This is an essay I wrote for my college freshman English class in January 2005.
My Accident
It was a rainy weekend, the weekend before April 5, 2004. I had my school musical that weekend, and I remember putting on the wipers driving to the cast party. I thoroughly enjoyed the play and the party. Monday morning came and the sun was shining. Since I had stayed up late Friday and Saturday night, I wanted to sleep in on Monday. My mom agreed to let me until 8 AM and then she would drive me to school. But I never made it there. Even though it was sunny out, the road was still icy; slick with black ice. Going around a curve, my mom made the mistake of braking. The car started spinning, and the passenger side slammed into a telephone pole, right where I was sitting. My mom was treated and released at the hospital; however, I was not so lucky. I was knocked unconscious, had a fractured pelvis, some broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and was in a coma. What was worse is I had a contusion on my brain stem. This paralyzed my entire right side.
I spent the entire month of April in Strong Memorial Hospital, with my family coming to visit me daily. Around the end of April, I slowly awoke from the coma, and was moved to the brain injury rehabilitation unit at St. Mary’s. I don’t remember hardly anything of what happened during May, just fragments. This may or may not be in chronological order. Quite often, I thought it was all a bad dream, and expressed this thought to those around me. Twice, I asked to be woken up from it. I had little strength when I first awoke. My family would take me for rides up and down the hall in the wheelchair because I lacked the strength to stand. I had the strength to sit up in bed, but was in need of the strength to stay sitting up. I had to go to physical, speech, and occupational therapy at this hospital. I thought therapy was just there to torture me. They would play the radio during occupational therapy, and one time a song came on and I wasn’t sure if it was my favorite song or not. It was scary not being able to remember my favorite song. I had many short and long term memory problems during this time. When I first woke up, I asked if I missed the musical. I had a hard time paying attention, and had the attention span of an ADHD 5-year-old. My best friend came to visit me, and it felt like it had been 10 years since I last saw her, yet was sick of her after 10 minutes. I actually thought I was 6 years old for a long time, and acted like my 6-year-old self for a while.
May 31, 2004 is the first day I have a clear memory of. It was from that day, I counted down the days until my discharge. In my time there I had made very little progress in my recovery, but from around this day on, I made progress with rapid speed. My attention span increased dramatically, to about 45 minutes. I finally was discharged on June 16, 2004. I continued in outpatient therapy about up until the time I had to leave for college.
Many call their experiences life-changing or earth-shattering. I hesitate to do this because it is so cliché, but mine really changed my life. It changed who I am. There is much not known by the general public about brain injuries. My personality is somewhat different. I have a sudden love for purple, which I did not have before. In my head, I am not different to myself, but to those around me who knew me before, I am changed. Tests have shown, but I don’t realize I am not as sharp and quick as I used to be. I have to have many things done for me, which I did not have to have others do for me before. I have little strength, so doing ordinary things like lifting or dipping ice cream is a challenge for me. Many don’t realize I have a brain injury, because it is an invisible injury. It is a challenge to pay attention for long periods of time, and to focus and concentrate. My reaction time isn’t nearly what it used to be.
It is hard for me, because I am not the person I know. I have memories of the person I used to be and strive to be that person again. I am not who I know and have to get used to the person I have become. Change has always been hard for me, especially this one. But that is left over from my old personality, so at least that is that is the same for me.