Missing Pieces

Since the TBI, there have been things return that  I didn't realize had been missing until they came back. I may have been told they were missing but I couldn't see that they was missing (I'm pretty sure this is only going to make sense to those who have experienced at TBI or similar event). The last couple of months I have been pleasantly surprised to find some of the missing puzzle pieces return to the picture creating a closer resemblance of my former self. Having struggled with an overwhelming amount of guilt and sadness during the last year, I have found those emotions have faded extensively. Yes, I still have sudden feelings of sadness, but it is a controllable sadness. Most often I can distract myself enough until it passes. Also, I have found that I am once again moved by sappy commercials and disheartening movie plots. It's been a long time and I couldn't wrap my mind around why that was a big deal until suddenly I sat and cried over a plot on Grey's Anatomy. I have always been a very emotional person, so to have those emotions literally knocked out of me was weird. It wasn't weird in the sense that I missed it, it was weird in the sense that I didn't miss it and when I saw other people moved by something I kind of felt like they were weird for feeling something I didn't (weird huh?). Another missing puzzle piece came in the form of music. I have played the piano since I was a child. Until April of last year, I played the keyboard at church (but to me the keyboard is totally different than playing the piano). The piano was something I've always used to calm myself or to pass time while waiting for someone or something. It's always just been automatic with me. Sometimes I played a little, sometimes I played a lot. Since the accident I had not played at all until a couple of weeks ago. Christmas came and went without me playing a single Christmas Carol. With great hesitation I sat on the bench a few weeks ago and although it was rusty, it was still there. I've been finding myself at the piano in my living room, more and more often. It wasn't until I saw the look on my husbands face when he entered the house one night while I was playing, that this was yet another piece that had apparently returned. Another strange thing is he says my playing is a little different than before, that's odd to me. I have also noticed in just the last few weeks that I am less hesitant to engage in conversation. Maybe I'm more confident that unwanted colorful language is going to jump out, or maybe it's just that my mouth and brain are beginning to be more synchronized (I'm not meaning that in a funny way).I'm not sure if me talking more is a good thing or something that should have remained "knocked out of me", but I do recognize it as being more like who I was before. Little by little things are returning, like tiny grains of sand being swept ashore, little pieces of me I haven't seen in a year are beginning to show up.   Now I'm beginning to truly look forward to the future to see what I might find that I had forgotten was lost. I feel like a child when I realize something that was lost has been returned. It's like opening a tiny gilded jewelry box that holds an heirloom from the past. It is a most precious feeling and gives me hope beyond hope that eventually I will be whole.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

For weeks I waiting anxiously for New Year's day to arrive. I had some pretty brutal months over the last year but December was pretty close to the worst of the worst. I believe I actually realized how close I came to losing everyone I loved, and how close they came to losing me. I'm a fix it kind of gal, so my New Years resolution was to mix and mingle and to try to get back in the loop. Our new years gathering was at a different home this year with no boobie trap doors, no rabbit holes. I was somewhat subdued, still wasn't 100% comfortable being around a lot of people regardless of how much I loved them or how much they loved me. When you can't hear well, it's hard to keep up with multiple conversations so I tend to mentally go to a calm place and not participate so much in the conversations. My daughter and her boyfriend was home from the Navy as were most of the other kids in our group. We played spoons, battle of the sexes (which was kind of lame) and watched football. I determined in my mind that I would make this year a very different year. My quirks were getting fewer and I could just fake the things that needed to be faked until they didn't need to be faked again. Most of the anxiety I had in December stimmed from my fear that a year would come and go and I would still be struggling with some of my major issues. Just the stress of knowing I was on a time line had me drowning in my own fears. Once New Year's Day past without incedent I seemed to settle down and settle in. Little by little the little things that were still hanging on were becoming easier to anticipate and avoid or control. Some things won't be rushed and healing happens to one of those things.

The Last Part of the First Year

Each day things began to improve. My headaches would cluster together for a few days and then I would go a few days without them. The time between clusters began to increase. I continued going to therapy. My therapist suggested I asked my husband to point out nuances he noticed in my personality. Making me aware of certain changes made me able to work on fine tuning things that I could change and bring an acceptance to the things I could not. My husband and I celebrated each and every milestone. At night when we lay in bed I would ask him how I was doing... "Am I almost back to normal?" I felt like a little child needing approval. "You're getting there." He would say. There were times when I could almost physically feel my brain beginning to fuse together. That's the only way I can explain it. I knew healing was taking place, it was just a very slow process. At the beginning of December I had my last appointment with my therapist. She was moving out of the state but thought I had come far enough along that I did not need to transfer my care to someone else. She warned me that sometimes the anniversary date of an incident can cause an onslaught of emotional distress. Like usual, I sloughed that off because I was doing so much better. A couple of weeks later anxiety swooped over me like a hawk over prey. To add to the anxiety, the social isolation had taken a toll on my long term friendships and I felt the world come crashing down on me. The last 2-3 weeks of 2010 were as bad as it gets. I had come so far, only to fall into a pit of despair... One I wasn't sure I would be able to pull myself out of. I felt like a total failure and I felt like I had let those who loved me down. I can't say I wasn't warned, but I will have to admit that it still caught me off guard and totally unprepared. I had spent months trying to put the pieces of my life back together without being a constant burden to those around me. I didn't want to come across as self-consumed, so I shied away. Little did I know that my efforts to not be a burden had done nothing but put distance and suspicions between me and my friends and co-workers. I found myself trying to mend wounds I didn't know existed and rebuild bridges I didn't know had been burned. It was one of the lowest points of 2010. I was miserable at Christmas. I was saddened by the direction my relationships had taken and I was anxious about the future. I  told my husband that I was afraid I would have to build all new relationships from scratch, get new friends. "What would I do if no one liked the new me?" I was afraid that there would be no one left from the friends that knew me before the injury. Try as they may, they didn't understand what I was going through, and in reality I was too emotionally drained to defend myself or explain the process. It was a very bleak period and for a short time, I saw no hope in the eyes of the person staring back at me in the mirror. Thankfully that was about to end. A would come when I would see light at the end of the tunnel and although it was rocky, my friends have stayed true (confused but true).

Month Six & Seven (Light at the End of the Tunnel?)

During June and July my physical problems began to level out a little. The fatigue was still there but much better. I still had headaches, but I began to notice that every few days I wouldn't have one. Any reprieve was welcome. As the physical aspects of the injury began to fade, the emotional aspects became more clear. It was around this time that I began to notice that I had been withdrawing from my social network. The withdrawing had been going on for some time, but I wasn't really conscious of it. I became more aware that my verbal filter was impaired causing me to say things before they were thoroughly thought out. Again, this was not a new problem, but it became more defined because I wasn't struggling so much with my physical issues. My husband had been a rock of support, but the strain was beginning to show on him as well.One evening he told me that he just wanted his old wife back and that he was afraid the fall had taken away the part that made us soul mates. This broke my heart! I couldn't stand to see him continue to suffer and yes, the feelings of guilt were overwhelming. I felt guilty for not being able to heal myself. I felt personally responsible for the burden he was under. In July I began seeing a Certified Counselor who had training with TBI therapy and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I could no long deny, nor laugh away what had happened and it was imperative that I understand what was happening and to cope with it the best way possible for the sake of my marriage and my family.I had reached what some call the "Uneasy Acceptance" of my recovery. The Counselor was able to explain to me things the neurologist had not taken the time to explain. She talked me through the mine fields of the injury to a place of healing and understanding. Seeing a Counselor was one of the best things that I did. I could talk open and honestly with her about every aspect of the injury without fear of judgment. Since she wasn't familiar with my past, she made no attempt to pull from my past to explain my present. She just took me where I was and began walking me through the process of understanding what was going on. Her neutrality was a healing ointment to my wounded heart that was losing it's way in a sea of the familiar faces. Familiar faces who although they loved me, had no understanding of what was happening, nor how to help me.

June & July Sweetp

http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/06/part-of-me.html

http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/06/stained-glass.html

http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/07/never.html

Month Five

The month of May rolled through with little to no change in my physical or emotional well being. I continued to take short naps at lunch in order to make it through the rest of the work day. My stamina may have increased just a tad. I could stay up past 5:30 in the evening more often although 8:00 p.m. was pretty much my limit. I seldom did anything after work that I didn't have to do. We became very selective of the events we attended on the weekends, so that I wouldn't be so fatigued during the week. Without my husbands knowledge I would decline invitations our friends would extend, because I simply did not want to be around anyone. When he found out that I had declined a couple of invitations he as shocked. It was so out of character for me to miss a social event or an opportunity to enjoy my friends. This self isolation caused him additional concern as did my tendency to just bluntly say whatever was on my mind. I have always been known as a pretty blunt person, but I was diplomatically blunt, not brutally blunt. I also had little tolerance for offenses, it didn't take much for someone to royally tick me off. Low tolerance and unfiltered bluntness is a very lethal combination. I made another appointment to see my Neurologist at the end of May to run some of these new traits by him as well as the unrelenting fatigue. I feared that I was losing my mind. My emotions and physical abilities seemed so unstable from day to day, I needed to know if this was normal. My husband and I sat in his office and I told him I needed him to tell me if I was losing my mind. I described how things fluctuated daily. I explained how I would feel great and then all the sudden practically collapse from fatigue. He was an elderly gentleman and a extremely good listener especially by today's standards as doctors are concerned. He listened to my description and than said the sweetest thing... "First of all let me assure you, you are not crazy." I could have kissed his feet! Everything I was experiencing was typical for my injury... That was the good news. The bad news was, full recovery could still take a year or so longer. I left the appointment feeling better knowing that my abnormal was perfectly normal. At some point you have to hold on to the positives, regardless of how tiny they are, with both hands, and continue on.http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/06/part-of-me.html

Month Four

In so many ways March had been a great month. My trip to California went well, so naturally I thought the worst was behind me. Unfortunately the adrenalin used to make it through that trip was all I had on reserve. The fatigue was worse in April. I would go home for lunch and sleep until it was time to come back to work. Sometimes it took all of my energy to sit at my desk throughout the day and a few days I simply couldn't make it and ended going home early. The headaches persisted as did the tinnitus. My husband continued to notice my emotions being non-existent except for the occasional meltdowns. I began seeing a Chiropractor hoping to gain some range of motion in my neck and also a lower back problem that nagged me. It was in April that I remembered I had made a couple of obligations that I simply did not feel I could back out of. One of those obligations was to organize the senior banquet for the graduating seniors at our church. The other obligation was to organize the annual Christmas banquet for the company I worked for. My husband was extremely concerned that pressure of these events would be more than I could handle at the time. At first glance it seemed he had basis for his concerns as I began to crater in front of every one's eyes during a exchange about the senior banquet plans at church one night.It was the only time my friends who had actually witnessed the accident, witnessed one of my major anxiety attacks.  When I walked away from the discussion he simply looked at two very good friends who were also in the youth department and told them, I was not the same person who planned and executed the banquet without a hitch last year. He explained that I was very different and this event would put a great strain on my abilities. For days before the banquet my husband kept a very close eye on me. When I finally quizzed him about his attentiveness he simply expressed his concern. The evening of the banquet, I noticed that I was never far from his sight. He didn't hover, but he certainly remained close should the pressure become too much. Thanks to him and the help of friends, the banquet took place as planned with minimum stress to myself. As silly as it seems, this was a big accomplishment for me. The banquet the year before had taken months to plan. This year I had forgotten about the event until just a few (very few) weeks before it was scheduled. During the planning I felt very overwhelmed,extremely unprepared and had doubts about my abilities. The success of the banquet boasted my belief that in time I would be my old self again. I continued to try to keep my sense of humor, but occasionally I would be overwhelmed with what was explained to me as survivors guilt. My writings continued to reflect my changing emotions on a day to day basis.
  http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/04/embossed-invitation.html

 http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/04/just-ask-cinderella.html

Poetry From March From Sweetp

http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/02/another-place-and-time.html

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.

Month Two

The second month after the accident was riddled with emotional instability for lack of a better term. I would be fine one minute and then in a complete panic the next. The panic attacks would sometimes go on for hours, crying hysterically. I remember one day in particular... I was working as usual, trying very hard to continue with daily life like everything was fine. After lunch I became extremely upset. I was able to maintain control until 5 o'clock, time to leave. When I got to my car the sobbing began. I did not want to go home, I just wanted to be far, far away from everyone. I didn't want my husband to see me so upset because he had been through so much already. I called him at work and told him I wasn't coming home. I was going to spend the night with a friend and she would come over and pick up my bags if he would just have them ready for her. I drove around until I found a hotel. I called my friend to let her know where I was. She brought my bags to me, we talked for a while and she left me for the evening. I cried all night long until all the tears were gone. I took the next day off from work and went home and went to bed. My husband came home at noon. When he walked into the bedroom he lay down and scooped me up in his arms. I can't imagine how helpless and lost he must have felt.... Certainly he felt as helpless and lost as I did. The fact that I felt no affection or emotion except during the overload periods, put a tremendous strain on our marriage. I can absolutely see how a couple who was not in a strong, committed marriage, before a TBI, might not be able to hold up under the strain. I still drifted through my days as if watching myself from afar. My only release seemed to be writing a blog sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com 
I love to write poetry and during this time some of my writing seemed very dark. During February of 2010 I had two different friends comment to me that my blogs were scaring them a little. I assured them that writing was just my outlet for survival, they seemed unconvinced. Their concern was the first clue that some of my relationships may not survive my recovery. I found recovery from my TBI a very deep, lonely and very personal journey back. Every day was a new adventure physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. With the exception of my husband who was there 24/7, others did not understand the deeply complicated process going on. It wasn't just my brain that was recovering. I was a different person and as the months would prove I was just beginning to realize the difference, but had not yet embraced the new me. This second month was also a month of unbelievable fatigue. The thing that kept me going was knowing my daughter who was on deployment with the U.S. Navy would be returning to the U.S. in March and we were scheduled to go greet her ship when it returned. I made it to work every day, but when 5 o'clock came, it took every once of energy I had to spare to make it up the steps to my room and to fall into bed with all of my clothes still on. My husband would come in minutes later, help me undress and tuck me in. He would bring me dinner in bed and then I was out for the night, only to get up to the same routine the next day. It took every breath I had to make it through the day. All of my energies were solely devoted to getting from one minute to the next. Even as I write this a year later, tears run down my face as I think back to the slow motion of every day. It was like swimming in glue.... It was exactly like swimming in glue. When I wasn't at home all of my concentration was geared toward acting natural. The fatigue and the isolation I feel when I think back on this time is very difficult to swallow. Every thing I knew seemed up for grabs. My personality, my marriage, my faith, were all tittering on a very fine edge and much to my surprise the worse was yet to come.

A Post From Sweetp Feb. 2010

http://sweetlife4me-jp.blogspot.com/2010/02/someone-elses-shoes.html

The First Month

I was released from the hospital on Saturday. I felt like I was floating on clouds or was having an out of body experience. Little did I know that this feeling would last for months. It was exactly like watching myself from far away and knowing it was me, but not feeling it as me. Oddly enough everything was so foggy that I didn't realize I felt weird until later. I was so busy and so focused on trying to act normal that I paid little attention to anything else. My family was in total shock. My husband was a nervous wreck and my two sons were scared to death. Six years before my accident, my stepson was in a minor traffic accident. He never lost consciousness and didn't even go to the ER. The night of the accident he acted totally normal, wasn't in any pain and anticipated being sore the next day. They found him dead the next day from a severed carotid artery. Having this previous knowledge only heightened their anxiety. My husband would follow me room to room. He would beg me to lay down and to rest. He kept telling me I was not okay as I proclaimed, but that I had a terrible accident. I was in complete denial. I'm not one to get sick often, and I certainly wasn't used to being hovered over. I'm the mom, I'm the wife... I was the one who was suppose to hover over people and even then I wasn't good at hovering. I had several visitors the first couple of days home, although I only actually remember some of the visitors. I do remember thinking how odd it was that when people saw me they were just amazed at how good I looked. I had gotten up, washed my hair and put my make-up on as I normally did. I think people expected big bruises, gashes on my face, something to indicate I had a bad accident. I did have scrapes and lots of bruises, but they weren't on my face. For lack of a better way to explain how I fell, the information people got was I had fallen down the stairs.I'm not sure how well I pulled off the "I'm fine" routine, but my family knew better and the weeks following the accident it became more clear to me that all was not right with my head. I took that Monday off work and I slept all day long. The next day I had a hair appointment at 5 o'clock so I didn't want to miss work because I didn't want to miss my hair appointment. I remember sitting at my desk and everything seemed to be in slow motion. My boss, who is also a friend and was with me at the hospital, came into my office to see how I was. I told him I was fine, a little sore and my head hurt but I was fine. In reality my head felt like a ginormous water bottle and my neck felt like a toothpick trying to hold the water bottle up. I hurt from my skull all the way down my back where stair marks were perfectly outlined in black on my back. I floated through the day and went to my hair appointment which is in the next little town. The girl who does my hair had heard about the accident and was really concerned about me being there by myself. I hadn't told anyone about the appointment because I knew a big fuss would be made about me keeping it. While I was getting my hair done my son called and wanted to know how I was feeling and where I was at. When I told him where I was, he was not happy at all. He told me that I shouldn't be driving and that I could have a seizure. My hair dresser offered to drive me home, but I wouldn't accept the offer. It never dawned on me that my stubbornness was causing my family a lot of unnecessary anxiety. The next day I stayed home from work and again I slept all day long. Overwhelming fatigue would become my most severe symptom in the beginning. It was that first full week that my husband noticed that something was different about my body temperature. I had always been very cold natured and also suffered from Reynauld's syndrome. My hands quiet often would turn blue from lack of circulation or go totally white and be numb. I was always too cold. That weekend we went to see a movie. After the movie was over he asked me if I had been cold. I told him no, which caused him to look at me like I had just stepped off the moon. He said it was so cold in the theater to him that he couldn't believe I had stayed for the entire movie. The next week I went to get my nails done.The girl who did my nails was the same one whose house the accident took place. She would often warm my hands before beginning on the manicure, but she mentioned that they were unusually warm. So there were positive changes that occurred. Everything moved in slow motion the first month. When people would speak to me it was as if the audio was off balance to a video. The time lapse between the words they spoke and the time it took my mind to comprehend what was being said threw everything off kelter. When I talked, I would stop mid-sentence to search for words. Sometimes I would forget what I was talking about in mid-sentence. When I went to the store I could be standing right in front of the item I came to get and forget why I was there. My emotional state was very out of balance. I didn't feel any emotion, but when I did it was like a dam had broken and the tears would be overwhelming. Nothing in particular would cause these episodes they just seemed to happen at unexpected and often inconvenient times. Sometimes the crying would last for hours. I floated through the first month without much conciousness of what I was experiencing. My husband, on the other hand, was on hyper alert never knowing which mental state I would be in from one moment to the next. I was hoping everything would get better once the 6 week mark had past. In some ways it was only beginning.