Month Three

Slowly my world went from being in a fog to being in a bubble. The audio began to catch up to the video except the reception was very distorted by what I affectionately call my crickets or medically known at Tinnitus. The buzzing in my ears sounded like crickets and locust on a warm summer night. The pitch of the crickets never varied, the sound never faded. Now instead of waiting for things to register with my brain, I simply couldn't hear what people were saying. I constantly had to have people repeat themselves, again and again. I began watching peoples lips in order to understand what they were saying. It wouldn't be until months later that I realized, or rather made aware of the fact that I was compensating for my hearing distortion. It's amazing how we just naturally learn to adapt to our handicaps even when we don't realize it. I began dreading being around people, but like the hearing it would be months later before I was aware that I was backing myself into isolation. Again, like the writing, I feel the removal from society was on some level a survival mechanism. I haven't read any research stating that isolation is a survival mechanism, but I have read that people recovering from a TBI begin to isolate themselves. My feelings looking back are I felt very vulnerable without knowing I felt vulnerable. I did not fully understand what was happening to me. The injury was still so fresh and the recovery so new, I had not had the time, ability, or the mental wherewithal to research what was going on. I was still, very much just trying to make it through each day. Another thing that I later realized was, when I would be in an invironment with lots of activity, sound, sight, noise.... I would become overwhelmed, greatly fatigued. A couple of times I went to buy groceries and almost had to abandon my basket because of being overwhelmed and fatigue. Being around a lot of activity made me very edgy, nervous and extremely tired. As I write this, it is 13 months past the injury and I am just now beginning to connect the dots of cause and effect of things that at the time I was completely baffled by, or oblivious to. At the beginning of March I was scheduled to see a Neuologist. It was the earliest I could get in after the accident on January 1st. One of the things that plauged me at the time, but seemed minor compared to the rest, was dizziness. I had positional dizziness or vertigo. There were times  I would roll over in bed and literally have to hang onto the sheets because of the sensation of spinning. During those times it felt just like laying in the middle of a merry-go-round and having someone spin it as fast as they could. If I made a sudden move at work, or stood up too fast, my world would tilt on it's axis. In the great scheme of things, it was the least of my worries, but in reality it was the only symptom that anything could be done about. The neurologist took a lot of time listening to my symptoms, listening to the details of the fall, and asking questions. He spoke to us about traumatic brain injuries and post concussion syndrome which made me feel a little better just knowing that this wasn't all in my mind. He tilted me and laid me back until the dizziness subsided, then he told me to wear the soft collar neck brace for two days. I was not to move my head and I had to sleep sitting up, but I should find my dizziness much better if not gone for good when I removed to the collar. As ridiculous as it sounds, it worked. I would occasionally have bouts of dizziness but nothing like before. March was the month we traveled to San Diego to greet my daughter's ship as it returned home from deployment. Having this to look forward to kept me somewhat sane during the first part of March. During the first few months following the injury, in an effort to comfort my family, I made jokes about the fall. I referred to the cellar as my rabbit hole with me being the unfortunate Alice.  I had the idea if I made light of it, my family would realize I was fine. I love to joke, I love to tease and I thought that was the answer to making it all better. My husband had told me numerous times that he would never be able to look back on the events with a smile much less as the punch line to a joke. It still didn't sink in until something my son said during our trip. We were going down an escalator with one of the friends who went with us. I mentioned that I kind of had a phobia about getting on and off escalators.... I was afraid of falling. Our friend laughingly made a comment about how I would know all about the dangers of falling to which I chuckled along. My easy going, fun loving son looked him dead in the eye and said..... "That's not funny, it's still way to soon to be joking about that." My friend and I were both kind of surprised about his very serious response to the off-handed comment as my son is always the life of the party and can find humor in the direst of situations. I didn't say anything that day, but I slowly began to realize, my family still had a lot of healing to do themselves. In fact it was later revealed to me that they most likely were suffereing from Post Truamatic Stress Syndrome, maybe even more than myself. Much to my surprise, I did extremely well on the trip. My energy level was good during the trip even though we went from sun up to sun down. I didn't have any meltdowns while we were there, but by the end of the trip (which was 4 days), I could feel myself beginning to wain. Still, I was tremendously blessed by the fact that I was allowed a little reprieve from my symptoms while I caught up with my daughter who had been gone for 8 months. Once vacation was over I realized I still had a journey ahead.