Starting Over with Severe Brain Damage
This is my first blog post and I have a feeling it will be the first of many.
I love to write. Did excellent in both high school & college English but didn't realize how much I'd need the ability to write to share my thoughts until I had my verbal ability to communicate taken from me.
More About His Severe Head Injury
I'm talking about the first of two accidents I was in where I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury as the result of falling into a deep sleep behind the wheel of my car at the top of a big hill with a long straightaway on the other side.
When I fell asleep, my body relaxed and my right foot or the one I we use to push the accelerator slowly pressed the pedal all the way to the floor - building my vehicular speed up to about 80 Miles Per Hour, and when I drifted off the left side of the road; my front left tire dropped into a ditch and slammed into a drain pipe that ran under a driveway.
The collision cause my car to flip head over heals 3 or 4 times in the air before landing on its' roof in the next driveway. When the EMS Personel arrived on the scene, it was determined that I was in a comatose state and I was flown to the Shock Trauma Hospital in Baltimore, MD where the doctors found out that I had internal bleeding that was filling my lungs with blood.
Those doctors had to work at the speed of sound to get tubes into each rib to drain the blood in my lungs and put a tracheotomy tube in my throat as my only means of swallowing liquid food.
His Point
My point is that I've had to endure many years of not being understood when I'd try to talk to anyone because of the permanent damage done to my throat when those doctors where putting in that trachea tube.
Anyway, that was years ago in a past life and I can talk clear enough that the Spanish guy at the gas station down the street can understand me but it's not without a lot of effort.
Learn more in my next post.
"Success is within Reach" by: Mr. Michael "Live" - My new bolg is at http://mr-michael-live.com/
If & when you take a look at my site, I want you to pretend you're someone searching for a topic covered by the site and leave comments about what you think - good or bad.
Recent Comments
3
Thanks for sharing your struggles with us. Great blog and very informative about the human spirit. Keep up the training and hard work.
Sounds like you are a survivor and it is inspiring to see. You go get'em. Welcome to the WA community.
Wow! While I have not been through an injury like you suffered, I have my fair share of verbal issues due to side effects of chemotherapy for breast cancer. September will be a year from the completion of chemo, and I still suffer from mental issues each and every day. I've noticed I have a habit of repeating myself, and sometimes simple words escape me, leaving me feeling a bit stupid because I can't come up with basic terms that were once second nature to me. Oddly, I do better typing than I do speaking, but still, words escape me from time to time.
All we can do is just take each day as it comes, some being better than others. And celebrate the small victories as well.