5 Years!

February 24, 2006 changed my life. To make a long story short, I had a pretty bad accident that has had lasting effects on my life. For a longer story ... I slipped and fell on ice, breaking my nose and my jaw. I slammed my head onto the pavement and was knocked out for about an hour. My brain crashed into the front of my skull, then to the back, and to the front again before finally settling. Concrete was embedded into one of my teeth next to my 2 front ones, and my two front teeth were knocked out. Well, one was knocked out completely, tooth and nerve, and the other was pushed up, out, and cracked half off, exposing a severed nerve. As a result of the traumatic brain injury (TBI), I developed ADHD, chronic migraines, chronic insomnia, short term memory loss, and my PTSD was intensified. The doctors told me I probably shouldn't have survived.

Starting the next morning, I had migraines EVERY day for 3 1/2 years. They only became less frequent and less intense after a ridiculous number of trips to see a chiropractor. My chiro did an XRay and showed me that when I fell, my neck snapped back and is now curved in an opposite way than the normal growth, which is one contributor to my migraines. Unfortunately, even after 5 years, I don't know my triggers because the migraines occur so frequently and so intensely. I have one currently that I have had since Tuesday. It's not too fun, but fortunately, I have what doctors have told me is a "ridiculously high pain tolerance" and am able to go about my day and still go to work and live my life as "normally" as I can. I've tried a number of different prescription drugs, herbal remedies, avoidance of activities and foods and nothing seems to have an effect.

My short term memory loss has been an issue, even recently, where I'll walk upstairs and forget why, or I'll watch a TV show and not remember what I was watching after the first commercial. It's been frustrating to have to repeatedly ask my friends the same questions over and over because I just can't remember certain things. I've taken time every day to do brain teaser exercises in order to strengthen my short term memory and make sure my brain activity is still as sharp as it can be. That being said ...

I went to see several neurologists and brain specialists after the accident - military hospitals, private hospitals and consults with specialists. After a brain spect at the AMEN clinic, it was revealed that I had scalped the front and back sections of my brain so parts of them were dead. Because of that, I apparently have tapped into other sections of my brain that typically aren't used in order to compensate for the loss. The brain spect (and three 8 hour appointments with a neuropsychologist - UGH) showed that I have trauma induced ADD and Ring of Fire ADHD.

In a SPECT brain scan, PTSD shows up in a “diamond pattern.” The right temporal lobe, for example, involved in reliving and re-enacting past experiences and is one of the points of the “diamond” that lights up on a scan. Reliving past experiences or having flashbacks is one of the symptoms of PTSD. When it is over-active, it tends to be hyper-vigilent which is why people with PTSD, when triggered, feel on the alert or that something or someone is out to harm them. http://70.32.73.82/blog/tag/ptsd/

Frontal lobe damage seems to have an impact on divergent thinking, or flexibility and problem solving ability. One of the most common characteristics of frontal lobe damage is difficulty in interpreting feedback from the environment. Perseverating on a response (Milner, 1964), risk taking, and non-compliance with rules (Miller, 1985), and impaired associated learning (using external cues to help guide behavior) (Drewe, 1975) are a few examples of this type of deficit. http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/frontal-lobes.php

They are characterized by impairments in executive function (planning, set shifting, verbal fluency, abstract reasoning, working memory), spatial cognition (visual spatial organization and memory) and linguistic processing (agrammatism and dysprosodia) when the lesions involve the hemispheric regions of the cerebellar posterior lobes. Further studies of the cerebellar role in cognition and emotion that are carefully designed and performed will have clinical relevance for cerebellar patients with impairments in mental flexibility, multitasking, visual-spatial organization, linguistic processing and mood. http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/129/2/290.full

I had these appointments in August when I went home for the summer but the injury was in February. I had an entire semester of college between those times and I don't like to be unsuccessful so with the encouragement of my family, friends and doctors out there, I worked my tail off and ended up with a 3.7 GPA that semester. I had to reteach myself how to study, how to learn, how to take notes. I don't like to appear weak so I rarely asked for help and was completely independent in the educational aspects.

(Backing up ...) Nate Bond, Lindsay Arcand and Melissa Bennetts will forever be in my heart. The three of them saved my life that weekend and I honestly wouldn't be where I am today without them. I won't go into the details, but I hope they know how grateful I am for everything they did for me, that weekend and beyond. I'm still amazed at the level to which they cared about me, and how they acted without hesitation, for someone they had only known for a few months. Thank you for being so wonderful!

We drove back to De Pere from Rhinelander the following Sunday and I immediately went to see a local dentist, who my parents found online, who came into the office specifically to see me. He was like a big ol'teddy bear and I adored him. My mouth was so swollen that he unfortunately couldn't do anything immediately, but about a week later, he pulled the other front tooth, shaved down the tooth that had the concrete embedded in it and told me to come back in a couple weeks to be fitted for temporary fake teeth. So, 2 weeks later, I went in and he made me some teeth haha. I don't remember the date of my surgery but I *think* it was in April, but my dad flew out to Wisconsin to be there with me for it. We drove to the dentist and they talked for a bit (After exchanging e-mails and after Dr B sent my parents pictures of my mouth. Gross.) and then we walked across the street for my surgery. I had titanium rods screwed into my jawbone. The rods had to be screwed through the gums and into the jawbone and had to fuse to the bone for 6 months before the permanent fake teeth could be put in. I woke up during the surgery and felt everything sooo after a couple more doses of morphine, I was put under again. Not a fun experience :-) But, for my 20th birthday, I received my permanent two front teeth, and as my birthday is 6 days before Halloween, the first thing I bit into in 8 months was a caramel apple from Walmart. It was disgusting, but so worth it.

It's been a tough 5 years, but I'm proud of all that I've accomplished. I graduated from college in 3 1/2 years with a pretty decent GPA. While in college, I maintained my 3 jobs the entire time I was there, despite the accident, though I cut my hours that first semester. I, hopefully, have maintained friendships despite the issues with emotions and temper that the TBI left me with. I'm currently working full time with preschoolers who have Autism and am working on my Masters degree at Marymount for Special Education K-12. I've been able to study in, and travel to, several new countries and have thrived in those new environments. I don't think a lot of people really know the extent of what happened because until today, and to a couple different people, I haven't really talked about it too often. As mentioned earlier, I don't like to appear weak and I definitely don't like using my TBI as an excuse for things. But there are times when I genuinely can't remember things and I hope you'll remember that it's not something that I'm doing on purpose. I've worked so hard to get to where I am today and I definitely wouldn't have been able to have done it without the love and support of my family, friends and doctors.

My Untouchables were SO amazing through this whole process. Countless people bought me pudding, apple sauce, mashed potatoes and soup. So many people offered to let me use their car for doctor's appointments. And just having the love and support of a "family" while my own was so far away is something I'll always remember. I love U all!

I'm going to end this here. There's a ton more to say and I'm sure if I looked at my medical file, I could write down more, but I'm simply too exhausted and have too bad of a migraine to care to write much more than I already have. So this is me. I guess that's it. :-)