I never welcomed Christmas break like I did that first year. My body needed that rest and break. I had been pushing so hard. I was starting to get so frustrated. I am used to working hard at things and pushing as much as I can to achieve a goal but no matter how hard I pushed or how hard I worked I wasn’t getting better. Feelings of failure set in – I tried to do things and yet I couldn’t. I couldn’t meet the standards I used to have or the standards that I felt others were putting on me.
Piano was frustrating because every time I sat down and practiced it was a reminder of what I lost. I did not understand why I did not have my piano ability back. Often I would think “doesn’t God want to give me back something I had used in service to Him?” I would play for 5-10 min and get up in so much pain and such heartache that it made sitting down and playing challenging. I was someone who was used to sitting down for hours at the piano. It was something I loved. Something that even if challenging at times I knew if I worked hard enough I could always learn the piece that was giving me trouble but this time that didn’t work. Pushing just brought more pain and more symptoms. Lines would blur together or my brain would blank out on what the note was. I couldn’t even move my hands and hit the right notes without looking. Since I was a little girl I had loved music. I always had music playing or I was singing and for the first time my house was quiet. My car was quiet. Music had always been my therapy – my way of working through my emotions and now I had all these feelings and I couldn’t work them out. Everything went quiet – including my own voice. I welcomed the darkness and the quiet. My family would jokingly call my house my cave and I was beginning to like it that way.
I felt so useless. I had so many things I was doing and areas that I served and this injury brought me from being involved to basically nothing. I couldn’t even keep up with my friend’s lives because I couldn’t remember things they told me. Each day I could only focus on the next thing to get through. I felt selfish and self-centered. What purpose did God have in this? What ministry could I still have? I remember that Christmas one small part of pastor’s message. He mentioned Anna in Luke 2 and how because of her age she didn’t have a ministry so prayer became her ministry. That one sentence is what stuck with me and I realized God has removed a lot but I can pray. When I was up at nights I prayed. I had a list in my phone and whatever was on the list I prayed for. There were times I couldn’t because the pain was so horrible that I couldn’t think beyond the pain besides Lord help! But when I could I prayed. I also had a friend who was a night owl and when the pain got really bad she would call and pray over the phone while I laid there with my ice packs and tears. Prayer became my lifeline. Something I held precious and something I could do.
I learned holidays were challenging. Christmas was one of the harder ones. We got together as a family on Christmas eve and Christmas day. Back to back days made it difficult. Even now seven years later and I hardly sleep between those two days. We have a small family but even then the multiple conversations that happened my brain couldn’t keep up with. I remember sitting there and I would have a thought but by the time I was able to start talking the conversation had moved on. I quickly learned I just didn’t have the energy to say most things out loud. I went from talking a lot before injury to hardly at all. I had thoughts that would cross my mind many times but no energy to speak them or by the time I tried to speak them the conversation had moved on. I just sat – being there physically but struggling mentally.
Around this time the person handling my case with workman’s comp told me that she was trying to get me in to see a neurologist. She said it would take a while. I told her I don’t care just get it scheduled. I thought she was working on it behind the scenes but when I would email or call she wouldn’t return either and when she did she kept saying it will be a while to get in. Again I would tell her just get a date scheduled. We were getting close to a year and things weren’t getting better. Things weren’t right. My doctor was doing what he could with medicines but I was a shell of the person I once was. I had so many physical symptoms – balance, dizziness, the constant pain, being overwhelmed with basic stuff, memory, the constant tears, noise and light sensitivities just to name a few. Erin had also kept telling me I had a forward head posture and a head tilt. The more the spring semester went on the less and less my contact at workman’s comp would return phone calls or emails. She still reimbursed me for my prescriptions but that’s all I was getting back from her. She left me out to dry. Stuck navigating through things.
We were quickly approaching the one year mark. School was a daily struggle. The constant pain was overwhelming. When I had to go home during the day the office person would get on me saying I should have let them know as soon as the pain started that I may need a sub. I thought to myself I’m in constant pain. There is no start date except the date of injury. Each day I tried as much as I could with God’s help to make it through. I knew people didn’t understand but that didn’t make it easier. As the school days got harder and harder I couldn’t wait until summer. My body needed the break. My chosen handpicked group of students the Lord gave me were what I needed to keep going. That verse on God’s goodness became so evident each day I spent with them.
Spring break came and my mom and I went on the cruise we already had scheduled. We had to learn a whole new way to cruise. I couldn’t do the things I used to or handle a lot of the environments. We avoided the main areas and walked down the hallways with rooms to get from one side of the ship to the other. I hung out on the balcony a lot. I took naps every afternoon. It was nice just to lay somewhere different and have different scenery. I love the sound of the waves and the smell of the salt air. Erin told me to make sure I put my feet in some sand which I did for a little bit at the private island. I used to not like the feel of the sand when my feet sunk down in it but it didn’t bother me like it used to. The waiters and waitresses would try to find a quiet area for us to eat and were quick to get us in and out. I couldn’t fly so we had a longer drive and I slept most of the way. My mom lost her talkative travel companion.
That April we also had our yearly overnight trip. Thankfully it wasn’t back to Charleston because I was dreading even the thought of that place. This time it was to the zoo. I didn’t have a choice about going but I begged my administrator for a former co-worker to be able to go with me. She knew my students and I needed someone to step up when I couldn’t. There was no way I could teach all day, ride the bus for 90 min and stay up until 10/11 at night – no way! My administrator gave me a lot of push back but eventually gave in. As that day continued to go on I was thankful I had someone to tag team and step in for me. My co-worker didn’t understand at the time and made some comments but my friend reminded me to ignore it and that I was doing the best I could. The workers there were nice and gave me my own area to sleep away from the students and parents. My friend was responsible for my students that night and she told me the next day that it would have made things worse for me. It took weeks as it was to bounce back from that one overnight trip.
The one year anniversary came. I was so tired of the pain. At one of my appointments with Erin I told her I could understand people who took their own life because of being tired of the pain. I was there and it had only been a year. Living daily with pain levels between 6-9 and trying to pretend and do everything that I used to but failing horribly at it….I was done. I was trying so hard to push through…trying so hard to keep working at things and doing my best but I was a failure! I knew there was so much wrong with me but was just being told one day I’ll be fine. People were telling me that they missed the old me and the way I used to be but I didn’t know how to be that person anymore. I felt like I was a failure at being me…a failure to my family and friends. Why wasn’t God healing? I was trusting and leaning on Him and knew He was lifting me up and holding me close but things weren’t getting better. They were getting worse. I was so so tired of the pain. When was God going to say I had enough and lift it from me. I wouldn’t do anything to take my life but I started having an understanding of why people who lived such lives of pain did.
I tried to add humor to the anniversary date. I named my spot of pain. I felt like at this point it wasn’t going away for the foreseeable future. I named my head pain Peppy Charles. Peppy because the pulsing and throbbing never stopped and Charles after the place I got my injury. The anniversary date hit hard anyways and with it came an acceptance of thinking this pain will never go away. Still no news from workman’s comp. I couldn’t move forward without them and they were quiet and unresponsive.
TBI Survivor 
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