much longer she will last. She is not slated to die. But I can feel her slipping away from us. The operation was 400 bucks and then we got told that she also has stuff wrong with her spine. The visit after, the other vet said, "No, this is all from her ear problem and now she has an ear infection." I threw the receipts out. They were sticky from spilled soda.
A green cloth and some steering fluid got to stay up front. I should have put them in the emergency plastic bin in the trunk. Old cars and "be prepared for anything, anywhere, anytime" sort of thinking tend to go together like sandwiches and pickles. I was no boy scout but I have learned to keep extra stuff on hand. None of the extra stuff helped me this weekend. What helped this weekend was close proximity to my house.
Two blankets for the dog covering up the back seat. Bunches of stuffed animals for her-- mostly frogs-- and one bone. One of the frogs plays music. The dog has learned to activate that feature by mouthing or pawing the frog's tummy. Not necessarily something I welcome when driving but the dog likes to do it. A stuffed duck, a basket, a broken windshield scraper. The broom part for pushing snow away is gone but it is still useful. [I use a broom in the trunk for the snow and an old pickax for freeing the car from ice ruts]. An emergency cane and some old white sneakers "just in case." A vibrating back pillow stuffed under the driver's seat in case things begin hurting.
In the console are various pads for scribbling notes and things, a few maps, a pen. More maps in the glove box. Rocks in the ashtray, rocks on the floor. Rocks in the side panel. I like rocks. One of my obsessions. I have rocks all over the house. An extra pair of sun glasses for my rare but real photophobia. Irfan's syndrome I've heard it called, although the special eye doc has never called it that. Photophobia is a pain. That "sunlight dances in my eyes" of my journal references my strong intense painful experience with bright lights and glare these days.
The dog hair stays. The tracked in dirt stays. The fingerprints and muzzle prints stay. I am not cleaning the car out in order to sell it. Just pitching the garbage like so many broken things.
I like rooting through castoffs and unexpected finds in abandoned old partial foundations in the woods. Once I found a top to a blue tin coffee pot, a remnant. I use it to hold incense. It brings me pleasure. This treasure hunting, perusing antique shops and flea markets and thrift stores for "the find" that is going to change my life or at least my finances. Curbside raids during city-wide clean-up days have gifted me with a bureau, some cool old pictures in old frames. Other peoples' memories thrown out for me to find and cherish.
I am a reluctant pruner of my own memories and outgrown clothing. After my accident, I was immediately aware that I no longer understood the world and its' inner workings. I forgot random parts of my life. Those parts are slowing coming back as I continue to heal. Reluctant to lose them again, I write them down over at http://life.sapphoq.com for electronic prosperity. I had a sweater once that I hated. It was ugly. Pumpkin orange tweed, with green scotties. I packed it when I moved cross-country and then packed it again when I moved back. 3000 miles and I never wore it.
The neuropsych testing which all t.b.i. survivors should have revealed that my memory is even better than those without a brain injury. 99th percentile, the laid-back guy told me. I could remember 9 numbers [almost 10] and repeat them forwards and backwards. In real life that meant I could remember phone numbers. I didn't remember who called on any morning. I knew what I had for breakfast because most days I eat the same thing-- a nutrition bar that is supposed to give me energy. I'm still waiting for that one.
As I began to remember more and more of what I forgot, I began to respect the power of my memory. I am one of the two percent that cannot forget. Two percent of folks with a traumatic brain injury survive with intact short-term memory. My memory, in spite of those things that were inaccessible to me for a time, was in the category of brilliance. Block design too. I finished all of them, though for the last two I got a bit distracted by the p.a. outside the door announcing phone calls and all of that.
Before the accident, I didn't realize how powerful my memory for events and phone numbers was [and is still]. If I had been asked, I would have told you that my memory was a mess. It wasn't. I had too much to do is all. It took an accident for me to realize how intelligent I am. My brain is broken, yes. But not to be discarded. To be cherished. I have names for various medical ailments and body parts. My period is Matilda. My recurrent ulcer responds to Medusa. Medusa for the snake-like vise she grips my gut with. My "piles" [how's that for an old-fashioned word?] are Frick and Frack. My post-injury brain is Briella. Briella, like a beach in New Jersey in the summertime. Twisted a bit. Briella is brilliant sideways.
I have written some of these things before in other places. I will probably write them again. I have to keep writing it. And writing it. And writing it. Get it down. Track my healing with words. In my writing I force my words to sing. When I set out across country, I hoped to find some scattered pieces of my self in places I had never been. I did. Like me in my very first memory of learning how to walk, my haphazard soul retrieval picked up momentum across the miles. I am back now, more myself than I have been in years.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
