I'll Carry the Fork! by Kara L. Swanson

Author:Kara L. Swanson [Swanson, Kara L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Rising Star Press
Published: 1999-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

A Seat on the Bus

NOTES FOR SURVIVORS Ju l y 18 , 1998

My face looks awful. There’s something about the term “seeping pustules” that doesn’t do much for my selfconfidence. I’ve been using the cream Dr. Cini gave me so I don’t keep waking up with my face covered in dried blood from scratching it in my sleep. This morning I got up and when I looked in the mirror, I scared myself half to death! The fan had blown loose dog fur during the night and it all stuck to the medicine on my face.

Well, this is rotten, isn’t it? I keep trying to think back and remember what it was that I wanted or needed to hear when I first had my injury. More than anything, I wanted something concrete to hang my hat on. (Instead, I got something concrete to wear my hat on.) I wanted the timetables they give you when you break your leg: six weeks in a cast with crutches, four weeks of physical therapy with crutches, maybe two with a cane, physical therapy, and then back to normal. It seemed that all I got were too many doctors saying they really didn’t know when or how much I would heal. I’ve known parents who

111

were less evasive when their kids asked them where babies came from. Many people come back quickly from brain injury and suffer few, if any, residual effects. Their brains heal and they resume most or all of their normal activities within a few weeks or months. If you’ve ever been injured, I certainly hope you’re one of them! Others, such as myself, will probably never quite get everything back. Ginger might have hit the mark when she told me I would have to wait for medical technology to catch up to me. She pointed out that every day we take exciting new steps toward better understanding the intricacies of the brain.

There’s always hope! Sometimes you just have to look a little harder—or in peculiar places—to find it. Sometimes you have to take a realistic look at what it is you’re hoping for. And sometimes all you can do is wait.

That last option is hard as hell.

Doctors can’t give specific “heal dates” and promise exact outcomes, but they can make fairly sophisticated guesses based on the circumstances relating to your injury: how it happened, whether and where you suffered a direct body hit, whether—and for how long—you lost consciousness, and the symptoms you display. Different combinations suggest different degrees of damage. But even with the myriad possibilities, there are similarities and constants in head trauma that are likely to affect most survivors. Many can be helped with the same compensatory techniques or medication. If those don’t help, knowing that so many others face similar challenges sometimes does.

As an injury survivor, one of the most important issues to assess immediately is your safety. You may be too impaired to recognize and understand all your symptoms. Impatience to get back to your normal life can put you in harm’s way all over again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.