Have you ever seen someone in a wheel chair, and starred or looked down on them? Maybe gave them a look of disgust? Ever seen someone stumbling to take a step, laughed at them? Ever seen someone that had bright red scars all over one side of their face, and wished that you hadn't? Have you ever found yourself thinking how inconvenient individuals like such are to society? Thought maybe the world would be better without that person? Well i have been this person. This is my story. October 14th, 2003.
Riding in the car with my mom, on the way to school. -The road is under construction, and its dangerous. -Turning into the school, my mom turned back to give me something. The car went off the road, went down into a ditch, and hit a tree. Which just happens to be, where i was sitting, in the car. The metal frame of the convertible penetrated the right side of my skull. Imbedding in, and damaging my brain.
My mom had to kick the doors of the car away from my limp and unconscious body.They had to shut down the road. I was lifted from the scene, in helicopter, to Farifax hospital. Where they rushed me into brain surgery. Removed the skull around my forehead. As well as the large portion of unsavable brain. The right side of my frontal lobe. Put what was left of my skull into my right abdomen.
Upon waking up, and looking around I realized that
I couldnt move, or speak.
They sent me to Kennedy Krueger /John Hopkins in Baltimore. Due to being in a coma for two weeks, I had lost the ability to talk, my memory, and mobility. Host of all I lost my independence. I had to have so done with me 24/7, and care around the clock. The room was very decorative. Flowers, stuffed animals, but most of all decorated with family friends and various visitors.
The first time i looked into a mirror, I did not see me.
All I saw was the fear of what i had become. No long blonde hair. A zig zag scar reaching from ear to ear. Scars across the entire right side of my face. I was not the pretty little girl the last time I looked in a mirror.
The first time that I was weighed, I was 134 pounds, when before I was 98.
Although the outlook was not good, I was put through all the rehabilitative services that they had to offer.
The cereal casts on my legs prevented me from being able to move them, but kept my feet from being stuck in a limp position. Later i unraveled the casts, all the way off.
A day in my life in the hospital.
Therapy started. I would wake up and start my day with occupational therapy. l
Learning how to get dressed and how to brush my hair, teeth, etc. Someone would shower me, because i wasn't able to. They would shave my legs and comb the stubbles I had for hair. I was unable to do even the most basic of personal hygine tasks. Throughout the day
I would do therapy. Physical, Occupational, Speech, Recreational. Breaks in between, of course.
The first step that i took in physical therapy hurt so much. Just to stand was more painful than anyone would be able to imagine. Not only that, i had to climb stairs. The stairs of the hospital. I would have to talk, rather try to push out and form words. They didn't sound like words very much in the beginning. More like grunts of anger and pain.
And there was this big room for recreational therapy, in which i would do crafts, and watch movies. Talk to other people who were recovering also.
All that I remember from this was always being agitated, and intense agony.
Veering away from the medical side of my story, and instead focusing on the personal. The things that i remember the most. The stitches in my head. How much my muscles would always hurt. The scar on my abdomen. The way i looked. How people would talk to me. Hold my hand and cry. No one was familiar.
As soon as I was strong enough to, my dad took me out of the hospital. To the movie theatre. We saw brother bear. More so than the movie itself I remember not being able to figure out why everyone was staring at me, giving me weird looks. My dad had to explain to me that it was because i was different. Hunched over in a wheelchair, wearing a helmet. Red scars all over my face.
Before i got to go home, they had to take what was left of my skull, out of my abdomen, and make a new skull out of it. Using paste and other medical compensations.
Laying on the bed there, i remember squishing something and hearing liquid.
When i looked up, i saw that it was a tube, and connected to my head.
When they sent me home, i still was not fully rehabilitated.
I had to do 5 1/2 years of every rehabilitative therapy I had so while in the hospital.
For a unmemorable amount of time I was out through homeschooling. But
the day i went back to school, is the day that i first remember wanting to kill myself. Everyone was so happy and smiling, and pretty. I was not. Barely able to walk, scarred face. Unable to speak well still.
The only way people would look at me, was in disgust. No one would talk to me. The faces I did remember, had moved on, and made new friends. And continued to look at me, the same way as others.
Over the years, I recovered. I got many facial surgeries to fix the damage done. My hair grew out. But i had gained alot of weight. And everyone still did not like me. I noticed that i had problems, that other teenagers didn't have. I never really fit in with anyone, leading isolation and further emotional trauma.
I distanced myself, withdrew from reality. Every time i would think about someone, i would think about the pain of knowing that i was a monster, to them. People would bully me in school, call me names. Pick on me, for something that i didn't make happen and could only do my best about.
For years and years, i was suicidal. Had become numb. The medications i had to take to deal with life, was too much. I would cut, wanting to feel something, hopefully worse than what I was already feeling.
This stopped after a number of years.And i tried other ways to help myself feel better. Nothing helped.
I had grown so bitter, and hateful to the world. Through all of that, nothing good came out of
I look at people for who they are, not what they look like. Cause inside of that broken, scarred body of mine, there was a girl. Struggling to get stronger. Tortured by being looked at as a monster. The girl that use to be everyone's friend. And everyone used to love her. Now not only a TBI survivor, but a success story.
There were a lot of things that i did not add. Merely because people wouldn't be able to handle it.
But there were good times also.
I would be able to poke my forehead, and feel my brain. Really cool stuff like that. Which now, i can just see it throbbing when i pull my hair back.
A bad thing that came from all this. My brother doesn't like me. Solely because of this. It tares my heart to pieces, knowing that i cant change that.
No one would know, either. If I hadn't said anything.
Being that person gave me the passion and the ability to care for others. As well as a unique understanding of how people really are.
I don't know what you have taken from my story, but I have taken my story and turned it as a lesson, a lesson to not judge others, to accept and love them for who they are and what they are in that very moment, because that is All you have and all there is.
