People who have been in a serious accident, or just concussed from a knock to the head, will likely be in a state of Post-Traumatic Amnesia. PTA is a system recovery that your brain goes through after a head injury and the amount of time you spend in that state will reflect on the damage that’s been done. It will also determine your chances of getting back in the game.
I don’t remember much from this time, but while I was back in The Royal Melbourne Hospital I can clearly recall the feeling when I removed a tube from my mouth. It was one of the many keeping me alive, but I was obviously sick of it. Although I wasn’t conscious, there was something tickling my throat. To scratch it, I discovered that all I had to do was pull on the thing that was coming out of my mouth. Well, that ‘thing’ was a tube and it wasn’t just in my mouth, it was all the way down my throat. I say ‘a tube’, but I don’t know which tube it was because I attempted to get them all out at one point or another. I pulled it out a bit and it kept coming, so I kept pulling. Eventually it came out. I can remember that it felt like a rat crawling its way up my insides.
Another memory was to do with my catheter tube, the tube that helped me go to the bathroom. The way a catheter works is that it gets fed into your bladder and, to stay in, it expands at the end so it can’t be removed. Well, I proved that wrong. I found it so annoying that I removed this twice. Along with Jaclyn feeding me, these were the only things my brain held on to.
The recovery mode in PTA required a very low stimulus environment with no TV, no friends and no chance of making any funny gags. My inner tribe, as I call my immediate family, were the only visitors I was allowed and they were told there was to be minimal stimulation to my brain. I do, however, remember laughing uncontrollably at things a twenty-three year-old shouldn’t laugh at. Fits of laughter are a common occurrence with a brain injury. Even today I cannot control my laughter, which can sometimes be very inappropriate and come out at the wrong times. I slip back into my immature laughing fits every now and then, but this is something that I have been mindfully trying to fix for years. One little fart and I lose it. There’s no coming back from that. Is this the injured brain in me or the young ‘boy’ in me?
I’m not sure if my family and I laughed at things that happened because they were genuinely funny or because everyone was just happy I was alive.
Dad had recently retired from work and his big plan had been to set off and enjoy his retirement. That was before his world went back twenty-three years and he found himself caring for a fully grown infant. While relearning how to live I was like a kid maturing all over again. As a father of three adult children, the last thing Dad could imagine doing was wiping his twenty-three year-old son’s arse, but this just had to be done, and, no questions asked, Dad put up his hand and took one for the team on that job.
As I said, I don’t remember much from this time but luckily I’ve always had my parents around so that they could remind me exactly what had happened. The emails Dad wrote and that I would read later definitely were a factor in helping me solve this 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Hi all,
Progress continues. Language yesterday was a couple of whispered words. Today, short sentences with humour attached. E.g. Deb andI were visiting and Scott’s sister and husband arrived for the tag team. Talking to Nicole, I asked how she was to which she politely responded with, ‘Yeah, I’m ok.’ To this Scott reaches out to his sister and uttered, ‘You’re ok, but I’m FUCKED.’ This was followed by a grin that had Nicole in hysterics. Another comment, which amused me, was that just before his dinner arrived I commented that I hoped he would get soup tonight knowing that he is a soup lover from way back. His response, he tapped his chest and said, ‘me too’. Late this afternoon he took his first steps (I mean shuffle). Scott was supported by his physiotherapist and shuffled from outside his room back to his bed. He is now eating well (lasagne puree tonight).
Another amusing comment made nearing the end of dinner from him was, ‘It’s cold.’ Forget Scott, we were glad that it was cold simply because it prompted such a comment. (Small things amuse small minds I guess, but when you haven’t heard him mutter a word for three and a half weeks, it’s amazing what will tickle ya fancy). I think that we have reached a point now where my reports are telling you about small events that are big in our minds, but small in the overall journey. I have now decided that I will pull back on daily updates and provide you with more significant weeklies unless I hear from enough of you that still want to be kept informed on a more regular basis. I don’t mind either way but don’t wish to bore you with small events that are significant to us but small in the overall. I’ll let you guys make that call.
Regards,
Harris family
Settling into Epworth Rehabilitation wasn’t a challenge for me because as far as I was concerned, I was only going to be in there for a short time, a few weeks tops. This was the state of mind an injured brain could be in. At this point, I was completely oblivious to the impact my brain injury had on my family and friends, and the impact it was going to have on the rest of my life. All I knew was that I wasn’t at work and that I would be in hospital for the next few weeks; I was in a room sleeping a lot and I was getting A LOT of attention. The next few weeks came and went and I was still there, so maybe this was a little worse than I first thought, and maybe it would be a bit longer until I would be back at work and into the on-site banter.
Because I had endured broken bones and a beaten-up body in the past from sporting injuries, this really felt no different. This was just another time I have hurt myself. This feeling was probably due to the highly effective medication I was zoned out on each day. I was given the medication to relieve the pain and it did exactly that. The only thought running through my head was that I would be off work for the rest of the year. Being December, I expected to be back at work in the New Year. When the weeks turned into months and then each month came and went, I couldn’t comprehend why my body wasn’t
healing. Was this accident a bit more serious than I first realised? I eventually came to understand that it wasn’t a matter of ‘when’ I would return to work, but ‘if’.
This wasn’t exactly an exciting time for the family when they came to visit as I was asleep most of the time. For the few hours I was awake, I had some lightweight rehab sessions and some family time. Being summer, the weather was beautiful, but I only had one visit to the outside world before I was inside again. Being confined to my room for so long, I built up an image of the hospital in my head, and I was simply blown away by its sheer size (so I’m told). The hospital isn’t really that big, but when you have been spending day and night in one room the size of a luxurious dog kennel, the rest of the complex really did feel like a small city.
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Hi all,
Scott had a visit today from his dog Zoe, which he really enjoyed. The Rehab centre gave the ok for Zoe to now visit on a regular basis. Scott was given a tour of the facilities for the first time being taken around the centre in a wheelchair. Having been confined to his room to date he was surprised as to the size and the facilities contained within.
He was shown the gym and told to expect to be introduced to it next week. He was shown the workshop and introduced to the instructor who told Scott that he was welcome down the track to come and get involved. He was shown a small kitchen