Oh, the places you’ll go!

 You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go.




What is Traumatic Brain Injury?

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is caused by a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the normal function of the brain. Not all blows or jolts to the head result in a TBI. The severity of a TBI may range from “mild,” i.e., a brief change in mental status or consciousness to “severe,” i.e., an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia after the injury.

How many people have TBI? 
TBIs contribute to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability annually. Of the 1.4 million who sustain a TBI each year in the United States:

• 50,000 die;
• 235,000 are hospitalized; and
• 1.1 million are treated and released from an emergency department.

Signs and Symptoms

The signs and symptoms of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be subtle. Symptoms of a TBI may not appear until days or weeks following the injury or may even be missed as people may look fine even though they may act or feel differently. The following are some common signs and symptoms of a TBI: Headaches or neck pain that do not go away; Difficulty remembering, concentrating, or making decisions; Slowness in thinking, speaking, acting, or reading; Getting lost or easily confused; Feeling tired all of the time, having no energy or motivation; Mood changes (feeling sad or angry for no reason); Changes in sleep patterns (sleeping a lot more or having a hard time sleeping); Light-headedness, dizziness, or loss of balance; Nausea; Increased sensitivity to lights, sounds, or distractions; Blurred vision or eyes that tire easily; Loss of sense of smell or taste; and Ringing in the ears.

SEE FOOTNOTE

At the age of sixteen, Julien Modica was an Olympic hopeful.  His sport, pole-vaulting. In 1976, Julien was the Virginia State Champion pole-vaulter and was on his way to greater heights when an accident during one of his practices left him in a coma for thirteen days.  The severe brain injury he suffered left him paralyzed on the left side, unable to walk, and an attention span of a couple of minutes.  But with perseverance and hard work, he completed a BS in physics from  American University in 1987, a Masters in Public Heath from Eastern Virginia Medical school in 2003, a Masters in Public Policy from George Mason University and has gone on to become a tireless advocate for people with brain injuries.

Q:      Tell us what your process involved in the early days of your recovery?  

JM:     Very early recovery was me trying for months (hours every day) to straighten my left arm through various “home made” techniques and while using the wall for balance I stood for minutes and then hours trying to shift my weight from the left side to the right side and then back again.

Q:      When did you know you had “recovered” from your brain injury?

JM:     I fully recovered on three levels: physically, cognitively, and emotionally. After each level, I just instinctively felt whole again. After I fully recovered emotionally, I felt more whole than I had for each of the previous two levels. I can describe my feelings each time through a sense of relief, and each time the feeling was so overwhelming it brought tears to my eyes. I can also remember precisely where I was each time full recovery happened.

Q:      How has your brain injury made you a better person?

JM:     I was very lucky in the sense that pre-morbidly I was a good student and good athlete. After my injury, I had lost everything, from my ability to perform academically to my ability to perform athletically. The path to full recovery I accepted within weeks of my injury is a path, I don’t believe, many people would have attempted. The act of following through on the promise I made to myself has made me a stronger and more mature person than I probably would have been simply because I have now experienced the very, very bottom and managed to pull myself back up.

Q:      Do you have any regrets? 

JM:     Things you knew you would have been able to accomplish if the brain injury hadn’t occurred? My God, I have hundreds of regrets, but the one thing I don’t regret is having my two daughters with their mother. My daughters have grown to be as academically talented as their mother (a developmental pediatrician) and as athletically talented as me. Without my injury, I would have never met their mother and we would not have had our children.

Q:      Nearly all of us who have experienced the devastating effects of a brain injury have had to cope with very dark, hopeless days.  How did you get through yours?  What helped you to keep going?

JM:     Interesting question. The pure challenge of recovery has kept me motivated and out of necessity I quickly learned how to thrive off that challenge. Consequently, I have had very few dark days.

Q:      I know you’ve just begun the long, difficult work of a congressional campaign in the 10^th district of Virginia.  Tell us about that .

JM:     I believe the community where I was injured and where I have recovered, the 10^th District of Virginia, has been essential to what I have accomplished. My recovery has been touched by Virginians throughout  the 10^th District in ways that I will never truly understand and will never be able to repay. It is this sense of community that has made America strong. As a member of Congress, I will bring this same sense of community to the legislative process and, again, make government work for the 10^th District of Virginia.

Thank you Julien.  We'll keep following you and touch base again.  To find out move about Julien Modica, please contact him at 703-788-6636 or visit his website www.julienmodica.com or his blog http://julienmodica.com/blog/

************

 You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

_______________________________________________________

FOOTNOTES:

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (ISBN 978-0-679-80527-4), written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss, 1990. 

CDC - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control 

Openings: Part I--I’m working on my opening paragraph and I could use your help.

The infrequent postings in the last two months have been due to work and family events. I have continued to read and take copious of notes, but actual work on the book has been stalled. I haven’t written a respectable sentence in nearly 6 weeks.

In the last week though, I’ve settled into my routine again of getting up early, having my coffee by the warm fire and writing. Finally, the rough draft of Chapter 2 is complete (well, as complete as anything ever is when you’re writing a book). My goodness, I’ve delivered babies easier than this!

My goal now is to work the first three chapters into a cohesive flowing third draft.

One of the reference books I regularly use is, The Complete Book of Novel Writing by Meg Leder, Jack Heffron and the editors of Writer’s Digest. The chapter, The Fifty-Page Dash by Dave King, an independent editor, discussed the all important “hook” that must grab the reader in the first fifty pages. He goes on the say that the opening pages are where the writer must create the tension to drive the reader onward, that the conflict for the main character must be compelling and link to the plot through subsequent scenes.

After my Chapter 1 was critiqued by the Boulder Writer’s Meetup Group, I put it aside. I only meant for that to be a week or two, but it’s been a couple of months now. One of the critiques was that my Chapter 1, which ends at the scene of the car accident, might be a better chapter five. Um! I’ll give that some thought. Other comments included: the characters have clear, distinct voices, but need to be more interesting, quirky; there’s a gentle sweetness to the chapter, but there needs to be more tension; show some bad behavior about the marriage gone bad; embellish the scenes more; dialogue needs to be more forceful; the chapter is constrained by the facts; it’s not believable how perfect the main character’s life is; the characters are real, believable and comfortable to get to know; great style; there’s a richness to the mother and daughters’ relationships; the chapter opens too slowly, it needs to grab the reader’s attention better; needs more action. I very much appreciated those people who took their time to read and comment on this first chapter. It helps a great deal.

I’m working on my opening paragraph and I could use your help. I’ll be posting four or five samples of an opening paragraph, which may turn out to be the opening page and would like your opinion. The basic question is: does this hook you? Would buy the book based on just this? If it doesn’t hook you, your comments would be most helpful.

The sun is rising. It’ll be a reasonably warm January day. Something got done during today’s writing time.

Death changes things for the living.

It’s been a little over four months since this project began—blogging about writing my book Out of the Darkness. And, as one might imagine, life happens, things change. 

Kevin’s mother died on Monday the 14^th of December.  His father died on a Monday too.  It was also the 14^th of the month.  It was seventeen months ago.

I came late in their lives.  I didn’t get to know them well.  But, in the aftermath--the chores of cleaning up a life or lives--I am getting to know them.  It makes me smile.  Kevin is so much like each of them in different ways. The nut doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

Kevin’s poem to his mother:

Release

Descending:

          An anxious breeze

            A fractured, rustling scape,

          Unsettled mind

            Swirling, amorphous shapes.

Transcending:

          The thinning veil

            A sparkling curtain of light,

          The beckoning hands of her lover

            From the other side.

          Resurgent hope and promises to keep

            Melt into a euphoric peace.

Ascending:

          Mesmerized by that dazzling light

            Drawing her softly to the source,

          Sans fright.  She acquiesces willingly

            To its all-enveloping serenity.

One of the themes of the book-Out of the Darkness--is ascension to hope. 

Darkness turns into light/hope.  Death becomes rebirth.  Endings transition into beginnings.

It is my belief that all energy simply transforms itself and that there is never an ending in the way we might think. 

The day after my father died nearly seven years ago now, I saw him.  I did.  I was sitting in the family room in my big chair for my morning meditation.  I opened my eyes and there he stood.  Before me was not the old frail man who had just died, but my father about the age of 40, dark wavy hair, handsome, lean.  He was wearing khaki pants and a white button down shirt and dark loafers.  He didn’t speak to me, but simply smiled. And that smile spoke a thousand words and I was shown briefly, very briefly the beauty, peace and love from the other side.

Kevin’s parents are on that side now. Their human pain and suffering is over.  The anxiety, the fear, the loneliness have been transformed into peace, love and belonging.

Death changes things for the living, because death transforms us.

With Gratitude: Part One

With Gratitude: Part One

Posted using ShareThis

Broken Brain-Brilliant Mind, The Story of Alicia, It's a Wonderful Life, Second Chance to Live.

I've been following a blog called Broken Brain-Brilliant Mind (excellent title) by a fellow who has sustained multiple MTBIs (which is more common than you might imagine; think about how one keeps hitting a sore thumb). He doesn't identify himself by name or location (he explains why and I think he has some good points) but writes a lot and has a lot of good resources.  His post the other day (the day before Thanksgiving) about his plan for handling all the activity of a holiday nicely describes what must go on behind the scenes for people with brain injuries.  I remember needing to plan like this.  I simply could NOT handle the noise and activity.  I couldn't follow a conversation.  So, I would have an escape plan; an excuse. When I got overwhelmed (which happened very quickly when I was first injured) I couldn't think and then the headache would come on and I would be debilitated... again.  Consequently, I spent a lot of time alone.  I lost friends (it's hard to maintain friendships when you don't call people back).  I never answered the telephone (and now, unfortunately, that's a habit that remains).

This fellow also goes on about the hope he has for a full recovery.  Where would we be without hope.  He quotes Winston Churchill: "Never, never, never give up."  Somewhere early in my healing process, I got a postcard from a friend (the source never identified her/himself) with this exact quote.  It stayed on my refrigerator for years.

He posted a link to this documentary about Alicia who suffered a TBI about seven years ago.  There are nine episodes from the documentary on YouTube.  It's amazing what the power of the human spirit can do.  She pulled herself (with the help of her family and care providers) out of the depths of her injuries and has fulfilled her dream to become an actress and this documentary tells her story.

I didn't want this experience.  I didn't ask for this. I didn't want a brain injury. But who does? Who wants this kind of trouble to land in their lap? Who wants to have to work hard for years and years to overcome problems like these?  These blogs, videos and stories I'm reading/watching are about amazingly courageous people.

We're in the season of It's a Wonderful Life.  I mentioned a little about this in my last post. I first saw this movie many years ago and now watch it every year after Thanksgiving.  In fact, for the last bunch of years, I watch it more than once, alone.  My family will no longer tolerate it.  As schmaltzy as this is, it brings me hope. It brings me joy!  There is so much symbolism in this movie for me.  So much!  Even down to the fact that when the depression hit, and it slapped me hard, and I became suicidal and I had my plan in place and I was going to leave my children without a mother (I actually thought they'd be better off without me), my angel was Clarence.  I swear to you!  The real life person that brought me back from the brink of suicide was named Clarence.

Clarence is a friend of a friend.  I knew him a little, not a lot.  I ran into him in Boulder in May of 1999 and he said, "I heard you had a car accident."  He asked me how I was doing.  I said, "Fine." Which was true, because, when you're actively suicidal, you are fine; all the pain and suffering is going to be over soon.  He said, "Well I have a little experience overcoming medical problems, could we get together for lunch some time?"  And that was the beginning of an unbelieveably incredible set of events that brought me out of the darkness.  I will post some selections from the book about this when they're ready. 

Second Chance to Live is a website/blog I ran across today.  I love his phrase: Through my process I have learned a valuable lesson. I am not my traumatic brain injury, my deficits or my limitations.

Here are some statistics I believe are worth sharing:

• 121 million people worldwide suffer from depression. (The World Health Organization)
• 18 million of these cases are happening in the United States. (The National Institute of Mental Health)
• Two-thirds of those suffering from depression never seek treatment.
• Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide. 
• Almost four times as many men commit suicide as women. (NIMH)
• Someone takes their life every 16 minutes in the US.
• Suicide is preventable. 

Resources:

• Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• The website To Write Love on Her Arms which I wrote just a bit about in my last post.  This is a wonderful project.  Share it with others!

New Orleans is LOUD

I was in New Orleans last week for the annual ASHA (American Speech-Language Hearing Association) convention with ten thousand other speech pathologists and audiologists from the US and Canada.

Our hotel was just two blocks from the French Quarter a lovely and amazing historic section of New Orleans that is a must see.

On our first night, we walked the streets a bit looking for a place for dinner. We had a couple of restaurant suggestions, like ACME Oyster House, but there was a very long wait and we were all starving after a long day of travel.

We wandered the streets a while longer and happened upon K Joe's Cajun & Creole Cuisine. What an amazingly wonderful find. It was early in the evening and the restaurant was quiet, although not for long, because we kept waving people in who stopped to read the menu displayed out front.  They were mostly other people from the convention.

Our waiter, Andrew was friendly and efficient. Travis, the owner/GM came over to the table and chatted with us. He brought us freshly made crackers with a hot spicy jelly and cream cheese. I could have eaten just that for dinner. It was amazing.

I had the blackened catfish. It was perfectly moist and the etouffee sauce was tangy and of a good consistency, although, I'm not the best judge of etouffee, being new to Creole cuisine.

Travis promised to show us the upstairs private dining room and the Chris Owens room after our dinner. Wow! Beautiful decor. I'd love to arrange a private party! He showed us the back patio and explained it was still in the development stages; the restaurant had only been opened for two months.
And wow! Chris Owens, what a woman!

We finished up our experience at K-Joes' with Mardi Gras beads, with without expectation (wink).

Then we were off to, were else, Bourbon Street. It was loud, smelly and bawdy. But I had the Bourdon Street experience, minus the Bourbon. Loud music spilled out into the street. Live music. Rock n’ Roll. Jazz. We ended up at a karaoke club, Cat’s Meow. 

I had just met the ladies I was with. ASHA has a find-a-roommate section of their website for the convention and my roommate (a lovely gal from Boston) had a friend who had a friend who had a friend, etc. There were about eight of us.

Well, the ladies stopped along our walk on Bourbon Street to slug down Hurricanes, a fruity rum kind of drink, I think, in plastic to-go cups. So, by the time we got to the Cat’s Meow, they were feeling just fine. It was funny. They were funny. Very funny. 

New Orleans in LOUD. There’s noise in the streets, the cable cars clang, the riverboats whale, music blares from open windows and patios, even the elevators and airport shuttle blast loud music.

The week was full. There is much to tell. Of significance, though was that I am proud of my profession. There are a lot of people doing a lot of good things. I am proud that we, as a group of people are compassionate and caring. When I talked about the work I do with transgender people, there was only kindness and support. It should always be like that. 

But, it isn’t. While I was in New Orleans, the transgender community had their annual nationwide Transgender Day of Remembrance for honoring people who are murdered by the hands of others because they are transgendered. 

I didn't get much writing done while I was in New Orleans.  I could barely think with all the noise. 

Laptops and lattés

Last Saturday was the day!  My Chapter 1, Saturday June 13, was critiqued.  I meant to post this blog the next day, but that meeting sparked so many ideas, that I’ve been working feverishly all week.  I'm getting Chapter 2 down on paper, but haven’t had a spare neuron to devote to finishing this post (which I began last Saturday).  I decided to stop re-working Chapter 1 so I could let the critique and all the thoughts it created settle into some kind of order.

The Boulder Writers Meetup Group meets in the back room at The Cup on Pearl Street in Boulder every Saturday morning.  The Cup is a hopping place where the cognescenti of Boulder gather with their laptops, lattés and introspective glances to no one in particular.

There were about ten of us and mine was second of the two pieces that were presented.  It worked for me; definitely! I loved hearing the impressions people had of my writing, and what worked and what didn’t work about the chapter.  What was very meaningful to me was how people related to the characters, what they thought of them and how they interpreted their personalities and their relationships to each other.  I was pleased that some people got what I was trying to convey and connected some of the symbolic elements.  Without a doubt, the comments were valuable (whether they were positive or negative) and I will make use of them.  Thank you group!  

But, I was and still am quite overwhelmed.  

Out of the Darkness isn’t actually a story about a car accident; it could have been a story about a death, a diagnosis of cancer or the broken heart of a wife after 20 years of devotion to her husband which ends in him leaving her for a younger woman.

Out of the Darkness is about the events that occur after one single instant that changes the course of a life.  What are those instances that change us forever?  Those moments that are never anticipated and can’t be denied.  It’s about the hurdles the character faces in overcoming the ravages of her brain and body and the journey she takes to repair her life. 

It’s a bad-things-happen-to-good-people story.  It’s a something-goes-amiss story.  It’s a self-against-self story.  

In the Flemish morality play, Everyman (c. 1500), the character is representative of all of us--the human race. When Everyman is summoned by death, he discovers that his friends Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin, and Goods will not go with him. It is Good Deeds, whom he previously neglected, who finally supports him and who offers to justify him before the throne of God.  

In literature and drama, the term "everyman" has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify, who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances. 

So, is Camryn an Everywoman? Is she an ordinary woman? Camryn is a divorced mother of two children; she’s back at school for an advanced degree, works full time, cleans the house, cooks dinners, does the laundry, makes Halloween costumes for the kids and bakes Christmas cookies each December.  She is summoned by death when she faces the extraordinary task of overcoming a brain injury and chronic pain.  

There are so many of us who suffer.  I ran across a website over the weekend To Write Love on her Arms

We’ve learned that two out of three people who struggle with depression never seek help, and that untreated depression is the leading cause of suicide.  In America alone, it’s estimated that 19 million people live with depression, and suicide is the third-leading cause of death among those 18-24 years old.

The good news is that depression is very treatable, that a very real hope exists in the face of these issues.  We’ve met people who are getting the help they need, sitting across from a counselor for the first time, stepping into treatment, or reaching out to a suicide hotline in a desperate moment.

There are those who suffer and are those who reach out.  Someone reached out to me.  His name is Clarence; it was my George Bailey moment.