{"id":21881,"date":"2022-03-08T09:06:43","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T16:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rodbinder.com\/journal\/?p=21881"},"modified":"2022-03-17T11:15:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T18:15:40","slug":"mar-8-tbi-tba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rodbinder.com\/journal\/2022\/03\/08\/mar-8-tbi-tba\/","title":{"rendered":"Mar 8 TBI TBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Mahatma Gandhi<\/strong><\/p>\n

I watched another tv episode about TBI. Traumatic brain injury. I always find those a little disturbing.<\/p>\n

I am going to try recalling the times I hurt my head in my lifetime.<\/p>\n

Ten years old my brother and I were hanging out at the PNE, off-season he found a coke bottle, one of the old thick glass ones.<\/p>\n

He threw it hard as he could upwards. It bounced off a chain-link fence, on it’s way down, it hit me in the back of my head.<\/p>\n

I remember all the blood, and I remember being in a security guard’s shack waiting for an ambulance.<\/p>\n

I got stitches that day.<\/p>\n

When I was a little older, I was practicing for a track meet doing a high jump. Someone thought it would be fun to pull away the matts as I went over. I landed on my head on pavement.<\/p>\n

I still have the painful lump on my forehead from that. I remember punching that laughing guy in the face before I passed out.<\/p>\n

When I was in the Navy, we were out in the worst storm in twenty years, they say. The ship was rolling up and down 75-foot swells. I was in the radio room.<\/p>\n

Our top-secret material was kept in a big, heavy safe as tall as I was.<\/p>\n

Besides the safe was a large iron bar welded in place to keep the heavy safe door from damaging the shelves and equipment beside the safe.<\/p>\n

As we violently rolled over a big wave, I felt the ship drop out below me. I was ejected at high speed at the iron bar, the top of my nose caught the bar. That knocked me out.<\/p>\n

August 1 1986. I was driving a crippled man to a distant AA meeting. I noticed a Honda CRX coming from the opposite direction at high speed. He clipped a car pulling a tent trailer ahead of me.<\/p>\n

I slammed on my brakes and pull as far off the road as I could.<\/p>\n

He had radar lock-on. He hit me corner to corner head-on. No air bag in the car I was in. My foot still on the brakes.<\/p>\n

The engine and tranny pushed my knee and ankle into the steering column. I smashed my face on the steering wheel.<\/p>\n

12 hours of surgery on my knee, followed by 4 more at a later date.<\/p>\n

My head injury was ignored for the more serious ones.<\/p>\n

Summer 2000. A friend had brought over a 4 wheeled bobcat, so I could do some work on my new property.<\/p>\n

It was on a high trailer, as I drove off I was violently thrown forward. I hit my head again on sharp metal.<\/p>\n

Enough to give me headaches and dizziness for days after. I didn’t consider ER because I only had the bobcat for that afternoon. I rested for a while then went to work.<\/p>\n

December 2014. I stopped at a stop sign near my house like I have a thousand times before. There was a little frost on my passenger side window, the sun was in my eyes for a second. I looked, the road was clear. So I thought. I was T-boned by a fast-moving truck.<\/p>\n

My dog was sitting beside me on the console. On impact, my dog was ejected out the driver’s window, breaking my neck and back on the way out.<\/p>\n

My head was also injured. 3 weeks later, I would undergo surgery on my neck. The clamps holding my head in place were over-tightened. So much that hair does not grow where the clamps made contact. 8 years later.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I was doing a renovation. I moved my ten-foot ladder over a few feet. I had forgotten a claw hammer at the top of the ladder. It fell and hit me on the top of my skull at the back.<\/p>\n

I went to Peace River Hospital hoping I would be treated fairly, something that doesn’t happen at Fairview hospital or Spirit River, thanks to some malicious nurses.<\/p>\n

I was slurring my words and couldn’t concentrate. The doctor there refused me treatment, but gave me a sobriety test and made comments about me being used to that.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is I had quit drinking Sep 18 1981.<\/p>\n

I do remember stopping at Fairview hospital, that morning and seeing it was too full, and I needed to go to Peace River.<\/p>\n

I also mentioned to the admin girl that I would go to Peace River hospital. Not too hard to imagine a phone call was made to the ER by the same nurses.<\/p>\n

So again my head injury was not examined. If that doctor was convinced I was drunk, why were the police not called?<\/p>\n

Today I am suffering a different problem, yesterday I was moving a large heavy piece of OSB, 6-foot x 6 foot 3\/4″ thick into the house. I didn’t realize then, but I injured my upper back. I spent the night screaming a little if I moved at all.<\/p>\n

I am spending the day resting, trying to heal up. I just had a lukewarm birdbath in front of the fire that was almost out.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a satisfying experience but I am clean. The rest of the day will be spent resting more. I don’t even want to risk reinjuring starting the gen. So no video games to pass the time. Only binge-watching old TV series.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n