Liam's first post

I’m sorry for the delay in adding to this posting. Things have been pretty hectic since coming home. I have been meaning to write on this blog since then but have only recently felt that I had the energy and skill required. I have started to use this blog as a personal journal and this is my latest entry. It has been very beneficial for me to write down all my thoughts, so this posting is more for me than any of you. So I apologize in advance for the length of this posting, feel free to not read as much as you like, I will only hold it against you for a little while because if you tell me that you have only read half of it, chances are that I will forget pretty quickly.
I’ll start with how things are going. Things seem to be progressing well although I’ve had some small setbacks along the way. Recently I have been getting an odd feeling in my left hand. It feels like pins and needles as if I have been sitting on my hand and there is no blood getting to it. The thinking from all of my medical people is that my shoulder is not working properly and that the ball part of my arm is not quite fitting properly into the socket part of my shoulder. This could be pinching a blood line or possibly a nerve. The thought is that this should go away by itself over time. The interesting thing is that my therapists have told me that this feeling can actually be a good sign in some cases. Apparently, when you have lost feeling in a limb this can be the first sensation that you get as things are getting better, so it could be a good sign. The only problem is that I never lost any feeling in my left hand so the doctors don’t really know what is going on. I guess this is part of what my doctors have been telling me, that there is no “normal” brain injury, everyone is different. This is why the doctors have never been able to tell me any odds that I have about anything, because every brain and brain injury recovery is different. It can be a little frustrating because when I ask when I will be able to go back to work or be normal they have no good answer and always say something like “Let’s wait and see how it goes.”
I had a recent development with my math skills. About a week and a half ago I took a very simple math test with no calculator allowed in my occupational therapy. When I first looked at the problem I had no idea how to progress and was just guessing and checking. Eventually my therapist came to talk me through it. However, even though I knew how to do it, I still really messed up and got the problems wrong. I think some of this can be explained by simple math errors, everyone does that every now and then. This had me pretty down and concerned as so much of my life revolves around being able to be good with numbers. The good news is that last week in occupational therapy I had the same exam and this time I got everything right. I felt very relieved with this. It just goes to show that ups and downs are to be expected and how quickly they can happen.
Another recent incident was that I had a small fall. I was bending down pretty low and I lost my balance. I let myself fall over because I have always heard that people usually hurt their limbs when trying to stop themselves from falling. Also, I was only a couple of inches off the ground and my bum was falling on to a padded carpet so I only feel a couple of inches and didn’t hit my head on anything. I didn’t tell Erika immediately because I didn’t want her to worry. I figured that she has done enough worrying over the last couple of months. I did tell my doctor and he said, “I will tell you what I tall all my patients and that is that adults don’t fall over.” I beg to differ, Erika is quite clumsy.
Recently my physical therapist told me that I could start pushing myself harder by doing some pretty demanding exercises. Until now all my physical therapy has been designed around me regaining my balance. Now that my balance appears to be getting back on track I can now focus on regaining my strength. It is pretty cool, for the first time I feel that I am doing exercises similar to ones that I would have done before the injury, complete with the leg burn.
I have learned recently of some interesting mental problems that I am facing. When I first started outpatient therapy I must have been asked a dozen times by different doctors if I felt any depression or anger. I kept telling them no but began to worry that maybe I should start feeling depressed. I felt no anger or depression before starting out patient therapy then inexplicably I had two separate instances of just felling really down and one weird instance of feeling angry. It was really odd, I woke one morning feeling fine then when I got in the shower I suddenly got very angry. I don’t really know what I was angry about, just angry at the world and maybe partly angry about my predicament. But then I went downstairs and started talking to a couple of friends who were here and as quickly as the anger materialized, it disappeared. Just having friends around to talk to relieved the situation. Apparently, sudden mood changes are something that is very common for brain injury patients.
Another interesting mental development is my current lack of judgment when talking to people. The way it was described to me is that everyone has a filter that helps them determine if something is appropriate to say at a given time. Apparently my filter is in need of some work right now so I may say inappropriate things sometimes. I feel that I have become pretty aware of this problem so, with a little concentration and thought I am able to avoid too many problems. One of my therapists told me that she also felt that I am a pretty self-aware person, given my injury. She said that being self-aware with moderate brain injury is better than not being self-aware with a mild brain injury as far as long term development and growth is concerned. That was very encouraging to hear.
Another interesting development that I have had and that is common to many brain injury patients is a change in impulsivity. Apparently I am now much more likely to impulsively change the conversation when talking to someone leaving them confused and me looking odd. I have not been conscious of this so far but have made a mental commitment to look out for this in the future. I have been told by my occupational therapist that playing video games is good for me because I use both hands at once while thinking about something else. So I was just keeping up with doctor’s orders when I was playing video games with Joel one day when all of a sudden I put down my controller, got up and started vacuuming without saying a word to Joel. Joel asked me what I was doing and I rather curtly said, “Vacuuming, obviously.” We didn’t know at the time that this was a symptom of the brain injury but he was able to recognize that it seemed odd even though I didn’t. My speech therapist recently asked me if I had noticed any signs of impulsivity. When I told her this story she just laughed at me for being such an avid vacuumer. By the way, a “speech therapist” is the new politically correct term for a mental or psychological doctor.
I would like to thank everyone for posting messages on this blog. I know what a great job everyone did on my blog but I will thank you all to stop telling me what a good job you think Joel did on his postings, it is hard enough to keep his ego in check as it is. So far, I have told him that only one person has mentioned his postings, I want him to be able to fit through the door with his big ego, after all, I need him to take me to outpatient therapy still. This may seem a little rude to Joel but I want him to know that I am the same person I have always been, so I have to get in a little jab at him.
Now that I have given you a little update I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone. I have no doubt that everyone, even those who have just thought about me helped saved my life. I am absolutely convinced that even in my darkest hour my brain on some level was able to recognize all the good friends that I had around and wanted to get better in order to give me more opportunities to talk to all of these good people. At one point a nurse told Erika about the things I needed in order to get better. She told Erika that I was young, healthy, had never been a smoker, and most importantly that I had a good support system. She said that these are the things that every patient who gets better has.
I would like to take some time to mention that I in no way hold soccer(football for those outside the U.S.) responsible for my injury. It is my hope that everyone learns to love it as much as I do. It would be easy to blame soccer for my injury but soccer has taught me so much that has helped me in my recovery. Soccer has taught me how to be positive, how to work hard in the face of adversity and how to break through seemingly impossible barriers. Not even mentioning all the good people it has allowed me to make friends of. Soccer is the perfect analogy for life in so many ways. You can get better at it by working hard and learning. No matter how good you are, there are times that you need some help from your teammates and I am lucky enough to have some of the best around. Even though it may seem tough and you may be losing, there is always something to be learned. When you get fouled, even if it is not fair, you need to get back up and keep playing.
Go Chelsea!
On a final note, I have decided to use this injury as an opportunity to learn and grow.
I look at it as though there was pre-injury Liam who is now replaced with post-injury Liam. Post-injury Liam is committed to trying how to learn how to be a better person, just for Jonah who expressed some sadness when he asked how I was doing and was told that it looked like I was going to be the same person. His response was, “Oh, so he’s not going to get any better?” Well Jonah, this is for you and from now on shut your trap.
One thing that I have learned so far is that there are always positive occurrences even in negative developments. Some of the good that I have taken comes from a story that my Dad told me. He said that when he was in the hospital he had met a medical team member who was having a bit of a crisis of conscience and was unsure if she wanted to stay in the medical profession. She told my Dad that after seeing my case and the positive way it turned out and how many friends were pulling for me that she had decided to stay and become a doctor. I just thought it was very cool that even though I was unable to talk I was able to help someone with a life decision.
Another positive development is that I feel as though I have had a midlife crisis (although I doubt that 29 is the middle of my life) and can now see the world in a more clear light. In our society it is so easy to become wrapped up in really inconsequential things. I feel very lucky to be reminded that the character of one’s life cannot be judged by possessions but instead by the company one keeps.
Another one of the positive developments was to be reminded of all of my great friendships, including being reminded of the high school friends that still think of me. It is too easy to forget how fortunate I am to have known such a high caliber of people but from now on I promise to do my best not to forget that. This leads me to one of the things about myself that I would like to change and that is not to take any of the people in my life for granted.
Since I am trying to change things in my life, I thought of one last thing you could do for me is try to use my injury as an opportunity to change something in your life that you have always wanted to and to let me know.
And finally the best positive development is that I am going to get to learn how to ride a motorcycle again. Most people don’t even learn the thrill of a motorcycle once but I get that thrill twice in my life. I had ordered a new seat before I got injured but it just arrived last week. Joel helped me put it on the bike and I am so excited to try it out.
I wish the best to everyone reading this and thanks again.
All the best,
Liam