mypsyche's Open Salon Blog

The Remembering

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:01:15 -0500

Today is the fifth anniversary of my son's accident. Of his being hit by a car and having a severe traumatic brain injury. For the last four years, January 16th rolls towards me with insistence. January 16, 2008 is when we stopped being a normal family. It is where our Before ended and our After began.

My son is alive. He is a beautiful specimen of maleness physically. Emotionally and cognitively, he is still the boy he was when the accident occured. The changes in our lives have been myriad and unexepcted. But he is here, alive and capable of love. There is still a silver lining, cracked and veined though it may be.

An excerpt from my upcoming memoir:

Yet Okay Family: One Family's Journey Through Traumatic Brain Injury

      Austin is ready after a week to be moved from the ICU to Acute Care. Really, what this involves is that Austin’s bed will be moved from ICU to Acute Care. We say good-bye to the nurses who have been so kind. Several of them hug us.
   “Don’t forget this,” says a nurse as she hands me a white plastic bag with a drawstring at the top. On the front is the name of the hospital and underneath that is line that says ‘client’. Austin’s name has been written on this line.
   “These are all his clothes from when he came in. His wallet is in the hospital safe. There’s a receipt in the bag to claim it.”
   Judy and I walk ahead and leave the team getting Austin’s bed ready for the transfer. We take the elevator up to the floor where Austin’s new room is located. It feels a bit more spacious, with a wall of windows and a door that opens onto the central nurse’s station rather than a hallway such as in ICU. I put the bag down, then think to look inside of it. What was Austin wearing that day? I don’t know, as the kids had stayed with their dad the night before.
   “Oh god.”
   “What? What is it?” Judy comes to my side to see what I am holding.
   “Oh no. Drema, let’s put these away,” she says gently.
   I look at the jeans I am holding. They are dirty from the pavement he landed on. And they are split up the sides of both legs. The scissors had also cut through his belt. I think of the haste in which emergency personnel must have cut his clothes off in order to get him stabilized. I imagine someone holding his head still as others work. I shove the jeans back into the bag, get up and shove the bag into the room’s closet.
   I will myself to focus on what I know: I know Austin’s body is weak from being in a coma, from the trauma, and from the lack of bodily movement for almost two weeks. He cannot stand without assistance, nor can he sit without support. He is sometimes able to focus on the person in front of him but often appears dazed. He gives a thumbs up now when asked. He remains awake up to two hours at a time. I know too, that the move to Acute Care signals progress, and that is a good sign. Austin is one of the ones who ‘made it’.

Barely Breathing

Wed, 1 Aug 2012 17:08:09 -0400

Breathing. It sounds so simple until one breaks it down. A slow intake in of breath, a mindful exhalation: these actions are not so simple when one is accustomed to running on empty.

*********

    I stepped into the yoga studio with trepidation. I had signed up for a beginner’s class, believing that at least there would be one other person who didn’t know anything. The class was deeply, physically satisfying. I felt good and returned without hesitation for a second class. Most of the second class was focused on integrating breath with movement. I felt dizzy, disoriented and confused about why it seemed so difficult for me to follow along.
   Austin’s accident happened the day of my next class. I didn’t go back to yoga for six months. When I did return, I tried another type of yoga. Kundalini yoga brought me back into my body after the trauma. So much that I fought back tears at the end of each class. Kundalini ends with a song that I have now forgotten but at the time I remember holding Austin in my heart as we sang about holding love and coming home.
   Austin was in the first month of a string of treatment centers at the time. His letters home were threatening, angry, sad and confused. Each time I received one, I would hold it and breathe for a long time. Sometimes an hour would pass as I sat breathing, trying to focus on inhaling and exhaling, hoping to still the emotions pushing at me through the envelope. I knew what would happen if I read his letter without preparation for it had happened many times before. I would open the letter, hope pushing behind my eyes, anxiety running through my brain, and read his words. You are the worst mom ever! I hate you so much I could kill myself! His anger would tear my skin and sear my brain. I wanted a respirator so I could stop doing the work of breathing. Breathing was painful because it was keeping me alive.

********

I loved watching my babies when they were sleeping. Their beautiful translucent skin. Their breath smelling milky as they fell asleep at my breast. Their little bellies rose and fell as they drifted into deeper sleep. Austin was a great sleeper as a baby. Inevitably, the moment he was in the carseat he fell asleep. Sometimes I would encourage China to sing loudly with me as we drove home, wanting his nap to be at home and not in the car. Wanting the reprieve of two children napping. Unlike his sister, when Austin woke up, it was with a snap, as though his central nervous system had jolted from sleeping to high alert.
Getting one of his letters turns me to high alert. I am like a small town hit by a tsunami. Like a small town, I am prepared for a certain set of crises but there is no preparation for the unthinkable. By the time I start receiving his letters, I am barely recovering from the previous trauma. I am rarely able to sleep, I function on automatic most of the time. I am stumbling through life and I am barely breathing.

***********

   “Put one hand here,” I instruct as I place my left hand on my abdomen. “Then put the other hand here.” My right hand now on my chest, I teach a client who has severe anxiety how to do diaphragmatic breathing. I explain that the lungs and heart work in tandem. That while we cannot slow our heart rate down deliberately, if we slow our breath down, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and the heart rate will slow. I practice this with her and encourage her to practice this at night, in bed as she prepares to fall asleep.
   “I feel calmer,” says my client as she exits the office.
   I lay down then on my own couch, place my left hand on my abdomen, my right hand on my chest. I inhale deeply, pulling the air down deeply into my lungs, my belly rising. Tears begin streaming down the sides of my face. I exhale fully as my body releases both tears and breath. Breathing deeply is difficult because it pulls me into the present, it pulls my mind away from the trauma of the past and the possibility of trauma in the future. It pulls me into a present where I am simply a mother struggling to do her best.
   And, in this present, in this moment, as I breathe, I am forced to accept that I can do nothing. I cannot change what is happening in Austin’s mind; I cannot control how it will heal or how he will deal with life. I am being forced to accept that no matter how much I do not sleep and no matter how much I want to be somewhere else, I can only be here, each moment, where I am. My mind refuses to accept this however, it’s too damned hard to accept. The lesson I have just glimpsed here flees. My sobs subsided, I get up and return to my land-of-not-living. I am no longer aware of breathing.

********

    Once I feel ready, I open Austin’s letter. ‘Ready’ means I have made room for myself. My focus is not on Austin or what his words will say. My focus is that we have contact, that he continues to choose to be in contact with me despite his fury. The letter today is really no different than his previous ones although today he has given me a date by which I must comply with his demand to come home.
   “Are you okay?” asks my partner.
   “Yeah, I just need to breathe.”

Together (an OS love song)

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:06:18 -0400

There are times
that I wish you could see me
as I see me

And when those times occurred
you would squint
in recognition
in truth
and know

That what you see
is a person that is very much me
and it seems a bit like you

You who are my dailiness
my breath

Then, together
we would break bread
sopping it in oil and
then sigh
with the relief of pleasure.

The Wonder Dog

Wed, 6 Jun 2012 16:06:23 -0400

There is but one saving grace, one savior I can look to during the heights of Austin’s stubbornness and stress: Sparkie the Wonder Dog.

“Remember,” I say as we enter the animal shelter, “all three of us have to agree on the dog. Got it?”

My kids, 8 and 6, nod eagerly and go running to the nearest pens. My daughter immediately lights on a small shivering dog whose back is to us.

“Mom! Look at this one!” The poor dog almost convulses from her attention. Because the dog doesn’t move from its spot, China eventually says a sad good-bye and moves on.

Meanwhile, Austin is rounding up the rowdiest dogs he can find and stands amidst three barking dogs. He laughs as they lick and run around him.

“These would be great, mom! Can we get all three, then we’d each have a dog! Wouldn’t that be great?”

His sister has been standing outside a pen, frowning at her rule-breaking brother. She enters the pen and is promptly knocked over by a big, gray dog. I wince, wait for her cry. She pushes the wiggling dog off her, then pulls him to her by his huge head.

“You’re nice but you’re not my dog,” she tells him. Satisfied with this brief bit of attention he runs to the other side of the pen.

“Hey guys, listen, these are nice dogs but they are too big!” I yell.

Groans are emitted but the kids move on. We play Goldilocks as we move past dogs that are too small, too barky, dogs that scowl and dogs that seem aloof. I wander away as they begin playing with a huge but friendly German Shepherd. I am chatting with a lovely, aged Airedale when I hear the squeals of joy, a chorus of Mom Mom Mom!

Turning around, I see the kids fawning over a tri-colored dog. Her tiny head is black, her chunky torso is black and white, and her dainty feet are covered with golden freckles. Both kids coo over her. She sits between them regally, quietly taking in their offerings of affection and adoration. We have found the dog of our dreams. We name her Sparkie.

Both kids love her but Austin fawns over her. He ensures her water bowl is clean and full, that she has a daily snack. She sleeps on his bed and routinely, he awakens pushed to the edge while she sleeps on his pillow. She is his first concern in the morning and the last at night.

And, so, seven years later, on a day when he refuses to go to physical therapy, when no threat, no plea, no request is met with a positive response, I pull out the final card: “Fine, no p.t. means I am not bringing the dog to visit.”

I feel like a total loser when his eyes tear up. I feel like a total genius when he gets up and follows the physical therapist. I learn to use my Sparkie card judiciously. She’s a powerful antidote; she bestows on him unconditional love, she makes no demands that he do therapy or turn his music down. She doesn’t remind him that he can’t hang out with his friends unsupervised. Sparkie loves him without reserve. Most powerful, I suspect, is that she doesn’t remind him in a 1000 different ways that he is changed.

When the perseveration has wrapped me in its tentacles, when I am barely breathing, when all I want is to end my life of the moment, I call for the dog.

This first outing feels unbearable. Everything feels fraught with tension and the worry of what can go wrong. What can go wrong feels like everything is already wrong, so really, what’s to worry about?

The physical therapist worked with me yesterday, teaching me how to fold up his wheelchair and then how to unfold it, lock the wheels. She pretended to be Austin so I could learn how to transfer him from the wheelchair into the car and vice versa. I secretly hope she will go with me tomorrow and not Austin. She’s an easy patient and Austin is not. Imagining her as my charge gives me a sweet moment of relief.

Austin is overjoyed at what he views as his release. Repeatedly we have emphasized that he will return to the rehab center after the play. We perseverate on this just as he perseverates on getting out. Good god, brain injuries are apparently contagious. As I expected, the transfer of him from the wheelchair to the car goes nothing like it did with the physical therapist.

“Mom! I can do it! You don’t have to be all like, you know, those people who take your temperature!”

“You mean I don’t have to be like a nurse?”

“Nurse, yes. I mean no, don’t be like that.” He pushes off the wheelchair before I have the wheels locked and we both wobble as the chair slides away. He stands, swaying slightly to the right. With determination, he steps into the car and then crows, “Ha ha, Judy! I get to ride shotgun!”

Judy and I look at each other. Our sighs are mutual. We have talked about our hesitation that returning to his high school for a play seems like an invitation to trouble. Austin has no insight into the reality that he is not the same as when he was last in high school. As with many brain injured people, he sees himself as he was pre-accident, able to overlook the fact that he has trouble walking, talking, and still has a feeding tube. In his mind we are the problem and if we could learn to chill out, his life would be much easier.

Driving to the school, he chatters non-stop while switching radio stations every five seconds. The car is a cacophony of sounds and none make sense. But it is easy to take pleasure in his delight because it is so pure and so simple. He wants to be just another kid going to see his high school friends in a play and for these two hours, he almost gets to be. Except for the wheelchair and the fact that he has to wear a helmet.

“Listen, mom, I want you to drop me off at the entrance and then you and Judy can park the car and come in.”

My heart sinks. His helmet and the wheelchair are necessary but already he’s dismissed them as something that only happens at the rehab center, not high school. I meet Judy’s eyes in the rearview mirror. She frowns and I give a slight shake of my head. There is no use responding to him, it will escalate into a fight. Instead, I depend on his short term memory to let this request go and sure enough, he doesn’t say anything as I drive past the entrance and into the parking lot. We are exact in our motions this time, the wheelchair whipped out and locked into place before he can get the door open. While one of us is talking to him and fastening him into the wheelchair, the other pops the helmet onto his head.

Kids throng around him as we near the entrance. Austin looks so happy it makes me teary. He should be here with his friends having fun, normal fun, joking around, standing around, awkward teenage fun. It’s bittersweet, seeing his joy and seeing his friends, but also seeing him in a state that may or may not ever let him be like his friends again. At this point, he continues to have trouble remembering names and words so he has learned to joke around more to cover his confusion. Unfortunately his humor doesn’t make sense and I note a few acquaintances backing away.

A student comes out before the show begins and dedicates the show to “Austin, the most amazing dude!”. The crowd claps and Austin waves. He grins widely. He also seems slightly annoyed when the lights go down to start the play.

The play is a musical, a love story set on a tropical island. At this stage, abstract processing is almost absent for Austin and he clearly cannot follow the show. His attention span is minimal and he begins moving around in his seat, craning his neck to find people in the audience. “Hey!” He calls out to someone and throws out his hand in a peace sign. He is irritated when we ask him to be quiet, trying to explain that others are watching the show. “Yeah, but they’re making all kinds of noise up there,” he says with frustration. He begins bumping his helmet on the seat in front of him.

Time moves slowly when you most want it to speed. I am aware that we are getting dirty looks from others. I like to think it is from people who don’t know about his accident, but I know that these people include parents who were kind before the play. Parents who have kids in the play and now want their kids to have their spotlight...I get it. I do.

Austin was the single freshman chosen for the school play that would go to Scotland after being in high school only four weeks. When he decided to leave the theater program, his teacher told me, “He came into the program with more talent than most kids leave with”. Being at this play is so bittersweet I want to walk out, get into my car and drive away from it all.

Instead, we return Austin to rehab and then go home where I hold on to the dog for dear life.

A Heart Breaks Unevenly

Wed, 7 Mar 2012 09:03:23 -0500

I sit here still stunned. Saddened. Not knowing if there was something I could’ve done, or should’ve done. If there was a moment when I should’ve known, could have stepped in and changed what is...

*****************************************************
We met 30 years ago. I was the 21 years old manager; she was my 36 years old assistant manager.

I found her enchanting, exuberant, exotic. She spoke her mind while I only did in my managerial role. Outside of that role I was quiet, unsure of my place in the world. I was accustomed to a husband who had taught me within under a year to not see myself as attractive or interesting. She, however, found me interesting, drew me out, showed me how to laugh without abandon, taught me how to say fuck, and reflected to me my good qualities.

When I found out about my husband’s affair, she was on a plane within hours. We sat and cried and drank cheap wine while I smoked and coughed. She helped me move into my first apartment as a single. We celebrated loudly and she invited the agitated neighbors in to join us in the impromptu celebration. She made life fun.

When I got back together with the ex, she supported me while making her hesitation and protection of me known. Over the next 20 years we roamed the world to meet up. We met where we were as we left marriages, had children, survived deaths and divorces, marriages, graduate school, unemployment and illnesses. We met to sustain and support one another, to laugh, and to remind ourselves that we had hand-selected our families with each other.

And always the wine flowed freely. There was always a reason to toast: To tears! To no more jerks! To new jerks! To a new country! To beginnings! To endings! Always the wine flowed freely.

We didn’t lose touch exactly. I found a new life partner, started a private practice, had two teens to keep tabs on...She was promoted, explored being single and launched her daughter into adulthood. When we re-connected after years, it felt stilted, awkward. But we lurched forward: We have history, cheers! And her wine still flowed freely. Mine slowed.

****************************************************

The next year she visited was difficult. She found ways to poke at my partner. She and I fought over what I perceived as her having a problem with my having a same-sex partner. Her wine flowed freely. I tried to keep up in a stupid but valiant effort to reconnect. I missed her. But she was there. Somewhat. It was confusing.

**********************************************
I found myself frustrated and agitated with her this last visit. She kept repeating herself, perseverating on stories and seemingly unable to stop when I stated she had ‘told me that story’. She asked no questions about me. At times she made no sense and didn’t follow our conversations. She did not want to do anything but sit on the couch and watch TV. She asked me once if I could tell her about tests for dementia and I thought, oh, maybe that’s what’s going on... But on the third day of her visit, after our getting massages, she asked if we could stop at a liquor store. I was surprised because she had been drinking almost no wine and we had some at home, but agreed. Her plunking down a gallon of vodka on the counter should have been the tipping point. I just didn’t get it.

I didn’t get it until I was picking up after the debris of her day on the couch and thought to smell the half full glass of what she had been passing off as water. Vodka. Fucking vodka. Her story of her doctor telling her she needed to drink more water? Vodka. Her desire to sit on the couch and do nothing because she was on vacation? Vodka.

It hit me hard that I had lost her to vodka. It explained her behavior, her lack of connection to me, her self-involvement, her inability to track conversations. You can’t have a relationship with people when your primary relationship is with alcohol. But it hurts to know you have lost out to a substance.

****************************************************************************

Her last night with me was terrible. The veil had been drawn back and I saw what I did not (would not? could not?) see before. She had been sitting and talking with my son most of the afternoon. Unwittingly, we decided to go out that night for a glass of wine at a favorite wine bar. It had not occurred to me that she would have been drinking while with him. Stupid me, stupid unwitting unthinking me. She stumbled on her way in. She made loud spitting raspberries at the taste of wine we were given. I knew for the first time what it feels like to be with someone who is drunk: the embarrassment and humiliation and the wish to disappear. I texted my partner, ‘we have to leave, she is drunk’. After a half glass of wine each, we left. When we got home, she collapsed onto the floor wheezing. She refused our help but talked to herself loudly. “No one will invite me back, I’m such a poo head”.

The next morning as we went to the airport, she apologized. “I’m sorry about last night, it must’ve been the wine.” Something in me snapped hearing the lame explanation. “It’s the vodka, Bebe, it’s killing you.” I didn’t listen to her excuses, her rationale for taking care of other things before taking care of this problem. I thought instead about how sad and angry I was that she smelled like alcohol at 9AM. My friend hasn’t listened to me in years and now I knew she couldn’t. And wouldn't.

When I returned home after dropping her off, my partner met me at the door. She pointed to the recycling bin. There were two empty gallon jugs of vodka in the bin. Neither was the brand she bought 3 days prior...

****************************************************************************

I am full of pain and tortured. I miss my friend and I hate the woman who visited. They are the same. I have contacted her daughter (who confirmed it is worse than what I saw). I will call and leave information for her therapist who likely doesn’t have the whole story. But, I grieve. I wonder what I could’ve done and if I could have done anything. I find it hard to separate responsibility from history, family from an old friendship, alcohol from her. I feel such sadness for her, that this is her life. I have no way of knowing if she will want to change.

I missed her.

I miss her still.