Category: tbi

The Son of Gerber Incident

On By JohnIn life, tbiLeave a comment

How in the world did I manage to break the tip of the #0 (#2?) flathead screwdriver on my multitool?

I do have a rather very vague memory of damaging it. I also know that it was perhaps a few years ago.

Was it around the time of my TBI? Just a few days before? Separating the sequence of events around that time is a bit of a jumble.

I can only assume that I thought at the time, “Oh, that’s annoying… could’ve been worse… I’ll fix it/order a replacement”.

Also, no, I would not have damaged it by using the screwdriver as a pry-bar. A screwdriver is a screwdriver and I know that hardened steel will break, not bend.

So, that’s two MP400s that I’ve damaged in 33 years.

**sigh**

Yep, I’ll keep this one. No need to throw it out. It’d be a good reason to break out the bastard file and see about shaving it down.

Something’s Changed – I’m Not the Same

On By JohnIn psychology, tbiLeave a comment

One of the most difficult things for me to accept was an offhand remark from, I think it was my occupational therapist about two months after my injury: the person you were is gone.

I suppose I became rather defensive.

I think my response was something along the lines of, “I have all of the memories of self from a full lifetime, how can he be gone?! I’m right effing here!”

Now, looking back after two and a half years, I don’t think that she or any of the other therapists, nurses, neurologists, or physicians were quite as clear about how true and profound that statement was.

Yes, it hurt emotionally to hear it as if she was speaking of me as if I were dead. But thinking back, it was, for me, exactly what I needed to hear.

It should have been repeated.

Neuro-Psychology Exam, Part 2?

On By JohnIn psychology, tbiLeave a comment

While meeting with my physiologist, we discussed the possibility of participating in a followup to the followup of a Neuro-Psychology exam. We can’t, of course, provide any meaningful recommendations about somebody’s neurological or psychological condition compared with their pre-TBI mental condition — because we simply can’t go back in time to capture the pre-TBI state.

Yet, now, two-ish years post-TBI and perhaps a year and a half after the initial Neuro-Psych eval, perhaps this is a good opportunity to compare.

Untangling Everything

On By JohnIn tbiLeave a comment

…on our last episode.

In retrospect, any single one the things that I had described in the previous posts about migraines over the course of a lifetime would be innocuous:

  • chronic persistence of worsening migraines
  • some occasional, mild discomfort with abdominal exertion
  • occasional remarks from various practitioners over the past two decades that my WBC was on the higher end of average
  • significant injury (in 2016) that presented as a rib fracture, but no bruising observed and Xray revealed nothing
  • infection — demonstrable, evidential

We still don’t understand what the exact cause of the infection was. It’s not resolved until we’re certain of the vector itself. So, the big question would be: how was it contracted? When? How long did I have it? Was it something that I’d had since the 1980s? Did I live through Basic Training in 1989 with it? Was it worsened from the 2016 injury? And did that lead to the fall in 2017?

Sure, it’s been identified and treated. Mitigated, perhaps. But not eliminated.

Yet, I find myself wondering whether the infection itself, and the periodic brief episodes of light-headedness — not quite a syncope episode, but brief periods (fleeting, much like PVCs) of a half-second or less experienced in October, November, and December of that year — perhaps in a light-headed moment when I was atop the ladder, I fell.

Apart from the fall itself, any one of the issues above, by themselves, would be insignificant. Yet, together, over a lifetime, they would combine to lead to a realization which ultimately stopped the migraines with which I was contending.

From one perspective, I suppose that it could be said that I had to nearly die in order to accidentally stumble into a cure for the life-long migraines.

⌨️

A Boss Battle?

On By JohnIn health, tbiLeave a comment

…on our last episode.

We then immediately turned and made the hour-long drive to Wenatchee, which would become my home of sorts for the next week while they worked to save me.

Again.

While Samaritan was registered as a Level III trauma center, Confluence in Wenatchee wasn’t even listed as a “trauma center”. It is, however, a much larger and far better-equipped facility.

There was a brief intake to its ER, a quick consultation with one of the residents, and I think they noted that my mental state was beginning a rapid decline.

They then immediately rolled me over to one of the CT rooms and began a CT-guided percutaneous aspiration and drainage.

More radiation from the CT. More IVs, admission as an inpatient, and my decline was halted, but it was still substantial. I’m told in retrospect that they were rather concerned because of what it was, where it was, how substantially my mental state had degraded.

But we absolutely had an explanation for the fever, and all of the ancillary medical issues that a significant liver abscess would include. Weakness, collapsed lung (yep, really significant infection distended my liver… so… a lung couldn’t do its lung thing, apparently).

And if I wasn’t already struggling with recovery from the severe TBI — sound, speech, balance, fatigue — I would be now.

A week, a few more CT scans — I think I’ve had my radiation dose for the next 12 years, thanks — I was well enough to discharge. I’d also have some significant antibiotics for the next month or so.

…🤒📜

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