When your brain is your enemy

or is trying to save your life

On Oct. 19, 2019, I was in a car crash caused by a woman driving with a large dog in her lap. Not in her car — in her lap. This behavior was (and remains) the very definition of distracted driving, should be outlawed, and given the highest of fines.

But alas, in the town I live in, there are no consequences for driving with pets in your lap, a behavior I observe multiple times each week because people apparently lose their critical thinking ability when they see Rover.

This completely preventable, horrible accident resulted in my airbag deploying. While air bags can be life-saving, they can also cause injury because they deploy with great force. In my case, I got burns on my arms and was knocked out when the bag punched me in the face. I sustained a traumatic brain injury, resulted in two years of intensive rehabilitation, one more year of maintenance rehab, and a permanent reduction of about 25% of my prior cognitive functioning. Added bonuses are motion sickness, extreme sensitivity to light and sound, short-term memory issues, word-finding problems, and vision vexations.

Much of my rehab centered on adjusting to my limitations — accepting a “pacing not pushing” lifestyle — so I could eventually return to part-time writing, part-time babysitting of adorable grandsons, attending family events, being in a room with music without the room spinning, and traveling.

It was difficult for me — the epitome of a Type-A personality — to learn this method of slower living, but eventually I accepted it, practiced it, and sort-of mastered it. Most of the time, it works, because I behave.

But sometimes, bad things happen, necessitating life-at-full-speed and a break in my regimented toddler-like sleep hygiene. Or, sometimes, in a moment of greed-for-life, I think, “Just this once” so I can enjoy something fabulous with my astonishing family or fascinating friends, and I slip into life at pre-TBI pace.

When this happens, I always — always — pay the price. My brain revolts and becomes my enemy, or, as my concussion doctor used to say, it tries to save my life.

As anyone with a TBI can tell you (if they’ve had decent treatment, which is rarer than you would think), the brain controls everything: a automatic processes such as breathing, heart beating, digestion, and blood pressure, as well as learned processes such as language, telling your hand to pick up that coffee cup, or your foot to step over the log on the hiking trail.

When your brain is scrambled, as happens in brain injuries (as well as neurological diseases), the automatic functions are prioritized because your brain’s primary job is keeping you breathing.

Ergo, in the immediate months after my injury, I was unable to speak and sit up at the same time. My brain couldn’t keep my blood pressure regulated to keep me upright while it was also attempting the deeply cognitive task of conversation. (All that finding of works, putting in sentences, getting them to my mouth, spitting them out.)

When I over-do life, my brain announces — loudly with a headache and SO MUCH NAUSEA and dizziness — “Back to home base for you, young lady! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Lay on the floor in a dark room right this instant.” It isn’t back to step one, but it is dang close.

That’s my life right now, so I beg forgiveness for no column this week. Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal in two weeks because writing this small amount took two days in tiny 5-minute chunks because anything longer at a screen makes me soooooo symptomatic. #thankyouTBI

In lieu of a column, I leave you with these things instead:

1. A CNN video interview of a young teenager swimming for hours to save his family stranded off coast of Australia;

2. The correct way to transport an animal in a vehicle here);

3. The column I wrote two years after my injury, with data on distracted driving (including those dashboard screens) everyone should read, here;

4. And so much positive news at this week’s Fix The News Substack, you should read it all, here. If you don’t want to give into the doom and gloom, get a subscription to the folks behind Fix The News; if you are able, make it a paid subscription. The founder is Angus Hervey, who lives in Australia with his young family and also produces a podcast called Hope is a Verb. (Australia brings us Fix The News and teens who rescue their family by swimming through shark-infested waters. That country is on fire, peeps!)