I don’t just blog! LOL Our family needed a short get away. Below are pictures of us having some fun at the Richmond zoo. I’m still recovering from my knee surgery, but I was still able to have some fun feeding the giraffes with my beautiful daughter and wife.

 

Not long after Robert was home from the hospital we received word that the driver of the truck had been charged with Failure to Yield Causing Bodily Injury. We received a summons for Robert to appear and testify. We were happy that the other driver was charged, especially since the trucking company had taken a very aggressive stance, already taking steps to sue Robert for the damage to their truck.

Robert and I showed up on the day of the trial. When we arrived we checked in with court officials and were told the trial would start shortly. Officer Netherland was there (the officer who greeted us upon arrival at the hospital the night of the accident, see earlier article).

Suddenly officer Netherland came up to me and said he needed to see me in the hall. Once there he said; “I am going to recommend to the prosecutor that we drop the charges against the other driver”. I was shocked. I just stood there and tried to take in what he had said. I know he showed a lack of tact and impartiality that night in the emergency room but to recommend dropping charges, why?

I immediately asked him why he would do this since we had three witnesses to the accident that said it was not Robert’s fault. He told me that he did not know until just a few minutes ago that Robert would be unable to testify.

This was true. Since the accident, Robert had no recollection of the accident. The last thing he remembered was pulling out of the parking lot and heading home. He could recall nothing of coming over the hill and the truck pulling into his path from a construction site.

Still, I was puzzled as to why the officer would not want to bring a case. His answer was direct and revealing. He said that without Robert’s direct testimony against the other driver, he was unsure if we could win the case and he did not want to try unless he was 100% sure we could win since that would hurt his conviction percentage!

My response probably brought me close to arrest. Lets just say that I told him in no uncertain terms that we would move forward or I would hold him personally responsible for the outcome. We did move forward.

Unfortunately this officer did everything he could in his testimony to hurt our case. At one point the judge asked him a technical question on certain site distance requirements. These figures clearly showed the other driver at fault. Instead of just answering, the officer editorialized that the specifications really should be different than what they were. (This would have let the other driver off the hook) The judge would have no part of his editorializing and reminded him to stick to the facts without offering unfounded opinions.

In the end, none of this mattered because a recess was taken and the other driver changed his plea to no contest so the court accepted that and pronounced sentence.

To the casual reader this could seem like only a minor annoyance. One must keep in mind that our whole world had just been rocked by this accident. Our son had been seriously injured and from our vantage point everyone seemed to be bailing on him and us.

We are truly grateful for the wonderful medical care he received but even they gave us little hope for the future. At one point it was recommended to us to put him in a home and give up since he probably would uncontrollable and severely limited in his abilities.

Next the trucking company forced us to hire an attorney to defend ourselves and was coming after Robert even with witnesses against their driver and their driver being sentenced.

Our own insurance company seemed to be willing to pay the other side just to make them go away. It would be less expensive to pay them off than defend Robert.

The very people we look to for protection from wrong doers, in this case the police did not want to do what seemed so obviously correct.

So this incident was just too much for us at the time. We truly identified with Job when he felt God had abandoned him. But, praise the Lord this only drove us closer to our God. It put us in the position of the Israelites and Gideon when God made the odds so great that the praise for any victory had to be given to Him.

My father is taking a break from his side of things for this week. I’ve mentioned that I have dealt with TBI for 19 years, and I wanted to share some things that have helped me when I was frustrated, angry, or confused.

Please remember I am not a licensed doctor or counselor. What I am sharing are simply things that I have found to help. Please continue your health regime, and discuss any of the following with your doctor:

*Family and Friends:

I could spend most of this article on this point alone. One of the biggest reasons for any of my success would be my parents. They believed in me, didn’t give up on me, and researched their tail off to make sure any treatments were to help me move forward. I need to mention also that most of my friends moved on with their lives. They went to college, got jobs, and continued with life. I felt completely alone, isolated, and forgotten. Other than my parents, the “structural” people in my life changed, and, in many ways, were gone. I did not say this to make anyone feel guilty, but to put this journey in perspective.

Find people that are willing to support no matter what. That could be family, friends, or special support from church or counselors. This journey you are on cannot be done alone! You will need help emotionally and practically. Make sure your “support staff” understands this is not a simple recovery and that it may take years. Should you not be able to communicate this in the way you need, have someone go with you to your doctor or counselor.

*Be ready for negativity

Negativity will come in several different ways. This could be from family that may not understand, doctors that do not comprehend all of the issues, insurance companies that will not want to help, or church staff and members ready to speak at you instead of listening to what is happening. Plus, dealing with all the questions of, “Why can’t you get over it”, “Snap out of it”, or “Your not that hurt”. One or more of these will happen. So, what are some ways to help you stay focused and stay positive?

Meditation is one was to combat negativity. I hear it now. You said this was from a Christian perspective, what are you talking about? Merriam-Webster’s definition of meditation is “The act or process of spending time in quiet thought: the act or process of meditating” What does the Bible say on the subject? These are just two verses about meditation: Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth: but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” The second verse is Psalm 1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” There are many other verses in reference to meditating.

So, what’s my point? When a TBI injury occurs, we need to make sure that our Christianity doesn’t fly out the window. Hebrews 11 discusses faith; our faith is in God’s Word and the promises listed there. While we have the negativity and difficulty around us, we need to remember that God hasn’t left us.

How do we meditate? First, find Scripture that you claim as your own. For me, that passage was John 20:29. Second, start your day with that passage. This way it will stay in your heart and mind. Third, when you reach that point where you can’t take anymore, find a place where you can be alone for 5 to 10 minutes and list any positives that you can think of. If it’s that day that there is truly nothing you can think of, pray for God to reveal them to you and remember that passage that you chose.

This takes work it will not happen over night, but, if you can make it a discipline, it will help you in those dark times.

*Have a “Bad guy” or “gal”:

When I was first injured, one thing the therapist told my parents was, “Let us be the bad guys.” What does that mean? You’ll need that person that says, “Are you taking your meds”, “ Have you been doing the therapy exercises”, “You need to calm down”. Hopefully that can be a therapist for the health of your relationships, but, if not, you need a confidant that can take the anger, happiness, depression, or frustration you will exhibit.

There also will be times when no one will be around to help. Have some of the above tools I shared ready in your mind. There are times where we get lost in our own thoughts with the depression and confusion. One exercise I’ve used for these cases is to remember four (or more) things that are real. Examples of this could be: address, street you lived on, favorite restaurant, favorite activity, family members, or even or favorite car. They just need to be things that real and grounded. Once you’ve done that, remember four (or more) positives in your life (for the positive list try and not use the same things as the first list). It sounds a little crazy, but I promise it will help.

*God still loves you:

If you are a Christian saved by His grace and forgiven for your sins, God loves you. He will be able to handle the anger, frustration, and questions. Deuteronomy 7:9 says, “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” This is only one verse of many that show how much God loves us. I can tell you for my part this realization did not come overnight. I went through times of anger, self-pity, and questioning why. This is natural, but I have realized I may never know why I went through what I did, but I know God has been there the entire time, and helped myself and family through it.

I truly hope these are helpful tips. These will not fix everything. You will still have hard times, but I’m praying some of these ideas make your recovery a little easier. Please do not use any of the above to replace medication or doctors. Those things are still important to your recovery.

Within three seconds, I lost my ability to function as a normal adult.  This included voluntarily turning in my drivers license (at age 18 not a cool thing). My parents went from planning their lives after children to having to raise their child a second time, and to top that off, we have to go to court because the company that hired the truck that pulled out in front of me was going to come after us. An amazing three seconds! Now we (my parents and I) must contend with an area of injury none of us had any idea what we were doing, plus a now looming court case.

That’s where we are in the story. After my evaluation it was determined that immediate therapy was needed, and not just a little. Therapy would now consume 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. The therapy type was speech and occupational. Here’s the catch….in my mind I didn’t need the therapy. I was fine and ready to continue on to college. This was my experience.  Others that experience TBI notice there is something different right away. Probably my feeling “normal” was youthful stubbornness! This can make it difficult on the person injured, as well as, the family. That being said my feelings were confusion, abandonment, isolation, and obviously feeling I did not need any of this!

My parents on the other hand were dealing with their own issues besides taking care of me. This is where I will allow my father to fill in some of the details. The following is his perspective.

The day had finally come; we were taking Robert home from the hospital. He had already beaten the odds. We were told he would not live, then if he did, he would be a vegetable or so restricted that he would not be able to function normally. But he had progressed and was coming home. We naively thought that since he was released from the hospital, he must be healed. How wrong we were.

Robert was alive and could walk and talk but we were at the beginning of the healing process, not the end. There were still numerous deficiencies.

Sometimes Robert would use words that made no sense. He could not follow simple instructions if it involved more than one command; for example, go to the shed and get the wrench. He would get to the shed and then have no clue what to do or why he was there.

 Evan his personality changed. Before the accident he had never been interested in basketball, now he would watch it for hours on end. Before the accident, he would always “dress to impress”, not in a flashy way but a class way. I remember he would wear his three-piece suit just to go shopping at Wal-Mart. Now he never wanted to dress up, not even for church.

Another change was a lack of motivation. He would say that he wanted to get up and do something, even something he liked, but was usable to get out of the chair. Many times he would sleep all day and was frequently tired.

 The thing I missed most were our in depth talks about God, the world and other topics of mutual interest. Now he was completely unable to think and communicate on that level. He would become agitated if the conversation did not go his way. There were numerous things we disagreed on and part of our fun was defending our views to each other. Unfortunately all that was gone. If he sensed a disagreement, he would get defensive and shut down. Life and our relationship would never be the same.

 One particular difficulty was his mini-seizures. It took my wife and I a little time to figure this out, especially me. We had always been strict about obeying immediately and responding when spoken to. Several times I had told him to do something, he would be perfectly still, and just stare. I confess the first couple times; I was angry with him and let him know it. Once we understood what was happening we went from upset to concerned.

 From this brief discussion you can understand why I called the company that employed the driver that hit our son. In spite of what office Netherland had told us the night of the accident, there were three witnesses that established the truck driver was at fault. The driver was even charged with failure to yield causing bodily injury. (More on that story later.)

 I will never forget that call. I had no intention of suing anyone. My only concern was our son and his well being. From the police report I obtained the number and dialed. Finally I was connected to the right person at the company. I stated that our intent was to handle this as quickly and fairly as possible. All we expected was for them to take care of Robert’s medical bills. We would not even go after them for the car, we could always get another car. (Talk about being naive!) The response was: “we don’t believe our driver was at fault and we don’t believe your son was that injured. We are coming after you for the damage to our truck!” I was dumbfounded. Things had gone from bad to worse in an instant.

 

Before I continue the story, please allow me to explain one thing that is a constant struggle….long time memory. This is a common TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) symptom. The best way to describe my struggle is this: imagine doing a scrapbook with 100’s of pictures around you not able to clearly see any of them until you grab one from the table and, for a brief moment, you can see that one picture. That’s how my memory works. At times for a short period I’ll have clear memory of one “picture”. After I “put it down,” I never for sure know if or when I’ll get if back. I said all that to say this, as I share my story it may seem bits and pieces or that a lot of pain has elapsed from point A to point B. Well, the above is the reason for that.

Now that that is out of the way, I’ll continue with the story. Once I returned home, it was quickly obvious things were not the same. My sleep schedule was ridiculous to say the least. A teen sleeping sixteen to twenty hours is not normal! Also I had mini-seizures. During these episodes, I could be directly looking at you, but I would have a complete blank look. After it passed, I would have no idea what our conversation was about. Also my father would love to debate, or, if I had a question, dad would give the resources to find the answer. Now, I would have outburst of anger if he didn’t give the answer right away. Remember, to this point our family had no idea what a TBI was. It was at this point that my dad called the trucking company and said that we would need help with medical expenses and vehicle repairs. Their answer was not only a harsh “no,” but they then said the accident was our fault (nothing official had been determined at this point) and they were coming after us.

This next part I truly believe that God was working in our corner. Through the Christian school my father was principal at, I had met an ex-policeman that refereed our basketball games. Unfortunately, his police career came to end after he received a TBI injury. My father reached out to him for advice, and through that he recommended Charles Purcell, who was a local lawyer that helped the officer with his case. (I apologize, this is one of those moments where my mind fails me and I forget what the officer’s name was.)

I don’t remember our initial meeting with Mr. Purcell. The only memory I have is wanting to take a nap on the sofa in their waiting area. However, what came out of that meeting was I needed to be evaluated immediately. Thus, started our introduction and wake up call to this thing call TBI.

Within a very short period, we had an appointment with one of the leading neurologists in country, Gregory O’Shannick. Just walking into the office and waiting for us to be called, I knew this was going to be different. I had no clue why my mental facilities needed to be evaluated. In my mind I felt off, but did I need this?!? The only thing that stuck out to me throughout the whole day was the word association test. Should you have ever had this done you understand where I’m going. The one I had is when they show you a picture of, let’s say a stove, and the second you recognize what it is, you say what the item is (in this case stove). This was the hardest and most frustrating thing. I could remember things in my head, but could not verbalize them for the life of me. There were time I would state what I thought was the right answer only to have the therapist correct me by saying “you meant __________, right?”, or “you were trying to say”. I’m thinking, “Don’t correct me! I was right the first time!”

The whole day was quite taxing. I just wanted to sleep for weeks after that one day. Keep in mind it was a long evaluation; and, like any other muscles in your body, it tires and wears out. It was if my brain had run marathon. I was done for that day. Little did I know many of my following days would be like this and worse!