Saturday, June 8, 2013

Chapter 104 - May 28, 2013

Day 1198. That's how long it's been since I had my first bleed, approximately that amount. Anyway, it's been a long haul. It reminds me of training. I get up, I work out until lunch. Have lunch, and then I take a nap. I get up, I work out until dinner. I have dinner, watch some television then go to sleep. I get up the next day and start the whole process over again. It's like college training. You know, stuff I did as a competitive runner.

Man, it seems I can't catch a break. You know, when you have traumatic brain injury, it's good to stay away from stress. Stress, HA! Check this out. I get a phone call and someone I dearly love, and that is far away, is admitted to an emergency room. Not only that, but I can't get there because I can't fly, and driving might trigger a seizure. It's working itself out, but there are some things I can't really go into. Just another day.

The stressful event has brought on some mini-moments, I call them. I have little, you might call them seizures at the end of the day. You know stuff happens when you're tired. So bottom line is, you just gotta avoid stress. I avoid stress by meditating or drawing, or listening to music. You'll find your own way of dealing with stress. The other way of avoiding stress for me is I work on my trip across America. My friend here brought over a map of the United States and we're figuring out where to drive and how long. It's fun to do and fun to preoccupy my mind with the details. I'll see my daughter as well. That's motivation.

I'm 53. And lo and behold I wake up in a sea of pea. I'm 53 and I wet the bed. It's a good thing I don't have a girlfriend because she'd be pissed off (no pun intended). What a disaster. My dog keeps looking at me like "What the hell happened?" Anyway, just another Traumatic Brain Injury event. Something like this hasn't happened to me in a long time. I guess it's just because I've been so stressed. It'll pass. It was just an event that happened. No worries. A one time event.

I continue to train, for example, my eyes are registering more and more. I have moments when I don't see double. My vision has been improving which is great because I am a photographer! The other day, I started walking again. Mind you, it's a lot of work and a lot of bracing, but it's where you start. As I get better, I'll lose more and more bracing, and switch to a different walker. I've done all this stuff before, so I know what to do. It just takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts. Like my friend here said, "When you're going through Hell, keep going."

My friend here was reading me my previous blog. We were talking about the college days. Boy I wish I'd paid more attention to things. You know, in each class I had there was someone that was there to the left. They would always do a translation in sign language. They were there for the hearing impaired students. I should have paid more attention. I could have learned sign language. Now the only sign language I know is to flip someone off and I'm fluent in that. One of the most amazing things I did see was at a lunch table at the cafeteria. There were a bunch of hearing impaired students who were also blind. They were all excited to be with one another. They communicated by doing sign language and feeling what the other person was signing. They would sign and use their hands. It was pretty amusing when they all got in an argument at once. 

The more I think about it, the more I remember crazy times we had. One time we kind of "borrowed" the track team van. We thought it'd be a good idea to "borrow" the van to go to a bar, but after a full night of drinking after the bar closed at 4 am, we left to go home. We got in the van and started to pull out, but we saw a car was coming down the hill very fast. The car that was coming down the hill very fast didn't have his lights on. And what did he do? He ran right into us. And then went down the hill bouncing off cars side to side. Took out a few mailboxes, took out a few bushes, went around the corner to the right. Me and my friends jumped out of the van and started chasing him. We saw that he had run into a car and stopped. We went over opened up the drivers side, we were ready to beat the hell out of the guy. We looked at him and he had a big laceration over his face. The guy was clearly messed up. We called the cops. They came and took him away. All of a sudden, we noticed that we were on the lawn of a sorority. There were a bunch of girls in their bathrobes looking at the car and us. All of a sudden my knee really hurt. My friend's arm hurt and my other friend's shoulder hurt. The girls said, "Oh, you poor things, come in and we'll look after you." Well, it was all good, until we realized we had the school van and we had to call our coach.

Well, that's it for this week. My friend, my mom and I will look at the map of the United States. We'll plan our trip. You know, it's going to be in October. I have until October to get ready for the trip. I'm going to call the trip, "A Point of View" because I want to show you guys how I see. I said it before, but I'll say it again. I want to take pictures of the American landscape. I want to show you how I see the world. It's pretty wild. Talk to you guys next week. Love, B. Nice

P.S. My friend here has 2 sons. Boy, she has no idea what she's in for.



2 comments:

  1. Hello my friend, attempt two to post to you. my trusty ipad said no..... Have been out of internet land for a bit and just catching up with everyone including you. Your pee story reminded me of an infamous incident on Bondi beach with Caroline. Do you recall Caroline and I were on the swings, you boys were pushing us, we then moved to the slide.... big mistake as someone had left a deposit at the top that we both slide right through..... disgusting, You and Pete nearly died laughing. Caroline and I ran back to our flat and spent and spent an undisclosed amount of time in the shower trying to scrub each other clean. I swear the smell of shit was up our noses for days.... love Sharon

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  2. In regards to the night of the van incident in college... I remember the night of the sorority sisters nursing us back to health very well... the catching of the out of control driver on foot ... as only as a cross country team can do... our tall gaunt fellow runner "Stach" defending a smaller team mate from a bar room bully with a roundhouse punch that "reigned" down like lightning "from out of nowhere" to take down said bully (actually circumnavigated colleague in distress to land on unsuspecting victim.) Quite a night;) Keep getting better.
    "Holy **it it's the -Wit-"

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