I survived a severe traumatic brain injury, Doctors have since tried to downplay the injury, but I have the scans, I am still high functioning despite my brain damage, they didn't have much high expectations when I laid in the hospital, I was fairly healthy before I fell, had a bit of essential tremors and epilepsy, but they were not big issues and well controlled with meds, even if at least one of the conditions was neurodegenerative, none of that matter compared to the brain injury, waking up in a strange hospital bed, blind in my right eye. It has been a long two years of recovery, I am not who I use to be, I am not sure who I am anymore, my career was such a huge part of my life. Physically I am still weak, I use to be able to do 150 pushups a day, it took me a year to struggle to do 15 in a row, and it hurts after, my neck is fused and fragile, my shoulder was broken and they missed that it was broken for 7 months, my right wrist is still recovering from a break so bad they had to wait a month for the swelling to go down before they could put it in a cast.
I have been testested and spied on, I was eventually rated 50% disabled by workers comp, I still have other lawsuits pending, I stay at home till fall and then I will attempt to finish a degree I dropped out on in 1999. This will take time, not sure where my income will come from, workers comp pays me 800 dollars a month till I am 70, I have some money saved, and expect a large sum from a lawsuit.
I spend time online waiting for life to begin again, I can drive now, which is a huge difference, was stuck at home alone for over a year, the isolation has changed me, I have PTSD and suffer panic attacks at times, I avoid stress and alcohol, I'm almost 38 but feel much older, life expectancy for a good brain injury isn't great, and its more and more likely that I will have dementia, parkinson's, Alzheimer's, CTE.
I don't mean to be so dark, I am scared of the future, I am a mentally damaged person with epilepsy, tremors, and a big love for wearing diapers and a little bit of a bed wetting problem, just what people look for in a mate, I am also bisexual. I use to hate myself, now I am more accepting, even if I die alone, we all die alone in the end anyways.
I do look forward to the challenge of college, I am only taking one or two classes the first semester, small steps, and I am learning the piano in the meantime, I have horrible short term memory so it has gone fast, so far in two months I know the notes to 2 songs but not the chords, it is hard to get both hands to play together.
I was on a pretty good path for my career before I fell, sound engineering is a very competitive field, and I was working with some big names, now physically and mentally I am no longer fit to work in a field I spent 20 years fighting to get anywhere in, and now I am treated much like a child too, my Mom freaks out if I don't answer my phone, and calls me every night. I am impulsive and have poor control of my emotions at times.
The thing is I am still learning what my limits are, just last spring they found out I had a visual tracking problem, it can cause me to have a harder time reading, or to lose balance if I try to walk and shake my head in a no-no pattern.
Ive spent time in rehabs and got to see people that were far worse than me, I was some sort of miracle, a deviation from what statistics and educated guesses by doctors expected, they didn't think I would wake up, walk, talk, or do much of anything other than lay in a bed, partly why the follow up doctors after the hospital failed to give proper attention, my neurologist is pretty much fired, he argued with me about the brain injuries, and was wrong, and he often fills my appointments with his nurse, who is just a nurse, and the appointment time is so far spread out he basically isn't treating me, not sure if he is mad because I refused the antidepressants or the ritalin he offered.
Still haven't had my eye treated properly, only on euro ophthalmologist in my state and he and his staff are horrible people that forgot me for several hours in a waiting room and only realized I was still there when I called the front lobby because I could see the lights dim like they were closing the clinic for the night, they were. I blew up in anger, was only a few months in my recovery and they refused to see me again, to see a doctor I have to travel out of state, very annoying, I let it go and collected on the eye as part of the disability from workers comp.
Still need work done on the eye and I want a good therapist I can talk to, my friends and family are mostly born again extremists literal young earth Bible believers, I don't agree with their beliefs, I don't believe god saved me or that I was blessed, I get annoyed at the notion, I fell in a hole that I should never have fallen into, I see it more like god said watch this and pushed me off the edge and had a good laugh, if god was saving me he wouldn't of pushed me in the hole, and I don't think a god would have a sex, that makes no sense.
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another concern and fear I have is people thinking I am a pedo or attacking me for being bi, I live in a redneck town, I stay away from places where I might get attacked, carry a huge stun baton on dog walks, the thing is, it would only take trauma to the head to kill me or leave me far worse off, I saw the people in rehab that had been shot in the head or had tire irons takin to the back of their skulls. Seen adult taken to the potty like children, it was a nightmare, and I never want another head injury. It is truly an invisible injury except for my eye patch.
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my head fill like some one sketched the Mona Lisa on an Etcha-Sketch, and then shook it up and erased most of the image