My Brain Injury
Dedicated to my son, Justin Finnila
By Lori Finnila
Introduction
Lori Finnila was an aspiring model posing for photographers and doing commercials and extra
work in film before it would all be pulled to a stop
because of a few who took her medical decisions out of her
hands who couldn’t accept her and let her be herself
making her medical condition worse making it impossible
forever to work in this field again.
This is a book of honesty and courage of one woman’s
true account of her journey after brain injury and how it
changed her life. The conspiracy of a medical cover-up
and how she faced it all alone penniless. How she was
encountered by bad men who forced her to do things she
thought she’d never have to do.
A true book of courage and how she came out of it and
made her own success in her mind and how she found a
new definition to it.
She hopes in the end this book will help others in
understanding the relation to it in everyday life as we live
and make our decisions.
In the end she came out her own hero.
I started out this intelligent, vivacious, and intuitive
woman. I had aspirations more than usual I was
always told. But I never stopped working towards
them. I would seek and find new ways to push or
overcome new challenges that would come my way. And
that’s what led me to New York. If I were going to make it
anywhere as the saying went and it would be recognized
and respected it would be there. Now wouldn’t it be
awesome?
When I first went out there my friends and family had
a party for me. I had all the support you could imagine.
The party brought in $500. Not enough for all my
expenses but a good start. I sold my wedding ring—after
all my husband wanted it back. Anger at the time. I wasn’t
going to have that. LOL to him. That’s okay.
So I went out this first time and it didn’t work out. My
naiveness and lack of knowledge left NY to eat me up. But
I was still alive, not raped or cut like some other women
had been that I had been hearing about on the news. I
would call my dad at these times sure he had heard these
stories. He was surprised to even hear from me. I knew I
was in a world of my own then.
When I would venture back home for love and support
when all had failed and my emotions battered and
bruised I found I felt a sense of suffocation. Not to
anyone’s fault but to my new found sense of exploration
and identity. It would not die and this is what will lead you
to my story.
I returned back to NY brighter than ever after getting
my breath back, this time sassy. Ready for anything and
willing to do more. I pushed myself in the knowledge of
computers and executives and this is where I found my
new found appreciation of some self worth. I was making
good money then and working for Fortune 500
companies. I was still temping but they would always ask
me back and most of the time off me full time jobs. I had
money for clothes, eating out and my own apartment.
And plenty left over for photo shootings. I still hadn’t
given up on the entertainment and modeling industry. I
loved designing my own shootings and planning how my
new pictures would look. I still hadn’t found “that”
picture. And I knew I needed this to take off. But I did
meet one photographer who would give me this
opportunity but I was never able to use it. I had been given
a shot at this field before but to my lack, of knowledge and
bad experiences was not able to use it.
The first meeting with this photographer was set up. I
slept in on this one and found myself unusually groggy
that morning. I ended up leaving all my cash in the
subway seat and watched my purse go by as I was on the
train. Not a good meeting. The photographer told me not
to come by and I had to set up a second session. Took me
another year out there before this would happen. But I
had been getting very good in the office. I was working for
lawyers now and being recognized for something that I
didn’t have in the field, intelligence. They actually wanted
me to stay on and mange a team of employees under a
CEO of their company at the World Trade Center. Very impressive paying about $45,000 if I were to stay. Now back then almost 20 years ago with no formal training that was a gold mine. I agreed but there was one small problem.
I had been having pains and was advised to have a small routine surgical procedure before I could do this. But this job would never come about nor any job using this new intelligence that I didn’t know I had.
My surgery would be scheduled and not delayed
because I was in so much pain now. I had forfeited the first
doctor and now had a second. The day all seemed normal
as planned. I would get in and out and get back to my
doggy dog world when it was over. But would I? There were some young guys in there in street clothes that didn’t fit standing around the operating table laughing and making strange gestures towards me. I felt uncomfortable and warning lights went off inside of me telling me not to go in. One of them looked familiar as I had seen him from back home. But I knew I had to overcome this because the pain was too severe and I was afraid of what the outcome would be if I were to reschedule my surgery. But alas the men left.
The surgery was a disaster. I hadn’t been doing anything but lying there quiet on the operating table when as fast as I layed down was as fast as the straps to it were quickly put on me and a needle now was being administered in my arm as at the same time I was told that I would be put out two different ways as I felt a mask being put over my face. As I felt this was all wrong I asked him for the chief of anesthesia as I had been told I could do in an earlier meeting with the hospital. The nurse asked the anesthesiologist that shouldn't she check the pressure gage on the anesthesia and he said no firmly as she had a worried look on her face he said just forget it because it's fine and that it was always set at the same pressure.
When while the needle was being administered the mask was over my mouth and nose not allowing me to breathe in anything but a strong gush of chemical smelling air entering my passageway as I gagged and gasped not able to talk with a tear coming down my eye now as the nurse started crying with me. I knew I would never be the same as I went out. I was woken up in the middle of it to a great pain of a knife cutting me. Then the sharpness of a tube being stuck down my throat after that as the doctor now in there yelled for this to be done. At the end I couldn’t breathe on my own. The doctor had to yell at me for my brain to respond which brought my head and partly my body lunging up and back down again on the table exasperating for air. The doctor vowed he would find out what happened though he had been on the phone with another patient while I was being put out. I was then wheeled to the recovery room with others where my heart beat rapidly for 2 hours. I could feel my heart splitting at this time and pounding out of my chest. They decided to get me out of there even though I still wasn’t stable and a young man who was a helper of their’s smashed my cart into the wall as he was supposed to be wheeling me to my room.
When I got there there was a hush hush going on
around me as to what had just happened to me. I felt
my body barely hanging on for those two days in there. I
was finally released and the friend who picked me up that
took me home I could barely recognize.
The next day I went for an errand in the neighborhood
and found I got lost. I couldn’t find a familiarness inside of
me of a sense of direction as to which way to go to the
familiar surroundings around me. I couldn’t focus on my
where abouts to get me out of this for a moment. My
senses were dull and broken. This frightened me for a
moment being on my own and totally independent getting
myself out of all my predicaments on my own.
The next day I had to make a call about something and
the person at the other end could not understand what I
was saying so I had to spell it out. I couldn’t spell the word
soap. I kept spelling soup. And my brain took a couple of
seconds to realize this and then I went into a panic mode
for a few more seconds from my mind being taken away
from me and not being able to recognize the proper
spelling. And also from trying to push my brain now
manually to do this where it would automatically click in
for me usually. This was hard on me and I had to let it go
realizing I had to move on the next step of my day or action
that would require attention in this way. I solemnly sunk
lower into a state needed and not wanted to have to
function.
When I tried to return to work it was a disaster. I kept
making mistakes where the keys were set up on the
keyboard on the computer where it no longer looked
familiar to me. This was a problem where most of my work
was done using this.
I eventually went back to the hospital administration
and medical records where this did happen to me. I
wanted to know what happened. I was refused a few of the
papers from my record and they were actually taken out
of the folder right before my eyes. I went to administration
where they wouldn’t open the door to me. I sat outside it
crying now. I finally did get a lawyer but the papers to
whatever had happened to me had disappeared
permanently. I was so dumb founded right about now I
had no idea how to pursue it intelligently. The time in my
brain was so irrelevant now. Days could have been
months and years to me and I wouldn’t know the
difference. You could try and have a conversation with me
and I would forget. My brain was too weak to function.
Everything was in there it just wouldn’t work. It was just
too tired and damaged now.
I did try and go back to work again but I was still
unsuccessful. When I would get flashed of what
happened to me for a few seconds I would try and run to
someone for help and report it and tell them of these
things but it just made me look crazy. After all I was in a
crazy city to begin with most felt.
So it left me to go home again. Defected and broken
completely this time. I thought I could get SSDA there
more safely seeing as how you couldn’t work for 6 months
before applying. I was so afraid to be out on the streets of
NY homeless I felt I had no choice. When I went home I
was rejoiced and welcomed by my friends and family. I
had money from unemployment now and back there it
seemed like a lot. My family and friends couldn’t notice
anything wrong with me and I rejoiced that. But soon
realized they didn’t even know me anymore. I had grown
and changed from that ditzy silly looking woman that
they were still seeing.
I started drinking and partying like everyone else on
the weekends and found I would get over inebriated to my
usual three drinks. I had to leave my car as I was now
driving. I seemed to be able to drive now okay but I would
just get lost as I had no sense of direction at all and still
moments of not knowing where I was in myself trying to
push my senses again aware of this to work.
I thought I could possibly get through this and attempt to work again and everything would be okay. But I couldn’t. It was too stressful and the shocks of trying to recognize was too much for me. I would just stop and stare at someone sometimes when asked to do something left with a childlike crying pout on my face toward them knowing I couldn’t fulfill the request for their task. I’m sure I looked pitiful in their eyes. And there I was left helpless with no way of taking care of myself.
So I had to apply for SSDA now. It was a complete
embarrassment to everyone at that point. I was no longer
the popular voyager that went to NY to become successful
and would just come home for periodic visits. I was now a
pitiful wounded creature of embarrassment to them. No
one wanted to hear about my injury but to knock it off to
it and that it was all in my mind.
When I had to revert to food stamps having no money
when DHS tried to force me to sign papers of everything
I might receive from the injury and I refused and I lost all
respected connections with my friends, all but one. One
would bring boxes of food to me while the others would
say I should be ashamed and that there were people who
really needed that. I was brought free clothes by another
friend that told me she wore them when she was pregnant
and laughed at that as she left them with me. I could see
another confronting me now where she would make whispers to a roommate of mine when she would come over. It seemed that everyone was talking at me or around me now and it left me with a sense of confusion and
discomfort. I fell deeper inside of myself now not working on myself anymore.
And it only got worse when I tried to go to new doctors
to get details of my injury. They wanted to say I was so
crazy before ever attempting to do this. They would run
neurological tests on me but because I had no insurance
leave me to the student neuropsychologist still learning
and in school for the written and oral evaluations. This
was devastating because one would write me up as being
crazy. And then later when she was out of school update
it to state that she was of a full fledged doctorate now
which if you didn’t know better looked like she was a
doctor. I couldn’t understand how she could legally get
away with that or why she would want to.
And with that I was led to be put on all kinds of
medication when I would go in for treatment for things
unrelated that just ate my brain up even more. What
saved me somewhat was when I saw a story on TV about
brain injuries and I said that’s me. And this led me to a
rehabilitation center for head injuries. But by now my
medical records were a mess and I had to find a way to
convince them that I had had an anoxic experience
without looking for fault. They hated this. After all there
were no records out there anymore of the account.
I did finally find one woman to help me who believed me
and this was the beginning to an end of a horrible
nightmare which I had endured. It was finally agreed that
it would be looked into as to me having a brain injury. But
this was only going to be accessed through written and
oral testing and I knew I needed something more
concrete.
It was assumed I had a head injury but I would not be completely diagnosed to them until I had these oral and written tests done.
The only reason I was able to be diagnosed was because
my father had passed that year and I was left quite a bit of money that covered more than my tests through the proper channels that my insurance wouldn’t cover. Still in fear of malpractice my doctor referred me to a flaky supposed neuropsychologist who was supposed to run tests on me. When I arrived at the hospital where he was I asked for directions to him seeing as there were no listings of him on the wall with the others. I was told, “Oh yeah, he is upstairs with the monkeys as I returned back with a glance of horror. The woman answering me looked surprised and startled at my reaction as though I knew who I were seeing. I certainly didn’t tell her what I was there for and I tried not to show anymore of a reaction or my fright of this answer to this area and what lie ahead. I had to go. I had to see for
myself. I wasn’t going to let fear stop me of something I
wasn’t 100 percent sure of what I was feeling. I had to see
if I was just paranoid. But once I got up there I knew I
wasn’t. I could see cages for animals in one room. And he
brought me to the back by some computers that didn’t
look normal. I had wondered what he had in mind. I
stayed a safe closely 6ft. away from him. Now that I am
more conscious I wonder if I were the one to be
experimented on. This deep dark hollow ran through my
body as I knew now to get out. That’s when he noticed my
fright and proceeded to initiate his conversation about my
injury and how he could cure me trying to keep me in that
room. He proceeded to tell me though that I would have to
give him all my money from every resource I had. That’s
when I had the strength and the nerve to say no thank
you and while I still could make a dash out of there. Down
the hollow length of an abandoned floor away from him
now down to the elevators and down quite a few floors to
the rest of civilization as I let a gasp of air out in relief. I
was still normal and whole to me anyway like the others
I thought. I could feel my head still there so thankful. And
for anything he would write up about my panic and fear I
did not care for I knew I got out of there and would never
go back and that I should never have gone in.
I then traveled to New York knowing this area better. I
found a facility in the area with a neuropsychologist who
specialized in head injuries. This was the change of my
life as well. No one could refute this now. And my doctor
had to write down their results as the information you
could not ignore. An anoxic event was then written down.
What kind and from what was not determined at that
point. But my deficits were concluded to that. A hypoxic
incident.
The first neurologist which I was told to see did not
want to get involved as to what she saw was a malpractice
case. She told me to just deal with it and felt that nothing
would show up on any physical test to my injury. But to
her dismay and my pushing it did. I had to run from the
hospital with a wod of paper large enough for 5 novels as
the nurse was now being advised that was not a good move
as the rolls of paper unrolled by the breeze of me running
with it and taking it directly to a man who now specialized
in cerebral palsy as I had been randomly referred by someone.
It didn’t get completely defined until I by chance and I
say to fate definitely was referred to this man. From there everything went down the line to a more undeniable diagnose to a hypoxic encephalopathy, an event from anesthesia no one wanted to know how or who or when. Not many people get this and to the severity that I did. It was never spoken of and if I tried to push it my company was completely excused. I then knew how serious my injury was and for how hard I fought I tried not to think of now. I really didn’t want to know.
But this definitive diagnosis wouldn’t help me. Even
though I had the truth now no one wanted to hear it or
even speak of it with me as far as medical was concerned
and even sometimes outside of that. It was always that I
had a reaction to anesthesia briefly might be the only
words and usually brashly put towards me if even ever
spoken of. Where I had had surgery before successfully
with no horror effects of these I knew this wasn’t true.
Because of this rarity of the diagnosis I couldn’t find
anyone who I could communicate this injury to or relate to in this area. The head injury support groups were always of
actual injuries to the head by force or stroke or simply the
loss of oxygen. And many of the patients complained that
their life was going by and that half the time they were
unaware of where they were. But the monitors of the
meetings would quickly dismiss this comment. I would
look at them and think how sad that they can’t reach
someone to listen to them as I could see the helplessness
look of crying out for help on their faces in an attempt of
a helpless situation as I was running from the same thing
it seemed. And the people there were on heavy medications that would kill me of my injury. I couldn’t even break down regular doses of cough medication like a child. And I were in fear all the time that I would pass out and need an ambulance and they would administer too much of whatever I might need and that would kill me. I was especially scared I might have to go into the hospital again and this time die from the anesthesia so I began to wear medical a bracelet.
I was told by my friends not to divulge about my injury
that this would be an embarrassment. I had an injury that you couldn’t see but something enough to make knowledge of yet I wasn’t sitting there immobile not incapable of taking care of myself. Which at the time it didn’t seem enough for anyone around me to take recognition of, not at that time anyway.
When I would go to rehab it was stated in the notes that
the doctors had said I need none and instead I would be
given these quirky pamphlets with quirky questions that
had nothing to do with my injury. The questions didn’t
even make sense at all. They seemed to be of a cartoon
nature and I felt that my intellect and demeanor was
being insulted. I couldn’t continue without comprising
myself. My physical therapies or brain stimulating
exercises were always dismissed unless I searched and
paid for them myself which left me exhausted trying to do
this seeing as I had to try and explain my own injury and
deficits which most were unfamiliar with being different
than a regular head injury.
I had been told to use an organizer when my injury was
recognized by some professionals in the field which was
very helpful. I realized how I couldn’t do without it. I have
alarms set and schedulers on my phone that keep me
organized and functioning on time up until this day. It’s
hard to keep me apart from others running their busy
lives on this note.
I was refused a nutritionist specializing or at least
having knowledge of brain injuries through my
insurance. I needed to lose weight and I was afraid to leave
out some foods that my body needed to function in order
not to have seizures that I was having for some reason now. These seizures were never recognized by the doctors whether I reported them or not and I had to treat them on my own. I would feel my body on the line all the time and I was afraid to have seizures again. As I would feel the wrath of my body go all around me I would feel myself coming up trying to get through it. I feel myself mesh along as with the flow I start my journey with faith and hope and a smile to get through it all and as I lost my breath more and more during these I knew I was contributing to a further deeper brain injury.
How hard it was now for me to think and write. My
brains senses had all been damaged and screwed up. I
couldn’t see things sometimes and yet I could others. I
would hold a cup to my mouth and miss the liquid. It
would pour out onto me and my clothes at times if I wasn’t
concentrating enough. Yet I could drive a car. How would
I convince people of my deficits? Of the damage I derived,
ones that did not show up on any of these tests. I would
hold my hand out sometimes like a child’s and say help
me, please take it. Please help me take care of myself
because yes sometimes I do need help and I am as
helpless as a child like these others here.
But I never got any response from them, any of these
doctors. I thought I would surround myself instead by
people who loved me and get them involved with my
meetings but no one responded to go with me or about my
injury at all. I was on my own. On a journey that no one
would want to take with me and no one would want to take
on their own.
I ended up being befriended by people I would never
deal with in my whole life never mind giving them the
time of day. I even ended up getting pregnant even
though I thought I could never get pregnant. My wishes of
having a child were great but all the doctors would do is
threaten to take him away from me. I hoped that he
wouldn’t notice my injuries before I could explain them to
him and I hoped he wouldn’t be taken from me before I
could prove that I could raise him. I had to fight and run
many times now because I seemed to be in a domestic
violence situation or being stalked somehow. I had suffered a blow to the head, pushed down a flight of stairs, and attacked in the hospital putting me into a deeper coma after giving birth. I had wondered many more times that I can count whether or not my son or my baby at the time I started would be better off with others but always came to the same conclusion that no one could ever love him like I do. I also worried what would happen to him in another’s home.
One that I didn’t know or of the horrible stories I would
hear of the system. And many times couldn’t help but
picture the devastating outcome. Also in fear that I was the only one that knew the extent of the danger that was going on.
Now I see his intelligence bypass me as this has
happened so early on. Way before I imagined that he
would notice the difference. As others didn’t feel the same as me my son was now being shown misdisentrust and having to fight it everyday of his life of his love towards me.
It seemed the more I tried to find to see what happened
to me to get to the truth my life got harder. My SSDA medical reviews were always hard. They would try and convince me to say I were depressed or crazy and I would assure them that I were not. I would have to take my time around them to think of what my next routine movements would be in my body and how my brain was going to recognize that which was being misread as crazy.
I would sometimes even come home and it would seem
as though there were drugs in my foods that I would only
eat even as my son were a youngster and even a baby to
find my brain getting worse to even more irreparable
damage that you cannot imagine.
My body would freeze and not move at times because it
couldn’t. I would have convulsions involuntarily and
seizures at any time still which wasn’t wanted to be
discussed. I had to stop driving but only at my request. Yet
when I would ask about these incidents or ideas of
druggings I was just told I were crazy and even threatened if I didn’t go to a psychological evaluation it would be done
forcefully for me. But I would go and told what I already
knew that I was not crazy but with a head injury which
was being misconstrued which I already knew. And that
was to be good enough. My intuitions still never looked at.
The more I pushed it drove me to threats of having my
SSDA taken away. I was left to live in almost uninhabitable of places sometimes. If I were quiet it would get better.
People would be sad that I wasn’t the same person but
I would say I was just without the inhibitions that I once
had. I’m not so injured it’s just the little things inside of
me that are so wrong that is always being pulled on
around me that make me look so bad. My mind is still
here it’s just my body does what it wants to do at times.
And I need to be noticed of this. It is easy to trip me up by
people that want to be mean to me and even though I at
times are considered fat by my now thyroid problem from
it all I still am weaker than someone half my size by my
brain functions.
I was so much as wheeled to another room after I had
my son which left me in a coma told due to the safety of
others as well as myself where I was attacked further from
having no protection. All I could feel in my meek mind was
someone of a mild and mellow nature that use to fear
killing insects and robbing them of their lives. I couldn’t
understand where they were coming from.
The pregnancy somehow brought me back almost to
the state I was before the initial injury but the drugs I was
now being administered without my consent would cause
my brain far more of an effect that the initial injury could
ever. I could almost feel a vein like feeling in my brain now
and the pauses in between were so much longer whether
in a drug state or not now. Like I said the more I would
push the worse it would get. I tried to think what I might
have done to everyone or someone to deserve this but was
just left to think of the horrible misunderstanding of my
rare now so-called injury that was leading my fate and
sometimes sadly robbing me.
As years passed by in this state I could not help having
to face the undeniable desire and anxiety to never being
able to model or act which was irreprehensible to me. I
couldn’t remember lines before so now would be so much
harder. Where I could remember things all the way back
when I was a baby I sometimes would forget this same
clear thought as quickly as it came to me. I sometimes
would forget this same thought I had at times until two or
three years later.
And it is not sympathy that I look for but more of a
confusion to it all. For I want always to be me and have to
be on this planet but venturing out on my own to find new
and discover the undiscovered to share with all someday
my new foundings that I had so long awaited my whole
life. That I have so wanted to share my whole life.
I still have dreams like others, maybe still unimaginable to others. Sometimes of a theater that I will own and run to reach out to children and show them hope of how reaching inside of themselves they can find themselves with joy and happiness to prosper as whole adults to see success in their eyes.
I now have new hope to find my own successes in a
different way than where I began. I have a new insight and
with my challenges it brings me a greater inner strength.
I only hope and wish I could share this with others and
have them see this as I do.
My hand tires from writing from my weakened right arm from the loss of oxygen but I know I need to keep on
with my journey of my new passage, my new venture and
my new message that I was meant to share.
They say god doesn’t put on you more than you can
handle but now I know I got put on this earth to pass on
to others. I know god didn’t injure me but I knew he
wanted me to pass on my spirit and strength for sparing
me my life twice now and so many more times afterwards.
At times I find myself staring straight ahead and when
I come out of it I’m embarrassed to see where I might have
been there in my mind and how I looked. My brain just turns off like that.
When I was living in NY before all this I would come
home from work and drift by all the markets and stop into
the grocery store and buy myself a steak or shrimp. And
maybe pick myself up a lobster without even thinking
about it.
My one over expense would be to run downstairs from
Rockefeller Plaza where I worked when I would get a hole
in my stocking and pay $7 for a pair. The most I would cut
down on in cost would be to eat out at fast food restaurants or quick stop restaurants and only because of the fat content was I able to stop spending then.
I would stroll down the streets of Wall Street on, before,
and after lunch of work at some jobs to look in all the
shops browsing and most of the time buy. I had not a care
in the world. My only concern when buying clothes was
whether or not I could find a size small enough. I was
always a four or smaller at that time. I was up until my
30’s and my thyroid condition from the injury that I had
now caught up with me. I was this lively beautiful
charismatic woman living in the prime of my time living
my life in stride and having my world by the tail so to
speak. I would be so alert and detailed oriented and
intuitive. I could have 5 tasks going on at once and get
them all done completely 100% correct. For this and my
appearance to have a job and constantly being offered
one was no problem for me.
Even after the initial injury I could still work. I was
acting doing commercial and extra work in films that I had
never had time to do before. It seemed natural to me as
though I were born to do it. As though it were a trait that
I had physically instilled in me that was supposed to be
there. I needed no training and was greatly accepted with
others at these times. Yet there was something different
about it now in my relation to it. I was completely and
unknowingly willing to explore all of it. I had no
inhibitions and a complete hunger and desire to please as
I did not have before. I didn’t care how bad I might look
and for this I was getting great response.
But my money would run out and that’s when I had to go
home and apply for SSDA to be able to continue this great
journey that would never happen because I would never
make it back. Only for a brief visit to pick up my things
very disoriented, then. And that was it.
When I returned home before I was diagnosed I took to
myself in comfortable quarters of whatever places I could
find. I just needed time for my brain to heal. This was
confused with depression. I found other’s thoughts that
were suggested to me were now being too readily
accepted by me and I didn’t know how to change this even
though in the end I would see my mistakes. I seemed prey
to all the bad that was around me and now started seeingand dealing with all that I feared. I’d eventually moved on to see drug deals gone down from afar in neighborhoods now of streets that I had once avoided. But the class of people that I was now forced to be around because of my financial situation made for the horribleness of my recovery. My stalking and attacks I had not been able to recourse of these.
At times I wouldn’t even remember in time to do anything
about it leaving these people with all the more confidence
to continue their occurrences. I found I had ran from state
to state trying to get away from it with no legal recourse to
it.
I now have accustomed to living with very little. Any of
the once wished upon or had of material things or wishes
were now gone. Where most people of my age were
looking to trips and retirement funds or some future
financial securements I had been learning to make
picnics on my front lawn with old sheets in past times for
my toddler. My enlightment now was for the sun to
come up over the trees or to hear the rain hit my home
with my favorite pitter patter as I with some child-like admirations now at times could now still actually
relate to verses dining in revolving restaurants in the city
or seeing a play. Where people expected me to come home
a success I instead came limping home feeling a completely disfigured failure.
I never knew of anything like taking free things from others. That talk was never allowed in our home. I now out
of anger and spite having to raise a child on my own
accepted them. I find myself saving leftovers from scraps
of what I could not finish to save for a whole meal for
myself. And where I have come off a failure to whom all I’ve known I’ve found a way to make a life for myself and a reason to get up in the morning leaving that all behind to
the past.
My entire survival now was to just get by as well as I
could financially and to survive with all my deficits with a
child trying to look as normal as possible and trying to
make things look as normal as possible to him.
When my son would be sick at times as I had felt I was
on some kind of drowsy disorienting medications a lot I
needed to write down every time I gave them to him to
keep track of it.
I had tried in the past again after having my son to work
but any employment agencies turned me down even
though they were for rehabilitative employees. They felt I
with such a minor injury feeling I was a lost case.
School they felt I would not be a good risk financially
because I wouldn’t retain the information. That school
loan that I still had now from a very previous school term
which I couldn’t pay now was holding me back as well.
I couldn’t find anyone to accept me when I would apply
to jobs on my own. I would get funny looks and try to
imagine what they were seeing that was funny. And never
could, still can’t. Where I once could walk into a place and
be chipper and cheery and pleasantly always accepted
now that same appearance was greatly turned down in a
look of disgust or dismay. I felt all alone and couldn’t
understand why no one was accepting me. When I was
unsure and naïve of myself I was better accepted with my
injury than when I felt more secure and rest assured of
my condition. I had accepted myself but no one else had.
I started to learn to like my own company. All the time.
I remembered being out late and not getting any sleep
while being with others. Not fun. I remembered how it felt
to have to share my time, my money, even compromise my
thoughts and opinions. Didn’t miss that. I actually started liking not having to compromise. I began to become a loner.
As embarrassing as this was in front of my son. I had
become the mother that every child dreaded. While all my
son’s friends owned homes and cars I had to beg for food
at times just to get through the month. And social times
for him would have to come out of grocery money. My clothing is not of designer names or even like new. That word is very rarely used in my vocabulary towards me. Most of my clothes are given to me. Usually too big or
faded from someone else’s use. When I’m lucky I can go to
a thrift store to pick out a style that I have chosen but this
is rare. Where I would buy a new wardrobe of clothing every season I was now wearing the same underwear for three years.
I was going to places now for assistance with my bills at
times to where people that I thought I would keep at arms
length were going to. And now I was one of them. And I
learned that bad things can happen to good people too.
I hadn’t known what it was like in so long to send and
receive gifts. My birthday was just always a landmark of
that year and most of the time I would just ignore it.
I had tripped over my right foot for 3 years until I was
finally diagnosed with mild hemi-paresis on my right side
from the initial injury which left me with a gait from no
feeling in the end of my right foot towards my toes. I was
fitted with a brace for this but it got so cumbersome I
trained my brain to lift my foot on my own eventually and
threw it out.
Many of the patients at the support group complained
of their lives. I would look at the patients and think how
sad that they can’t reach someone to listen to them. Their
look of desperation crying out to be heard and helped in
sense of hopelessness and helplessness that they had.
Like myself I couldn’t understand why people couldn’t
just accept who I was. I was happy in my new found self
with no inhibitions which I had never felt so comfortable
with now. But why couldn’t others around me be happy
for me.
I eventually found an old friend who took me from all of
this. She had felt guilty that she wasn’t there that day of
the initial surgery that she said she would show up to pick
me up at. I was being run all up against by myself at that
time not able to speak for myself properly. Anyone
knowing me better could see I was struggling with myself
and would have seen the changes in me and demanded
answers. Had someone been waiting outside the
operating doors for me there may have been a different
outcome. For the knowledge of them knowing there was
someone there waiting for me outside those doors and
there would be someone to answer to maybe this whole
thing wouldn’t have happened. This carelessness or this
intentioned act. I did not know either.
Once I got to this friends house was when my life began
again. I had taken it back because of her and now I was
strong again because of it. She had been severely beaten
right before I arrived with a somewhat brain injury of her own. I feared for the sake of her helping me get away from this awful hopelessness that I was in. She couldn’t do much for me but give me a sanctful place to find peace that I needed from all the drugs and pessimist that was in and all around me to find myself and gain my self control again. No one was making any decisions for me anymore like had seemed to be done for me all along for those few hellish months that started after applying for SSDA which worsened after my father died.
But this would all be taken away again not too far down
the road when I would be awakened again from a coma
which left me in even more of a debilitating state after
encountering one who just wouldn’t let go. And because
of my new found weakness that was forever hidden inside
of those fraid nerves in my brain he would have his way
with me constantly forever at his whim whenever and
wherever he wanted, leaving me helpless and emotional to get away. I would just give up and curl in a corner at these times. I would love to get into this more but some people you just can’t expose due to extenuating circumstances.
But I still had more of a fight in me then I had before.
My dreams still stood. And my beauty hadn’t faded yet so
I still had in the back of my mind that I could model. I still
had me and that kept me going.
Youth helps you overcome all. Bad things just seem
like a quick jot in your life of something that had
happened and now was over and you move on. But this
one was taking way too long and was taking a huge part of
my life away right from underneath me and I couldn’t stop
it. We all get sad over the thought of not being able to do
something or just things in our life and now it was getting
to the point where I hadn’t done anything I felt.
I had sparkled as a child being told of all my special
traits at school growing up. But one stood out. My eighth grade language arts teacher that saw such special talent in my writing that would help me through this and my first book and many others to come. I had sparkled at many an
occasion with all my friends which had turned out to be
an expected thing from me after a while.
My struggle with myself now was how well I could get
my brain to heal. And how long might it be before I could
try and make that leap again for myself even though
everyone else had given up on me.
I had a child now which was good when he was young
but now he was older and I couldn’t do anything for him.
He was older and wiser than me by far and I couldn’t even
provide for him all the necessary things that he needed
and I wanted to give him.
I missed so many things I had dreamed of giving him
when he was a baby. My first and only child that I wanted
to have everything for he had very bare minimal which at
this age he did not notice. But I did. I had always dreamed
of being able to give my first child of the wonderful latest
contraptions that are out there. That this was the most
important baby in the world. Instead I would just sit there
in solemn stare at what he had, nothing. In sad desperation as he needed something to help him walk. I would get so tired at times feeling like I was drugged. His hair would get so long and sticky looking. And I would be too afraid to cut it in fear I would slip with the scissors.
Being unaccepted at times I found myself homeless
with a son being evicted for the tenants kids throwing
rocks at me and making fun of me. I was afraid to stay any
longer with the physical threats so I didn’t fight in court
but instead took our bags and made our way on a bus to
a remote desert area where maybe no one would bother
us. And I did find a place after staying at two hotels out
there.
I had to give my son a shower once when he was at the
hotel where we at when he was one and he would scream
in horror of the water coming at him. But there was no tub
and his ears were so lined with dirt. We ran for six months
living in a tent from campground to campground when he
was three to mistrail my stalker. I would light candles
inside of the tent to keep us warm at night praying to god
to keep the tent from starting on fire but to keep the night
temperatures from coming in.
Not driving I would use his stroller as a shopping cart to
get the groceries to the site hoping that I wouldn’t get
stopped for this. Many a time I had used it to tilt larger
items off the canopy when I had apartments such as a
toddler mattresses and so on for a half of a mile walk back
to our home.
It was so cold and so far for me to return a gallon of bad
milk once that in the middle of a snow storm I hadn’t
noticed my son’s boot fall off. I had to turn and run back
to retrieve it on the road behind me. As when I returned
to his stroller I opened up his weather shield to find him
giggling and laughing to stare at me now with his barefoot
somewhat warm little foot kicking up and down towards
me. I was grateful for this. I was horrified at the thought of
not noticing this until too late.
I had social services called on me three times for things
I hadn’t done than for the stupid mistakes that I would
make. But I knew who this was and the person following
me of the personal nature of the attacks on me. When
they would come they always tried to make me feel as
though they were scolding me of something yet could
never find anything except a happy toddler or child
running around playing having his day in his home bare
and scarce most times with limited furniture.
But as time would go by it would be time for him to go
to school. An environment that wouldn’t accept me and in
return would not accept him. I was never welcomed at
these times and my handicaps they assumed were his.
This was the way it was at every meeting, doctors, schools
any official personnel. This was supposed to be a time of
rejoice, a time of change and evolvement. But a time once
again where no one would accept me or take my word as
an adult as any word from anyone. Soon it would come to
my son having to be home schooled due to an illness that
no one would listen to me to run tests to diagnose so he
could receive the proper medicines and the right care so
he could get through his day. Now we both were in a world
alone.
But a time once again where no one would accept me or
take my word as any word from anyone when it came to
my son’s medical.
I tried to reach out and get help to push my son back
into the school system but he was too sick and my word
once again was useless until he was ten years old and
they finally diagnosed him with allergies. He had been
border asthmatic by now because of the length of time it
took them to find out. And it would be years before his
lungs would repair themselves and he could breathe freely
like other children. But now his life could begin where it had been as mine a misunderstanding of medical happenings.
Even though I had lost a lot of mine now due to time and
there was no turning back on this now his life could
begin. Even though I had lost mine maybe now he could
have a chance to regain what he had just lost. All those
years of not comrading with friends and learning new
things of how to play sports and attending class parties
could all be now something that he could be a part of.
He had not known what it was like to have an extended
family. He didn’t even know what the word aunt or uncle
meant. Me feeling I had to stay away from others for my
safety for the misconfusion of my injury he had to suffer
for this. And even though I didn’t plan for him to come in
the midst of all this havoc in my life he was the best thing
that ever happened to me.
I now had holidays that I hadn’t known of before and I
now had a routine that told my brain what to do and when
to do it that kept me functioning like all others in our
world.
My SSDA reviews once again were always of horror and
dismay to me. I felt that they would see how far they could
push before I would crack just to be able to prove to them
that I was still too injured to work. This was always
grueling to me and I would always be barely able to walk
out of the mind manipulating scenarios that was felt that
had to be created for me to seek the truth of what was
going on inside of me. I would get hollered at at times and
have rude remarks thrown my way to see my reaction. I
was always usually treated crazy and at the end would
leave the room having to feel my way out my brain
shutting down leaving me with barely any sense function
to find my whereabouts which was always taken as
psychological once again. How was I to tell them of these
aspects when there were no tests to show this? I had had
a hard time even describing or recognizing it at first
myself. Where these were suppose to be professionals in
a field where I was not trained how was I to train them of
myself?
I felt that this was an unfair way to treat someone.
Someone wounded trying to get better, trying to keep
confidence up on herself to see her way through. But my
tunnels and walls were dark and alone and I would have
to find my way out alone. And why be so cruel to just
extend me for another 3 years without facing for me what
I needed to face was the fact that this was permanent and
people and I were just going to have to accept that.
When I would try to get my school loan signed off on as
a permanent injury the doctor’s would always say for an
undetermined time yet they would tell me it was a
permanent injury that I had and that it would never go
away. I was always getting conflicting information such as
this.
When I saw Maria Shriver’s interview on Alzheimer’s on
TV I felt that I wanted to cry from understanding what she
was talking about and I felt of why do people have to
change themselves when they are going through this?
When I would sit at times and still now sometimes I
would feel a stinging inside of me of shame of myself that
I felt I was supposed to feel along with a sort of sadness
that this brought to myself as a result. I would always lift
my eyes up to do what I had to do leaving a disapproved
kind of look resulting in a guilty look of sorts on my face.
I always knew it was there because I could feel it.
I felt like a person that was supposed to be hidden and
kept in the ruins of our society for no one to see or get too
close to. Like a lepper that has to be segregated from all.
But I knew this was my place now for a while and I had to
accept it. But it didn’t stop me from dreaming that there
might be a place out there for me where I could lift my
eyes wide open again to see the world and enter it and run
and be free along with the others all around me. And not
feel that heaviness of bars that sits inside of me on my
chest so hard. That now I would be able to breathe again
and start living my life. If only for an instant or just a short
while it would make my life worth living for my whole life.
But now I am tired so I will go to sleep as my brain wants
to rest. Even though at these times it just flutters until it
learns to slow to a halt so I can rest it until either sleep or
my next moment. But this is part of my fight because I
want my brain to run normally.
I never had to look inside of myself to find beauty where
I now had to. My outside left much for to have to overlook
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