As the Fog Rolled In…
July 8, 2018
On any other day, 12 year old Brady would have come home from school and followed the regular weekday schedule his father had worked so hard to create and maintain. He would have a snack, do his homework, walk the dog, have dinner with his dad, practice his violin and/or his guitar, go for a bike ride or a run with his dad, bathe, and watch a little TV with his dad before spending quiet time reading before going to bed.
Sam had worked hard to be the best father he could be. Having not learned much other than what not to do from his own parents, Sam took pride in studying parenting from books, online articles, parenting magazines, and anything else he could get his hands on. Sam meticulously kept files and records on every aspect of raising his son, down to the details of how to create structure and schedules, how to teach him to study, and to how to encourage him to learn to play two instruments, when he himself did not come from a musical family and had never been encouraged to even try to play an instrument.
Sam arranged his whole life around being with his son. When his son was still three years old, Sam left working a regular 9-to-5 job so he could have the flexibility to spend as much time with him as possible. Sam had always been the one who took Brady to and from daycare from the time he was five and a half weeks old. He wanted to ensure he would be able to continue the tradition and to take him to and from school when that time came as well.
When Brady was four, his mother left and his parents divorced. At no time was there even a thought about him living anywhere other than with his father. Life continued with Sam and Brady living together in the house where he had been raised.
Sam’s mission in life was to raise his son to be the best little person he could be. In line with that mission, when it was clear that Brady had intelligence way beyond his years, Sam researched the best schools he could attend and met and spoke with teachers, principals, and anyone he could to make sure Brady was always in the best programs he could be in. Sam wanted Brady to receive the best educational opportunities available, which Sam understood would take work, both by him and by Brady. Sam provided his son all the parenting Sam never had so that Brady would have a life he could be proud of and would not experience the pain Sam had experienced from his own absentee parents. In Sam and Brady’s house there were rules, schedules, and order, and above all, love—something Sam knew every child needs.
By the time Brady was twelve, he was a city-wide recognized violinist, he had tested in the top percentiles in academics, was maintaining top grades in his classes, and was kind, caring, and respectful. He had even shown talent and passion for competitive cycling, having learned to ride with his dad and even participated in some of his races.
On this particular Tuesday afternoon, however, Brady didn’t come home from school to the usual routine. He came home to see his dad’s bike, bloody and beaten, and to learn his dad had been hit by a car while on it. At some point, Brady was taken up to the hospital to see his dad. By this point, Brady’s estranged grandfather had been contacted, which had to have been confusing for the boy, who hadn’t seen the old man for nearly a year at this point.
Sam was released from the hospital that Friday and taken home, where he was going to be cared for by his mother. He spent the next 3 days sitting in his leather recliner in the middle of his living room, as his mother and his son navigated around him. Though he did not remember much from those first few days, he remembered having to cover his face because everything seemed too bright and too loud. He did not know at the time that these were early signs of his brain injury.
By Monday afternoon, Sam’s mother decided it would be easier on everyone if Sam would go to his estranged father’s house, since all he would be doing would be sleeping any way. This would be Sam’s father, the old man who he had very purposefully not spoken to for almost a year before the accident, and the time before that, who he had not spoken to for nearly 3 years. As I’ve said before, seeing an estranged parent would be a stressful event for the healthiest of adults. To Sam, now struggling with brain injury, even the idea of seeing the old man was sheer terror.
Before he could process what was happening, Sam was sitting in the passenger seat of the old man’s car. With Brady in the back seat, the old man drove them through city traffic with about as much care as a stereotypical overworked baggage handler gives luggage when a flight is delayed. To those of us without brain injury, riding in a car in big city traffic is stressful enough. Now imagine having a driver who regularly hits the gin and tonic during the day and exhibits signs of Alzheimers. Now imagine having just been hit by a car and nearly losing your life a few days earlier. Then add having a brain injury that has stolen your ability to tune out sights and sounds, does not allow you to process or regulate emotions, such as stress, and that has stripped you of the ability to self-soothe.
Finally, they arrived at the old man’s condo. Feeling as though he had just stumbled off of a carnival rollercoaster, Sam awkwardly climbed out of the car (it turns out that having a broken neck makes getting in and out of a sedan particularly challenging), and shuffled himself into his estranged father’s condo. Already a surreal event, since he had not set foot in the place in several years, Sam could not have imagined what it would feel like to walk into his father’s home and see walls full of family pictures that included everyone but Sam. While that would have bothered pre-accident Sam, at least he would have been able to compartmentalize his pain. Post-accident Sam felt the weight of being erased from the wall of family photos like a sledge hammer to his gut, and post-accident Sam had no idea how to control the emotions that came from that pain.
So Sam cried, in fact, sobbed, uncontrollably. And before he knew it, he started talking nonstop, while crying, and sobbing, and began filling in his father on everything that had happened since the last time he saw him. It was as though all of the discomfort and pain Sam felt was now just bursting out through his words and his tears. Pre-accident Sam never would have reacted in this way. He did not know it at the time, but this was one of the early signs of how Sam had lost his filter. It’s actually a very common symptom of TBI, to have lost the filter in your brain that tells you what to say and what not to say in a given moment. But no one told Sam to expect this, so Sam watched himself without any control whatsoever, bare his soul to the old man he had learned not to trust before his accident. And as Sam continued to talk, he found himself saying things he never would have said if he had actually been able to control the words coming out of his mouth. This type of involuntary disinhibition is also common with TBI survivors. But at that time, Sam had no idea that it was his brain that was causing him to say all of these things he didn’t want to say.
Eventually, an exhausted and depleted Sam was left to “rest." This was not until after the old man delegated to 12-year old Brady the only real care-taking task he would have had as Sam's father, that of helping Sam with bathing--a responsibility a child never should have been given, and an experience neither Brady nor Sam should have had to endure. What "rest" after that looked like was Sam was left to sit all night in a chair in the middle of the old man’s living room. Now, my first thought when I heard that Sam was left to sit in a chair all night, was that surely it was a comfy recliner that would have been more comfortable for someone with a broken neck than trying to lay in a flat bed. That was not the case. Apparently the chair the old man put Sam in resembled a dining room chair that had been partially converted into a partial recliner, but only to the extent it had an extending leg support. It reclined about as much as a basic office chair would, but unlike an office chair, this one was made of hard wood with some woven material on it. The point is it was the most uncomfortable chair a person could imagine sitting in, while the chair Sam had been taken from at his home was a soft and comfortable leather recliner. There Sam sat, all night long. Unable to move and unable to sleep, Sam sat there wide awake and waited as minutes turned into hours, crying until daybreak.
The next day, knowing this wasn’t good for him, Sam begged the old man to take him home. The old man refused. So, as soon as he could, he called his mother and begged her to take him home. Instead of coming to get him, however, his mother apparently called the old man and told him that Sam wanted to go home. Given that the old man did not want to take Sam home in the first place, hearing from Sam’s mother only made things worse. For the next hour and a half, the old man passive aggressively took his time getting ready, while Sam sobbed in the next room. Eventually, Sam’s estranged father angrily drove Sam to his house. Trapped in a neck brace on the outside, and in a dark and terrifying new world in his mind, somehow Sam had become an unwitting prisoner of war in enemy hands. Unable to fully process what was going on but knowing it was wrong, Sam clutched the sides of his seat as he wondered if he would survive the drive home.
Once home, Sam was left alone to sit in his recliner, with the exception of his young son being the one to help him shower. Apparently both of Sam's parents were content to rely on their 12-year old grandson to act as his father's orderly, as long as they did not have to deal with it. Sam would later learn that people who sustain the types of injuries he had are typically released from the hospital to stay in a treatment facility for at least a few weeks, where medical attention and supervision would be available 24 hours a day. Sam was left to take care of himself two weeks after being hit by a car and smashing his head through the car’s windshield. There, in his recliner, he bounced between nightmares, vivid dreams, and darkness, in a land of mass confusion and borderline consciousness. Other than knowing he had a broken neck because he was in a neck brace, and that he had a broken thumb because it was in a splint, Sam had no idea what his overall condition was, what his prognosis would be, what the next steps were, or what his options were for recovery. But at this point in the story, Sam did not realize he had a brain injury, nor did he have any idea what his family would do to him and his son because of his injury.
All that Sam knew was that somehow his bike had been traded for a recliner and he was in what felt like a permanent fog.