The Brotherhood of Brain Injured Patients

 Everyday starts the same way.

My wife and I start each morning with a blood pressure check and I check my blood sugar.

I choke down a large handful of pills and then I have breakfast--a yogurt and some milk.

Usually my wife and I make my lunch before she shuttles me off to the "Center" when the shuttle arrives.

Usually I share some kind words with the driver who has warmed up to me and as I've told the wife--I unlocked her.  For a long time she didn't say much to me.

We usually go to Hurst where we pick up Mr. R-----.  I cannot stress the importance of being on time--even my fellow patients have come to expect the shuttle.

Mr. R---- is an older gentlemen who expects the shuttle to be on time.

His house is beautiful with a front yard complete with foliage and a whimsical looking oak tree which has a face on the front of it--I call that Old Man Oak.  When we leave I watch as Old Man Oak disappears in the distance and topiary of Mr. R----'s yard.

Our next stop is Euless, specifically and the Euless Star Center where we pick up another patient whose husband works at the Star Center, and then we head down 121 before we arrive in Irving at the Center for Neuro Skills.

Recovery and Rediscovery

We all have a new excuse. 

 Sometimes I hear some of us casually speak about our brain injury--whether nonchalantly or with humor but each of us knows what we went through. 

Recovery has been difficult and even at times joyful--almost humorous. 

Our future is tedious but it is a brotherhood or sisterhood of men and women all linked by one common goal--we have suffered a brain injury and as I only half-heartedly speak of us in my opening sentence--we all have a new excuse.  

Let me explain further--I started this blog writing about visiting a place in Edmonds, Washington called The Center. 

I was depressed about the death of my father. My time at the Center changed me--cut to 2021, where after work with my wife, I had a stroke.

After 4 weeks in both the ICU and Encompass Health I returned home, and I started attending a new center.  The Center for Neuroskills--where as my wife tells me, I got a wakeup call, a second chance and a new excuse.

The names of many of my new friends have changed. But as we laugh about our situation and we learn to both use our extremities and walk again slowly--the testing begins.

And boy does it begin--daily I try to prove their are no cognitive difficulties, but sometimes I fall back on our number one excuse--say it with me, in the most entitled way possible, "I had a stroke!"

I say it now with a chuckle in my voice.  No  matter what the situation--it holds.  We don't have time to help the wife with the groceries, "I had a stroke!"  I don't want to do excersize--"I had a stroke!"  Someone cuts my wife off in traffic--"I had a stroke!

We joke of course but there is a seriousness and a jovality to us.  I used to say jokingly I had a minor brain injury, but my friend Camille said with all seriousness there no minor brain injuries or strokes.  We all laughed and then we all solemnly admit she's right.

Everyday we bond with our brain injuries and we laugh with a seriousness that we pledge to get better and everyday we grow 

closer--we have to because we do not want to fall into despair.

And everyday we learn more about ourselves.

We kid each other as we eat our lunches.  The funniest thing was the term stroke rage.  In truth we also laugh at this.   As one patient told me we're capable of anything.   With our brain injuries I can see anyone of us looking for our lunches and just losing it--eating someone else's sandwich and throwing it against the wall all the while screaming "This is not my sandwich."

The truth of this is that it is funny--we crack up but we're all very respectful--but there is a humor in the things we say--everyone is trying to help us--every counselor/therapist at the "Center" wants us to get better--and we all want to get better.  The people at the Center truly are angels--who have the patience of Job.  Every day we come to this place and test ourselves in pursuit of being better and everyday we get better bit by bit.  In the end we all test ourselves and we test or therapists, physical therapists, educators, drivers and case managers

and we do  it without falling back on our only excuse.

Secret Georgia Trips

It was 5 a.m. when my alarm went off.  The usual place of my alarm clock was beside my bed, and it had been moved so I was incapable of simply hitting snooze—in fact the alarm was not by my bed at all, it was across the room on my desk.  

In the summer when I was growing up , my father used to come into my room and the crack of dawn and tell me to get dressed.  

My father had a planned a trip, and we both piled into his car and set out form some destination.  Those destinations were usually a day trip.  

We tore across the countryside in his station wagon.  Our destination was some obscure place, an animal show, a fortune teller, or maybe a dilapidated faire that hadn’t run sine the 1950’s,  We bonded a lot in those days.

The noise was incessant and though my bed was comfortable, the alarm’s shrill cry pierced the walls of my brain and it forced me to get up.  With as much speed as possible I stumbled across the floor—barefooted to reach the alarm on the other side of my room.

That was when I met my mother, who had take her position next to my door.  Her eyes met mine—she was already in business mode—she was already ready to lay down the law this morning.  

“You’re gonna look for a job today, right?”  she asked but her tone was not that of a question.  It was more of  command anc I nodded mostly out of fear and less out of desire.

“Good,” she said in her own way which was more, “You will do this,” than “please do this.”  

She pressed a mug of coffee into my hand.  “I’m leaving in 15 minutes, and I’m taking your key from you.” She added, noting I would be pounding pavement today in search of something. 

That 15 minutes was spent in a frenzy, trying to put on a passable suit, and meeting her downstairs.  

In a record time even for me, I showered, shaved and got ready—I was downstairs just as we both left the house and she locked the door behind me.

On Sunday My father wakes me up about 6 am as usual.  He has already mapped out for us our day while I was sleeping—and he pushes a bagel and a coffee into my hand.  The car is filled with a few "things:”  a picnic bag, a first aid kit, a road map and a cooler full of sodas, water and packed "lunches."     

My father plans our trips to the letter, and right now, he seems to be perusing a travel brochure for a place called Oconee, Georgia.  “This will be our best trip yet,” he says and eagerly backs the station wagon out of the driveway.

At 16 this is my first time drinking coffee.  My father goes down to a place called Katz bakery and has the bagels made fresh—these are his gift to me since I am no longer eight or even twelve.  

This is the 7^th year since we started taking small trips together, and I have basically resigned myself to not wanting to see the rarest parts of Georgia…  I was able to sleep when I was younger, my face pressed against the vinyl seat, but now, I sit and drink the warm coffee from the thermos—there are few cups that can handle the weight of coffee in 88.  We drink from plastic—we drive in the early morning before traffic becomes hectic—before it will be too late to drive together anymore.

A few cars drive the road at this time—all of them have one driver—all of them are slower than before.. 

Our car seems to be slowing down more than speeding up.  My father hands me the road map, and I try to make sense of the squiggles and road signs.  I am already sick of this trick.  

We will probably eat bologna sandwiches and drive home disappointed—but I am already disappointed—partially because I am not eight anymore.

I hold that in and refrain from telling my father.  That’s when we approach a roadblock and a county Sheriff asks us to stop.

  

In my earliest memory my father had given me a red plastic mug with a symbol for He-man on it.  It had come from a metallic He-man lunch box which had a distinctive drawing of He man fighting Beast Man.  Skeletor was not in the fight except to point and say hey, "He-Man my stupid troglodyte bitch Beastman will fight you--not me."  

Skeletor always ran away "waah waahing"--even in the cartoons,  but the thermos which despite having He-Man on the cover is very effective at carrying coffee.

So, without to much further in formation, we both would drink coffee in the morning when we went on our trips.  I was no longer eight, but I also needed my mother’s special coffee to stay awake.  So when I went with my father in later years—I drank from my He-Man thermos and helped him navigate the back woods of Georgia’s highway system.  Sometimes I felt a little like He-Man riding along with my adult coffee and navigating. Later I felt more like a schmuck with a He-Man Thermos, but I hadn’t had the nerve to tell my dad I was tired of the secret summer trips.

In one of the last years we made these trips, I can remember an urgency in my Dad’s driving.  It was not enough to just go and see the world’s giant Peanut farm or pick blueberries from some secret grove—he worried that I was enjoying myself—the truth is I had started to hate these trips.  The Truth was hard to say—but all of this became truest the day my father was pulled over by some low-level-Barney-Fife-deputy trying to make his ticket quota.  

The truth happened on a lonely stretch of road called 76.

The first half of my journey 

Canary Yellow Little League

 I.

In the back of the dugout, Ricky was already using the "f word."  Jerry Jackson spouted a string of f-bombs and was laughing every time he said the word..  The whole team had started cussing until the coach came in and told us to in no other words, “Shut the hell up/”   We all looked at him, our canary yellow baseball uniforms glistened in the night air--each covered with a few stains--each yellow in the color we hated--and each of us were. waiting for the umpire to yell, “Play ball!”  The coach pointed to me, and I got up, grabbed my favorite bat and left the dugout.

The field had a long distant haze over it.  My parents, who were in the stands cheered for me, but the parents didn't understand.  In our canary yellow uniforms--our names were the giants--but by some fluke or cosmic joke--we always got the yellow uniforms.  Every other team wore a solid not piss hued color--and they looked tough.  We looked like the reject bad news bears, but the worst part of it, is we had somehow made it to the championship, against the other team, a team called the Colts, and if we knew one thing, we knew the Colts were "the best."

Well. we thought we knew--we knew all the other kids on the other team were big--the stunted growth kids that lined out team were full of "pluck" which out coach Steve was fond of saying (when he wasn't smoking or trying not to cuss at us) was that we were "plucky."  

One thing growing up in the eighties taught me, is that the "plucky" kids had a shot--watch any movie--"plucky" kids were great--"plucky" kids could beat the odds--"Plucky kids could win--this was so in the movies--this was not so in real life. 

Every kid on the Colts was big--I mean muscular, tall, steroid-induced tall.  Most had some kind of caterpillar-like growth on their lips (which clearly steroids had caused), and each of them was a grade a dillweed--not joking--in the eighties kids got picked on--there were no tall, adam Baldwin types that would leave you alone--every kid taller than you got off on bullying you--there was no zero tolerance anti-bullying movement to protect you--there was only you and the bullies.

The biggest kid of all was Sean Daniels.  He stood at least 5'4, and had been given a weight set at age three--there was no other real explanation for how he was so big, but it had nothing to do with him being big.  The issue was, he thought was the best, and he hated anyone who challenged his notion?  Who challenged that notion?  Anyone who did anything.  Anyone who played baseball, just by playing against him. Because of this, he hated you.

He was their pitcher, and just going up against him meant he hated you.  Sean was watching me as I crossed toward home plate.  At 12  I did what all tough guys do and swung my bat around a bit.  Sean Daniels, mouthed out the words, “F--- you.”  After that I gave him a bit of a “Yeah, right” look.  The Umpire looked at me, and said, “Today, Kid.”  Tense from the idea of Sean's pitch I pulled the back bat and prepared for the first pitch.

The ball came straight at me, and I could feel the wind as it went straight past my head.  I turned back and gave Sean Davis this look of "what the F---man?”  See we said Man a lot in the 80's.  His face was a strict, "what are you going to do about it" look.  “Cut that crap out, Sean” the Umpire said, “One more like that and you are out of here.”  As he said this, I doubted the would remove him, but one could hope.

“You better watch it, Sean will take your head off,” said the weasilish, little catcher below me. “Cut the crap Chad,” the Umpire said and gave the kid below him a gentle little rap on the head.  By now, I had tensed up on my bat and was ready for any other dirty balls thrown at me.  Sean looked at me again and let his next pitch go.  It, the pitch came barreling down the towards the plate and came right across my sweet spot.  The bat in my hands seemed to cut the air like a knife, and I heard the familiar aluminum clang of metal hitting canvas.

Dead End Avenue

In a small corner of Plano there is a spacious place I like to call “Deadend Avenue.”  It is roughly a mere four blocks from 14^th street, and surrounded by dull, industrial malls ever built.  One might walk one’s dog in the middle of the night and see the rare person doing slightly shady repair work on a vehicle, or unloading unmarked, non-descript packages into a small warehouse, where you then will be met with either dirty looks or the rapid closing of a warehouse door—with no explanation what-so-ever or care.  One then should merely make one’s way home to either the prospect of safety or at least paid security.

This place, is often marked by couples, who dress beyond their means or feelings.  The houses are spacious, given there are no nearby amenities for four blocks in all directions.  Overpasses abound where the streak of a yellow dart streams through and no signal warns or is present that could keep you from becoming a splat on the back roads.  The nearest convenience store little more than a in-and-out liquor where one could buy the cheapest of spirits available.

 

           Perhaps the most unique aspects is the wasted area of grasslands where chiggers roam freely waiting to bite into your legs and backsides at a moment notice—where neighbors will turn their heads to your presence and where dish or cable is the only saving grace available to the boring drab existence that is present among these places.  This barren waste of a place is more akin to places  dogs or the elderly go to die—where any dream you might have is immediately quashed in actual sleep or in the distinct rot you feel forming inside your soul. 

August to September

It is hot outside my car, and there is no wind to speak of in Texas.  Once Year has passed and my car is hot.  One year took what I thought was my heart and reconditioned me to the coldness of reality.  When I left the center I was so full of hope and promise.  

(Don't get me wrong I still am, but the hard reality was that I was working on myself too, not only my partner, who I am no longer with.  With the skills left me by the center, I settled into a life that was changing.  My significant other at the time, was growing spiritually, and I was growing further from her.

Eventually, I left her, based on her wishes, and ultimately my own, and I settled into a new life.  I set myself up in a new place with some old friends, and I started to grow stronger.  Not to brag, but I was really really confident with women--more so than I had ever felt.  

I wanted to find a new love, and to bury the old.  The plan was to continue strongly in the new me that had been established.

Vinegar and Oil

In my mother’s second house, she has a pantry which she fills with staples one might refer to as traditionally southern. These staples include, Dixie crystal sugar, arm and hammer baking soda, and a large, healthy supply of vinegar. Rarely have I ever not seen vinegar in the household, and my mother gets this from my grandmother who swore by traditional things, including mason jars (a kind of Antebellum Tupper-ware container perfect for sealing many types of foods) and good old fashioned mop heads for cleaning.

My mother’s second house seemed even more like my grandmother’s house, for over the archway to the pantry was a newly framed picture of my grandmother. If any part of my grandmother’s house was particularly her domain it was the pantry, and us foolish males and mortals were nowhere near as home as she was in the pantry, the intersection between cooking and cleaning.

My Grandmother’s world seemed utterly mundane and insignificant when I was younger, but as I look through my mother’s pantry in her retirement years, the image of my grandmother at forty, framed in shiny bronze seems to point the way to something old fashioned but of immense value that maybe I can teach someone in these words.

When I look at my grandmother’s picture, the nearest I can remember her looking like this is when I was 12. One day she was visiting and in her usual manner, she pointed to the windows and said, “We’re going to clean these.”

At 12 I had no interest in doing anything like cleaning and this was the middle of summer. My father was out at teaching summer school and my mother was working at the VA, so from 9 am to my parents got home at 4 I was my grandmother and grandfather’s errand boy. Where is this? Or how about this? And that is what I did.

Today, my Grandfather had taken an interest in my father’s workshop and he was in the backyard about 20 feet from the covered deck. My Grandmother’s interest were the largest windows in the house, the back sealed deck. With a wave of her hand I had been instructed to go outside on the deck and wait. From left right, my parents had installed 30 foot windows that curved up to the back of the house. My eyes widened at the thought of washing those windows and that’s when My grandmother brought in a huge bucket of water and began pouring a healthy dose of vinegar into the bucket.

“Why are your eyes so wide?” my grandmother said. She began to dip the large mophead in the very pungent water and to soak it thoroughly. “Answer me?”

Um, “ I said but knew that wouldn’t go over, so I blurted out something, “Those windows are big.”

“Big?” My grandmother had a way disliking most things I said and even now she looked like her only grandson was mentally deficient, so she just shook her head.

“I mean I uh, yeah we can wash those.”