What Happened

Twelve days ago, something fell out of the freezer when I opened the door.

That's it. Frozen things tenderly balanced on top of each other tend to do that.

I bent down to pick up said item. As I made my way back up to standing position, the freezer door (which had obviously been open) was rather forcefully insisting that it ought to be shut.

The momentum of my head moving upward and the freezer door moving toward it caused one nasty concussion. At the moment the door hit my head (top/left part of my head) I wasn't "thinking" anything. I just crumbled to the floor, holding onto P's wheelchair on the way down.

Once I hit the floor, I thought "Oh look, stars!" Everything is a bit fuzzy after that, but I remember both P and I chuckling because we had warned each other so many times about how quickly that door swings back into place.

I lay on the floor for a long time feeling perfectly awful while P talked to me and told me not to get up off the floor yet. When I finally did, I was much more nauseous and sick than I had been on the floor. Bleh.

Then I did exactly what one should NOT do with a head injury. Because I'd been barfy, I took a few gravol and went to bed for several hours. BAD IDEA. If you hit your head, don't do this. When I woke up later in the evening, I told P that I just didn't feel right at all. It was more than nausea now - I felt - for lack of a better term - discombobulated. Nothing in my time and space orientation was right.

It was as if I knew I was standing in our condo in the living room, but I also felt like I was watching myself stand there. Something about that "spectator" feeling creeped me out enough to think I should get this egg-sized bump on my head looked at.

I should mention that the injury was not on the same side of my head where I generally feel like a hot knife is piercing my right temple. The injury was left-sided and felt very different. The pain felt like it was pouring down the left side of my head, throbbing on the way down. Delightful.

So I did exactly what I should NOT have done (please, seriously, don't try this at home) - I drove myself to ER to have it looked at. I fully expected the doc would say I had a bump on my head and send me home.

He did not.

I did not like the look on his face AT ALL as he did my neuro checks and asked me all the standard questions about what day it was and who the Prime Minister is....

After a few minutes, they checked my vitals AGAIN (fourth time since arriving), checked my eyes AGAIN, and said I had a classic concussion and needed to be off work for at least 4-5 days. This simply did not compute. It was about 4:00 am (I think) and all I can remember thinking is "I have to be at the church in a few hours"

I must have said this out loud because the doc took me by the shoulders, looked me directly in the eyes and said "Susan, you are not going anywhere. You need to go home and rest your brain. You do nothing. No tv. No computer. No books. Nothing. You're brain in injured and needs time to heal."

He opted to skip the CT scan that night, but said if any of my symptoms (a list of nine) worsened, that I should call my family doc or return to ER. The nurse asked me on discharge "Have you got a way to get home?" I didn't think twice about it. "Yes", I said. It was true. My car was right outside. It made perfect sense to me to drive home, which I did. AGAIN - do not do this. Ever. Bad Idea. In hindsight, I wonder why the nurse didn't dig a little deeper and ask "how" I was getting home. It was a busy Saturday night, so I totally understand why she didn't, but still...

So I drove home on empty streets (thankfully) and was home within five minutes. Another five minutes and I was asleep.

I slept for 20 hours. P had to wake me every 2 hours for the first 48 hours. Poor guy. He was awesome. He diligently did his "poke the sleeping girl" routine and tried his best to find food I could or would eat.

After four days of pretty much constant sleep and extreme nausea, combined with total body sweats, forgetting conversations, and just feeling entirely horrible, I called family doc. He thought I should head back to ER and ask about a CT scan. This time I asked a friend to drive me. :)

Thankfully, there was no bleed going on that could be detected by the scan. The second doc gave me some IV fluids for dehydration and IV gravol for the Ick. Then he said, "No work for you for another seven days. No tv. No computer. No books. As little stimulation as possible."

Okay, now this was getting creepy.

All of the above weren't a problem when I was sleeping 20 hours out of every 24. When I started to stay awake for longer periods, I realized how much time I spend everyday taking in information from various sources. With none of those options open to me, I had to mimic my cat's day and just BE. Before any of this happened, I had been reading a book about meditation and healing. One of the tools used in that book was a Buddhist practice called metta chanting.

If I understand it correctly, metta is the sending of positive energy and compassion to either oneself or others. So I used repetitive soothing words like "let this wound be healed" and "may peace come to me and give me patience". The second one was a huge deal. I'm not the most patient patient.

I saw my family doc who reinforced what the others had said - concussions are serious. Concussions take their own sweet time in healing. Nothing can be done to speed up that process.

Jill Bolt Taylor PhD in her book "My Stroke of Insight" says:

Your body is the life force power of some fifty trillion molecular geniuses. You and you alone choose moment by moment who and how you want to be in the world. I encourage you to pay attention to what is going on in your brain. Own your power and show up for your life. Beam bright!

I'm not sure I've reached the beaming brightly part just yet, but I do feel better.

If nothing else, this kind of brain injury makes one's limits REALLY clear. When I've done all I can do, that's it. I'm done. It's not like I have the choice to push a little further. I can't. If it's time to rest, my brain will make it happen.

Like now, for example. Writing this has wiped me out. I'm going to nap.

So, there you have it.

That's what happened.