A Guide to Brain Injuries

I guess I’m an f’ing miracle; I couldn’t even breath without help.

I will never forget my daughter’s desperate plea to me to ‘just breathe.`  So I did.  I have fiercely

held whatever ground I have gained since.  Sometimes I come to consciousness and I wonder why I breathed.   Then I just wheel myself out for coffee; I hate myself, but I will not squander the gift of life.  I believe it ill get better.

     I `woke up’ with hemi-paresis, even in my face.  My eye is buggy, I have ataxia, and some Aphasia;  oh God…but I have all my marbles.  I have to get my balance and coordination back. At least I have determination and strength.   And, at the very least, I have ‘routine’ to fall back on.

    Karaoke…I said yes to it.   I don`t ever, but I was desperate. It was healing; all of us celebrating singing, making each other special, and the message to not give up on yourself was loud and clear.  It has merit, I think I’ll say yes to Tai chi next.  I did. It was nothing.  It only kept me alive one more day. Wait, I guess that’s everything.

     My ‘routine’ ls to get up, have coffee, smoothie, and pills until  9:15, then change.  Do gym if I can find someone to take me.  I do anxiety work, listen to Eckert Tolle and do tapping meditations in the afternoon. It helps. Have a lunch of ground chia, hemp, flax, and oatmeal, if I have found someone to help me make it, then I go out on the porch for a while, and come in to wait to for supper.  After eating supper, I do my part to clean, for which I am verbally rewarded. If its Saturday, and if that lady is around,  maybe I will have a shower, and 5 minutes of therpy, then wait for bed and pills.  We have to compete for everything, as there isn’t enough of anything, or anybody, and they know it.  Everything is before, or after the stroke.  Before the stroke, I knew there wasn’t enough, but now its even worse; I have to study everything, and everybody.  I pity the ones who don’t have a clue, but then maybe their okay.  One morning, after I took my blood pressure pills, I needed my wheelchair fixed.  I knew it would be an all-day job, so I adjusted my day accordingly.  I have been a nag ever since.  I focussed on that one objective all day, using whatever resources where available to me, because the powers-that-be would have you WAIT in bed for days, weeks, months, even years.  No wonder the death rate is so high.

    Hope is all I really have; actually, its all there is.  Statements like `…this isn’t your last stop, and `keep the plane flying…you have more options…` mean a lot to me.  These few words have kept me alive for months.

    I just figured out this morning…I’m afraid…of everything.  It’s not fear; it’s just a new chapter…could be great.   I didn’t used to be a frady-cat.  I took road trips and raised kids by myself, but if I focus on what I was, then I will miss what I am becoming.  FEAR is not the absence of bravery; it’s in spite of it.  I guess I’m living on the edge THEN.  So, its fear I doubt.  That could be dangerous.  See what I mean.

     Blue Sticker Lady; I am not a blue sticker lady. I am not.  I am not.  My kid says that b I am because of the hall incident I get a blue sticker. She says it like its a bad thing.  The hall incident was just when they went around joyously announcing that they were now on ‘lock down’ and ‘everybody has to stay in their rooms ‘, they don’t know ‘for how long.  They said it like it was a good thing.  I snapped.  I had had enough of this COVID bullsh!t, and I said so.  Screw you, I screamed at  them, no, actually worse.   I couldn’t even hold myself up, but I rolled myself out in the hall over and over so they would hear me, yelling about how I was human being, and they couldn’t keep me in a cage.  They sent nurses, cleaning staff, a social worker, even the pastor, but I wouldn’t stop.  Until they finally changed the rules, even if ‘it was only’ for me.  After that they put a blue sticker on my door. I don’t care.  I go outside everyday. Maybe I am a Blue Sticker Lady, and that’s a good thing.

      Its funny, and by `funny` I really mean `ridiculous,` how I’m woke-up everyday by the alarm crying, and someone saying ‘it’s only Fred. ‘   All I can do, is thank God I’m not Fred.  That’s supposed to be a life-saving alarm, but I call it the nurse nagger.  I started calling it that in the hospital.  One day I asked who Fred was. They pointed to the brainless zombie walking down the street.  That’s when I decided to download, ‘You’ll Be Sorry When I Get Better’.  That’s not funny; that’s a threat.