I wrote all this down to face my problems with honesty and to stop hiding behind the “this is not happening category.” I needed to face reality and know that my brain is broken, to come clean that I have brain injury problems instead of hiding the problems; to be open to the truth. God is truth and I know that He wants me to help others with similar head injuries.

The Injury

My husband, Joe, and I were visiting friends in Cullman, Alabama. I made a wrong turn in their hallway and found myself flying through the air and ending up hitting my head on a cement wall at the bottom of the stairs. I was rushed to the hospital in Cullman. The CT scan they took showed an “acute subdural hematoma,” a potential “death knell.” Cullman hospital wasn’t equipped to help me. At midnight I was flown by helicopter to Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham where I received another CT scan, and Yep! it still was a dangerous acute subdural hematoma.

No Fear

People have died from this type of injury.  Like King Hezekiah, I wasn’t ready to die yet. After the CT scan there was no doubt in the mind of my doctor, Evan Zeiger, that I needed immediate surgery to save my life. I asked him “Does this mean you’re going to drill a hole in my head?” He answered calmly, “yes.” God took away any normal response of fear of the thought of taking off my skull and getting the hematoma sucked out of me.

The Surgery

The surgery was performed at two o’clock in the morning and it was successful. I WAS ALIVE! I woke up with a huge white turban style bandage on my head. Tubes were poking out of the top of the turban looking like a bazaar decoration. The screws and plates were holding my skull together.  A few days later I was able to walk with help.

The Second Surgery

Sitting on a chair in my room, minding my own business, I decided to get up by myself. I had done this before but this time I fell. Either the fall caused a new bleeder or the bleeder caused the fall. Either way the result was another CT scan . The scan showed a bleeder and. ANOTHER SURGERY WAS REQUIRED!

Dr. Zeiger’s report read: “She became less responsive, and a CT scan revealed recurrent acute right frontal subdural hematoma and with mass effect and swelling.”  Here we go again! Another opening of the skull bone. Another turban head with crazy tubes. Thanks be to God; I survived the second surgery.

Healing

Two weeks later, Joe and I returned safely home to Rainbow Springs, Florida. My body had healed enough to be able to sit and walk without falling. Eventually I was able to get back to my running routine. I could read, write, and have a normal life…..except….

The Secrets of My Battered Brain

I wasn’t in control of my brain. I wasn’t the person I was before the falls. Strange things were happening to me. THINGS I COULDN’T CONTROL. I lost my ability to spell everything I used to spell without a thought. I looked up a drawing of the brain and found out that the side I hit against the concrete was the part of my brain that was the “spelling gray matter area.” Good thing we now have spell check!

Other things that were new to me and quite scary were: noises; like the loud beep of a car horn that would send me into an uncontrollable panic attack that would cause me to shiver and shake. Various things would trigger a panic attack. Like when Joe was driving and turned down the wrong street.  I didn’t know what would trigger the panic and/or anxiety. If a room was crowded with people I would become anxious and practically run out of the room in sheer terror.  I would get angry with Joe for no reason…and yell at him. Joe was my hero. He didn’t yell back, he just held me close until the shivering was over. He understood and never got impatient. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was brain damaged. I didn’t think they’d understand and I really didn’t know how to explain it.  Life is tough when you’re in hiding.

Out of Hiding

One morning as Joe and I were going into church one of my friends called from the parking lot and wanted to talk to me. She had recently taken a bad fall on a sidewalk pavement. She asked me if I had become a different person after my fall. Right then I knew she was me. She was a different woman from the one before her fall and she didn’t understand it.  Because she asked me the question in the parking lot also told me she was in hiding, too. It’s scary not knowing yourself anymore.

My answer to her was, “Yes, many things have changed.” I told her about my panic attacks and my outburst of yelling and my shivering and shaking for no apparent reason. My fear of loud noises. I told her my spelling had become poor. I don’t spell as well as I did. Retrieving things from my brain was not easy.  She listened and nodded often. I could see what I was saying was familiar and helpful. She told me that her husband said to her, “I don’t know who you are anymore.”  I told her that Joe would be glad to talk to her husband, Benny, about her fall that could easily produced a “traumatic brain injury.” It does cause big time trauma to a brain and changes your Life and Personality.

Facing Reality

I wrote all this down to face my problems with honesty and to stop hiding behind the “this is not happening category.” I needed to face reality and know that my brain is broken, to come clean that I have brain injury problems instead of hiding the problems; to be open to the truth. God is truth and I know that He wants me to help others with similar head injuries.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (2 Corinthians 1: 3, 4).

Miriam Gautier is a member of Treasure Coast Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Stuart, Fla.