What’s a Little Anomia Between Friends?

I Wish I could Tell you What I Feel.

For some reason I liked my new hair style, very short on one side and long and full on the other.  Of course every morning when I washed up the left ear sticking out the way it did, with all of the scar tissue around it, usually set me back a moment.  And then there was the other scar, the one that began just above the temple and seemed to recede towards the back of my head.  I could not follow the entire course of that disfigurement because even though the hair was short it seemed to cover the extent of the scar line.  Of course when I ‘got dressed’ a few other new blemishes peeked out at me.   It took a long while for me to piece it all together and no matter how hard I tried, while in the hospital, I couldn’t do it.

I was in an accident and that was obvious even if I didn’t remember it.  The helicopter ride to the trauma center I also had no recollection of and so it was hard to fathom what had happened.  The number and severity of each lesion was very difficult to keep track of even if, when presented with a spoon and fork, I could not open my mouth wide to eat.  The broken ribs didn’t bother me, until it was time to sit or go to bed, and I couldn’t get comfortable.  Of course the shattered T3 vertebrae probably had something to do with that problem too.  But not being able to yawn and take a deep, deep breath was the recurrent reminder of something amiss.  When asked I could never remember what hurt in any particular order and had to be walked through the visible signs before responding with a status report. 

The one thing which did stand out and gave me real concern had nothing to do with my ‘physical’ ailments it had more to do with the ‘location’ of the accident.  Throughout the year leading up to that terrible scene I distinctly remember a premonition, a portent of things to come.  I had this dream, in my recollection, very often.  In it I was reminded to not drive a particular path at a particular time of day.  It was always the same path and the warning included a defined intersection.  It would come to me in my dreams, or sometimes as I got in my car before driving to work in the morning.  This is how I remember receiving these flashes of information. 

The last remembered incident of the dream was on Thanksgiving morning about two weeks before the fatal day.  I knew the route I would drive the family to visit relatives would take us past the intersection I had been repeatedly warned about.  In the dream that morning I was given the ‘all clear’ indication for our Thanksgiving ride.  But, it also let me know that trouble was not far ahead.  I never spoke with anyone about these dreams.  And now, years later, I have to ask myself if they were premonitions of things to come or reflections of the past while the brain began to reconnect.  Either way, in the hospital I knew of them and the only thing I could do was wonder why I drove on a particular road at a particular time of day.  After all, I had been warned.

 Of course the mental trouble could have been more pharmaceutical in nature.  I know now I was on various medicines in the hospital, though of course I don’t remember much at the time.  These pills were taken with the meals brought to my room.  I am sure the attendants told me what they were for at the time but, if the information went in one ear, well, if it went in the left ear where it probably got stuck in the residual tried blood that I had to clean out every morning. 

Upon transfer from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital to Johnson Rehabilitation Institute I was on a program that included protonix for GI prophylaxis, metoprolol for hypertension, and trazodone at night for insomnia and impulsiveness.  The insomnia was a big problem so the trazodone was periodically increase (I learned later).  Of course I was on Keppra for seizures twice a day (this one would continue for a long, long time) while other seizure medications were being phased out.  Complaints of left chest soreness got me started on anti-inflammatory agents.  A low sodium diet was used to help with hypertension and Colace and senna were part of the bowel regimen, after all, you don’t want to have a constipated patient on your hands now do you.  I wonder, could my problem with understanding, remembering, being in the present, any of these things be due to the plethora of drugs in my system?  I would like to believe this to be the case, but now, years later, and still unable to remember in the short term arena of life, I know better.

I was admitted to the brain trauma unit (BTU) at Johnson Rehabilitation for a reason and along with the drugs the daily routine included physical, occupational and speech therapy, along with recreational therapy.  I wonder if that was to teach me how to play nice with others?  Whether I got along well with others or not, what I was really bad at was speaking, or better put – Anomia, which is: A problem with word finding.  I had an impaired recall of words with no impairment of comprehension or the capacity to repeat the words.   In other words, the incoming seemed to work, the outgoing was having problems.

I had no idea there was a word for this condition.  It basically hits the nail on the head though.  My mind raced faster than it ever did before searching the universe around me in multiple dimensions I had never experienced before but…, what ever was happening in my stream of consciousness could not find the right road to descend from the heights.  I could not translate thoughts to words.  But then again, who cared, all they showed me at the BTU was pictures of things that I needed to identify.  I knew what they were, why did I have to tell them?  I was too busy trying to figure out how metaphysical relationships themselves existed in the physical world around us.  What a waste of time it was talking about how many words began with the letter ‘A’.

Of course I didn’t know how hard it would be to leave the hospital if I didn’t stop, listen and speak to them on a level that they could understand.

When Can I Go Home?

Christmas was over, and I had settled into a routine of sorts, only I have no idea what that was.  I do have more memories of this week in the hospital but as before, they are disjointed.  I do know I was taken in a group to the exercise area which was down the elevator and through a few turns in a long hallway.  I do not think I could find my way there alone but all I had to do was follow the leader.  So, in a sense we got to play a game to get to the treadmills. 

I had a roommate but he didn’t speak to me.  In fact he never got out of bed.  I was to learn later that his condition could have been mine if not for the grace of God and the helping hands of so many along the way.  I passed him a hundred times a day as I came in and out of our room.  His wife came to visit him every day, and his children, who were teenagers, like mine, came often.  Something about him and his family saddened me and frightened me.  I did not want to…

I was given tests while I was in the hospital, neuropsychological tests, though I did not know what they were at the time.  Now, years later I have gotten the nerve up to read the reports, and I must say that what they observed of my mental abilities is much different from what I was observing and thinking.  For me, everything was so clear.  Every night as I watched on television the cable news networks and listened to the editorial opinions from both the left and right leaning pundits I personally felt that the world’s problems were quite easy to define, and if one boiled down the thousands of different aspects of our human condition, the answers were not hard embrace.  But, like in my neuropsychological tests, I was unable to articulate my point(s) of view let alone to anyone who could act upon my recommendations. 

As much as I wanted to contribute to solving the problems we as a species on the planet earth were exposed to, there was no way to do that from within the confines of a neurologic ward.  I wanted out.  I think I began to ask my wife ‘when’ every time she came to visit and the only answer to this query was ‘soon’. 

            “Soon,” I asked, “when is soon?”
            “When they say you are better,” is as close to an answer that I can remember, though this may have been my interpretation.  Always hard to tell what I remember and what I wanted to hear.
            Perhaps this is why I started being nicer to everyone in the hospital, so they would think I was ‘better’.

When is Christmas…, Really

When exactly is Christmas and how long does it last.  According to some it starts on the day after Thanksgiving and proceeds through Boxing Day.  Of course others believed Christmas marks the beginning of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days and ends with the visit of the Magi.  Either way, crass commercialism or liturgical, in order to appreciate the holiday it helps to be within the three dimensional framework of the here and now.  It matters not if the birth of Christ in our world occurred on September 15 during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles which is a few days after Yom Kippur, or the date reported by others as April 17 to put him into the astrological Aries sign, hence the Lamb of God.  Heck for all we really know he was conceived during a local Beltane Fire Festival which would put his real birthday very close to mine (very early in February).   What matters is we know and associate the concept with something important.

For me, on December 25 2007 concepts were foreign.  Understanding ‘Why was I here’ had given way to ‘how much longer’ and neither really registered enough as I accepted, and waited.  The special holiday approached, I was told of this, and yet I could not leave the hospital.  How can one give of themselves to those they love when the highlight of their day is walking to the physical therapy unit?  Anyone want to walk on a tread mill.  It doesn’t get you where you want to go.

The day materialized, I saw this on T.V.  And my wife and children came.  My sister came too, from Texas.  I remember my sister had come, but needed to be reminded before I wrote this that others had come too, my sister in law and her husband drove up from Philadelphia, and so I guess my gift that year was to let everyone spend Christmas together, in a resort, of sorts.   We got to eat dinner (they had brought carry out) in the common room at the end of the hall. 

Before this day others besides my wife and kids had come too but these visits were at the trauma center and of this time I still have no recollection.  My brother had driven up from Virginia four or five days after the accident and my nephew had flown in from Denver and ridden up with his father.  My best friend when I was young came up from Virginia (I grew up there) too and brought one of his sisters with him.  I thank everyone who came up during these very dark days and hope I was able to entertain.  

I also hear of the friends and neighbors who did so much for my wife and family and it makes me cry.  Cry in thanks and cry because I want so much to be able to repay, in some way, in any way, and yet I feel so frustrated.  I don’t know how.  My in-laws had raced over from Pennsylvania to watch our children as my wife rushed to the hospital.  A family friend stopped in the hospital on his way home on the first night and gave my wife the support she needed.  Later, I was told, he and his family brought the tree that was used for Christmas that year to our house.  My wife’s sister drove up too, to be with her and support her.  The snow came that year, and it was the neighbors who cleared it from our drive.  The list goes on, and all I could do was sit in the hospital and wonder ‘how much longer’.

Those who visited on Christmas day left and I went to bed.  Early evening was my sleeping time and, as had become habit once they let me out of the cage, I would awake around midnight and watch television.  Only on this night of nights I couldn’t just sit and watch, something was missing, something I had to find.  I got out of bed and walked in the hallway searching.  I don’t remember how long I spent walking up and down the corridor but eventually an attendant helped me to the little nook in the hall where reading material was spread out and then told me to wait.  I sat in a chair and while waiting I pulled the magazines to me.  I looked as a studious scientist might as I delved deep into the problems set forth in the articles I read, and then the attendant returned bearing gifts. 

We sat together and ate ice cream at three o’clock in the morning.  Giving a gift to someone you love on Christmas is wonderful.  Giving a gift to someone in need is divine.  Her gift gave me a very warm feeling.  I do wish I remembered the attendant’s name. 

Thoughts on a Movie

Jumping forward for a reflexive perspective

I am jumping forward in time today for several reasons.  One reason is, simply put; In six days it will be three years.  Three years since the truck ran me over and I was airlifted to the trauma center.

Three years is a long time, or a flash in ones eyes as your children grow.  These days I still have some short term memory problems and many times I have to search for words, or replacements, before I can translate my thoughts into speech.  In rehab they gave us different ways to help in this regard many of which centered on ‘making a list’ or ‘writing it down’.   

And so, one of the reasons I am moving forward in time today, besides stating that I have an anniversary coming up, is that I wanted to relay a message while it is still fresh because I was never good at making lists.

Last night my wife, son and I watched the movie ‘Wit’.  The movie was loaned to us by a friend (thank you Caroline).  If you haven’t seen it yet then I warn you, it is sad.  In this movie Emma Thompson isn’t playing Professor Sybill Trelawney (Harry Potter) instead she is Professor Vivian Bearing who is suffering from a stage 4 carcinoma.  The line up for this movie is basically ‘all star’.  It is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson, and, as mentioned, has Emma Thompson (academy award winning actress) and is directed by academy award winning Mike Nichols.  Not a bad crew and they bring the fine line between life and death home for all to see. 

The take home message of the movie, for me, reminded me very much of my time in the hospital and in rehab.  Without being able to wait for daily visit from my wife, son and daughter, and later when I knew that others were coming, I would have been lost.  No rock, so to speak, to hold on to, nothing that would have lent any sort of sense or reason to my being.  Later while in rehabilitation it was easy to point out those who were not able to move on, to reclaim a semblance of balance in their lives.  It was those who had no family, no one to go home to.  These people had been in and out of therapy as many times as their insurance allowed.  For me, I wanted to go home because when there, I knew, I would be able to sleep in bed with my wife and watch my son and daughter as they moved beyond high school.  I wanted to go home. 

I am better now, to a point, but still unemployed and this brings depression into the mold.  Fortunately I am able to balance that problem because I am so happy to be home and to be alive and to watch my children grow.  Now, if I can ever get more of my first book sold (http://www.comicfictionnoir.com/) or my next three books published, then I could … I have started dreaming again, and to date, these are real dreams. 

First Memory was Like a Dream

They told me the comma lasted just a day or so, but I have no recollection of the first ten days in ICU.  Later they moved me to a recovery type hospital and this is where the first memory comes from (I think).  Only was it a memory or was it a dream?  And boy do I have a lot of dream sequences that may or may not have been reality floating around.  I do wish I could figure that one out.  But I will start with the hospital, or the prison, or the torture chamber sequence and this of course all depends on interpretation because this one I do think was real.

It was very late at night and I was in bed.  Only the bed had a mesh of sorts all around it running up high above me and seemed to be closed at the top.  Like a cage.  Dreaming right?  I tried to call for help but my mouth was barely able to open so all I could do was whisper.  Now nothing seemed to hurt and so I was, at first, just curious.  What type of dream was I in.  I tried to touch the netting that seemed to be soft, but solid.  Problem was, my hands appeared to be tied down so I couldn't reach out.  This made me try again to call out for help, but like before I couldn't manage anything above a whisper, and now my jaw started to hurt a bit.

I tried to look around but my neck was very stiff so I could only turn my head a bit from side to side.  On the far side of the netting I noted a curtain that appeared to cut the room in half and hence it closed me in beyond the cage itself.  On the far wall beyond the foot of the bed was a television and it was turned on but there was no sound.  If there was sound I do not remember or could not hear.  I don't remember what was being broadcast either, I only know that it added a dim light to the room. 

My feet moved a bit, they did not seem to be, like the arms, tied down.  But like trying to turn my neck there was pain.  I remember laying in this bed for a while, but how long that was I cannot even guess, days, weeks, or seconds, time itself didn't register.  But I do know that I had to relieve my bowels and this began to cause me alarm. Was I in a dream or did I really have to go?   I couldn't get up, I couldn't call for help and I couldn't really see beyond the curtain.  I tried to free my arms, over and over again but to no avail and eventually, this I remember very clearly, I relieved myself.  Then to applaud my own efforts I sprouted urine too.

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