I woke up to the sounds of beeping machines monitoring everything my body was doing and the machine that was pumping fresh oxygen in my lungs constantly make noise too. Laying in a bed I didn’t know in a room I didn’t know with no clue how I got there or why I was even there in the first place but I could see pictures of friends and family taped on the closet of my rehab room. (I don’t remember waking up in the hospital only in rehab) which I’m pretty thankful for because I was in a tremendous amount of pain even on all the painkillers I was given at that time. Each time I awoke I had no clue where I was or what had happened to me so my parents had printed sheets of the questions I would usually ask in front of my face in a way that I didn’t have to turn my head (because I couldn’t) to read the questions I would ask every time I woke up. Questions like where am I? What happened? Did anyone else get hurt? I was more concerned with the potential safety of everyone else before I even began to question why I was in the hospital unable to move with tubes coming from all different parts of my body. As soon as I would be told that everyone else was fine I would feel a little more relaxed until I would start to grasp the magnitude of my own injuries. At this time my brain only worked at a lower capacity and what I mean by that is basically you could keep telling me the same joke and I would laugh each time as if it had been the first time I had heard the joke. Which my dad found pretty amusing because of his fantastic dad jokes.

 

Before anything else I had to relearn how to eat solid food again because my body had been being fed by a tube connected to my stomach. I’m getting way too ahead of myself. I first had to relearn to drink water by mouth again. Which at 20 years old you feel like an absolute idiot having to be retaught how to do basic human things such as eat and drink. I couldn’t even use the bathroom on my own because my pelvis was shattered so they put me in an adult diaper because I couldn’t leave my bed. I can’t even begin to describe the pain of them having to come change my diaper with a broken pelvis. Every single tug would put me in agonizing pain but it was something that needed to be done. Id find the weakness of each nurse and use it against them so that they would have difficulty taking my diaper off or doing just about anything for me for that matter. To the point where the nurses would fear me and coming into my room to assist me. I’d grab anything I could to get them to stop I would titty twister them or smack them in the balls just about anything to try to get them to stop changing me and putting me in such significant pain. I’m rambling. My healing journey didn’t really begin until I made the decision that my priority was and still is myself and healing my body and mind. And I didn’t and still don’t care how that makes me look because I believe we should all be our own priority. If you are going to obsess over someone why not make it yourself because you have to put your all into you before any type of healing (mental or physical) can happen, I had to become a “yes man” and just say yes to things even if I knew they would put in pain. Because it was all part of the journey or the fight rather to getting better.

 

Fast forward… I’m home from rehab with pins in my hips. And I had to relearn how to walk again. The process began in rehab with a nurse constantly at my side holding on to me just in case. But when I got home my dad made a contraption that was a rail-guided walkway, it wasn’t very long, it fit in the living room, but every day I’d go downstairs to the living room and just walk back and forth holding on to the support beams. At first, it was excruciating I could feel the metal pins in my hips with each half step I took but I didn’t let that stop me I couldn’t let that stop me if I ever wanted to go anywhere besides my parent's house. Which I really did. I wanted out I wanted to travel and do what all the other kids my age were doing like going to college parties, skinny dipping, and honestly I just wanted to get really drunk because I hadn’t in so long. But with a brain injury, I try to stay away from liquor and most alcohol to be honest because I notice it definitely causes more decline in my memory which I already have an issue with so I basically just cut it out completely (besides a glass of wine once in a while) which I have checked with my neurologist and he said that was fine, as long as I wasn’t going overboard and drinking until I blacked out. I missed all those “end of the year” parties and graduation parties. My biggest issue right now is that I don’t really know what I’m doing and I’m watching all my friends become nurses and doctors realizing that I might never be able to do something like that and I won’t be able to with my memory you have a career that and that was the type of career of always wanted to be able to help other people through medical situations like the one I went through I helped him through that but the studying studying that I would have to do I’m just not able to do because of my memory or it would be profoundly difficult i’m just not sure I’d be able to do that and I’m not trying to say that with I’m not trying to go out these negative thoughts but with how my memory is I just really I’m not sure I’d be able to hold onto all that information and things like that because I can barely remember where I put something when I put it down how am I supposed to remember the human body and all its anatomy if I can’t even remember where I put my phone when I just put it down.

 

So here I sit in tears calling a friend to discuss how I’m going to do this and how I’m going to get out of my hometown and start a career and a life for myself and really just be able to be proud of where I am and what I have accomplished because right now I’m really not feeling that way and I want to be able to help people so that no one who is going through a situation like mine has to feel this way because no one deserves to feel this way absolutely nope I feel like you’re on the absolute last straw and the straws already go on and like there’s no other options for you I would never wish that upon anyone else. Having said that I also never even wish that on myself because feeling the way I feel right now is just mentally and physically debilitating and I do not deserve that and I deserve to feel inspired by how much I’ve grown and how much I went through to get myself here and where I am today. I don’t deserve to be on the floor of my bathroom crying because I’m just not sure where my life is going and what I’m doing. I deserve to feel like I have made it this far for a reason and in doing so I will be able to help others get to not only where I am currently (physically) to beyond what I’ve gotten to what I have been able to accomplish for myself. I’ve hit a wall in which I’m not sure where to go or what to do next.