[MRH.]

This is just not me. If anyone out there was having such a miserable existence, I wouldn't want to hear their stories and wouldn't want to share mine for the same reason: I do not believe that misery loves company. But I have nothing left, it seems. I mean, I don't know what to do anymore, nor what I am doing.

About a year and half ago I had a "mild" TBI, knocked unconscious for up to 30 minutes, don't even know for sure how long exactly. And the position I was in after I was knocked out my have been cutting off my oxygen supply to some degree(all my body weight on my neck) The first month or two was mostly recovering from physical issues, mostly just my neck. My foot took much longer to heal for some reason, but it was all quite trivial relative to my other issues.

I had this recurring pins and needles feelings in my arms, especially the left. This was probably the result of the massive anxiety and stress I was under. Let me go back to before the accident. Long story.

I grew up in really poor family. Parts of any given year we didn't even have running water. Sure, it wasn't a great childhood, but it could have been worse, and I was always aware of that. I thought I was blessed just to be born in the USA. I'm the youngest of 4 kids. No one in my immediate family ever even graduated from high school -- my mother never even went. She had some drug addiction issues, as did my father, who is a severely alcoholic Vietnam vet. Divorced, of course. A messed up family, surely, but a family.

My siblings all ended up with kids in their teens and various other issues that prevented them from doing much with their lives. I was the clean-cut altar boy, never doing anything wrong.

The teachers at school had always known I was highly intelligent(about 150 IQ tested in the 4th grade), but was not well motivated. Education was not a highly valued commodity in my family. In my mid-teens I met a girl who really profoundly changed my life. It's not a simple relationship to describe. We were very close, somewhere between boyfriend/girlfriend and soul mates, you could say.

Because of her I decided to finally move out from the middle of nowhere(the nearest "town" to us had a population of 10-12 people, just to give you an idea of how rural the area was. I moved to a city an hour or so away. So I was around 16 and working essentially fulltime and doing well in school, all the while taking care of everything else in my life. However, that girl ended up dying in a car accident. I was too busy with my life. (my lunch hour at school was when I did my laundry at the laundromat. Very busy.) So I blocked out all the memories of that time as best I could and tried to avoid thinking about it. It worked better than one might expect. Sometimes the walls I build in my mind would break down a bit, but I'd manage to put them back up before it hurt me too bad.


The biggest hope for my father was that I might become a wielder. Why? Because wielders made the most of anyone at the plant he worked at. Heh. To him, college was a waste of time because "it cost money, and you could even end up making less money than if you had just worked somewhere and moved up the ladder." (paraphrased, of course.) Well, my hope and dream was to become a doctor, not a welder, and so I needed a good education an entirely different plan.

I was mostly ignorant of the entire process involved in going to college at the time, knowing nothing of the grants and such I could possibly have received, I knew nothing about college at all in fact. I ended up trying to work and save money to pay for my education, but I never seemed to make enough to put away anything significant to even make a dent in tuition. But then I got a nice factory job making pretty good money. I figured in a couple years at the job maybe, just maybe, I could save enough to go to college for a year or two, get incredible grades so I could get a nice scholarship, and follow my dreams and stay in school fulltime from then on in. But they laid off a ton of people from the job, including me. A bit a of letdown.

Then I collected unemployment for awhile. Suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands, a lot of time to think about things, since now the checks kept food in the fridge and the heat on. By choice or not, this would be the time I finally went through the bereavement process related to the girl I mentioned earlier in my late teens. Ya, I was still mostly blocking out that entire event in my life.

It must have been close to two years before I finally closed up that bitter-sweet chapter of my life, and I ended up spending the tail portion of it staying with my father who himself had just gotten out of a failed relationship with someone else. Then we had the fire. He dropped his insurance on the place 2-3 months before it happened because he was searching for a cheaper insurer. I lost everything: every bit of clothing, every asset, every bit of memorabilia. I was approaching my mid 20s, had been gainfully employed since I was about 12 years old, and yet there I was with some minor cuts/burns and some sweat pants/shirt donated from the red cross.

But I had already decided that, no matter what, I was going to get into college. I was actually on top of the world. I had largely blamed that girls death on myself, because I left to make my dreams come true. Perhaps if I stayed, everything would have been different? But it dawned on me one day to switch placed with her, assuming she could see me from the great beyond. It was lie a light went on. She wouldn't have wanted me to spend a single day blaming myself, and she would be completely devastated by finding me not following my dreams at all and maybe even blame herself. The switch wasn't just turned on, the sun was turned on.

I went to college taking out whatever loans/grants I needed to get by. I became perennial president's list student(4.0 GPA for the year). I was majoring in biology/chemistry. I was involved in various research projects at the university, was volunteering at a hospital emergency room, I was shadowing as many physicians as I could, had achieved several academic feats that had never been accomplished at that university, I was even recommended by professors to be a new student liaison with the dean. I was told by the pre-med advisor that I was the closest thing to a "lock" for medical school that she had ever seen.

I started studying for my MCAT about a year and half early(MCAT is like the SAT for medical school admission), and I managed to get average scores near 40. (usually you only need about a 28 to be assured admission, 32ish for a good school, 34 ish for a great school, 36ish for elite schools, and near 40 you can often get a full ride scholarship anywhere, which was my hope. A couple months before I was going to take the MCAT, however, in my senior year, I get into the accident. My life completely fell to pieces.

I had to cancel the entire semester, cancel the idea of taking the MCAT any time soon, and basically put my whole life on hold. Things improved "mentally" a lot for the first 6 months or so, but ever since then, it's been pretty stagnant. about 1.5 years out from the accident and I still can't keep attention very well, I often do "scatterbrained" things, I have a temper that snaps in an instant, often for very little reason. These three things are very, very out of character for me. My verbal IQ probably about 10 points lower than when I tested as a kid, so it's still pretty high, but apparently my procedural IQ has dropped closer to 30 points. So now I have a big difference in performance on those tests. If anything, I would be stronger on procedural than verbal based on my talents before this happened. The difference(the gap) between them now puts me in the "autistic" range, but with the IQ types switched around. WTH do they even call that? Tough luck, I guess.

I've been living with my father and our relationship has gone from mediocre to terrible. Money is tight right now, as most people know, and I feel horrible just being a leech sitting around and doing nothing. I get migraines frequently, especially when I leave the house. I'm worried about working instead of going to school because when/if I ever apply to med school it will look strange. Several times I've tried to go back to school by testing the waters via auditing classes, and each experience has been a miserable one. I might be able to muddle through with C- and Bs in a full semester, but not A's anymore. So if I complete my senior year with C and Bs in classes, it will destroy my chances of going to med school, even worse is my MCAT performance suffered even more. It would now take me years to get back my full grasp of all the material I'd need to know and I still am not nearly the same "test taker" I was before and my score is going be incredibly diminished.

Basically, my life has been over with for 1.5 years. I got a lawyer about a year ago, but not much has happened on that end of things. Every day I wonder if I will finally be at the end of my rope. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know where I'm going. And I'm tired of this train wreck existence. In that 1.5 years, I lost most of the hair on top of my head, having had a full set of hair before all this crap started. I first ballooned up + 40 pounds to 235-240 (at 5'8"), but been dieting down to 175ish now, but now I've lost or will lose almost all the muscle I've built up through 2 decades of weight lifting/body building. I haven't been able to truly exercise since this happened, as almost anything physically exertive has a high chance of starting a migraine.

I just have nothing left. I used to think I'd be a great role model for my nieces and nephews and be ale to help them out with money issues, especially if they wanted to go to college. Now I'm afraid to even be around people I care about because of the short temper. I'm broken, tired, and afraid. More than a little ****** off, too. None of this was my fault, and now it feels like my life is completely out of my hands.

I have no insurance, sadly, since it happened before the school semester started so I have no insurance. Nothing helps at the doctor's office, and I've tried so many things it seems. I feel like I'm wasting their and my time, and my money. How could I have worked so hard to end up here?? I've never heard of anything so cruel. If there is a hell, and I end up going there, I'm well prepared. I feel worst of all for my neices and nephews, as I know all too well how hard it will be for any of them to do anything with their live,s given their family situations and dead end town they live in and around. It all reminds me of my favorite sond when I was a teenager, Pearl Jam's "Black". Time for another day of complete BS.

[iverr6]

I feel you Brother... my situation is similar, its been 1 1/2 years of hell for me too. I feel like Im just hanging by a thread sometimes, but Im still hanging.

[Twinkletoes]

((((MRH.))))

Glad you found us. I hope you get some help for your troubles.

[vini]

yes mate, know the feeling I am 14 months post injury the hardest thing for me is lack of future, and the plateau of improvement and the feeling that I am no longer myself and the frustration I cant provide for my family, and rely on welfare, and the look in my loved ones eyes as we struggle but at a head injury day care centre I go to, there are folks who are blind , in wheel chairs ect and I think how lucky I am but for me as some one of a high IQ it still sucks big time ,that I cant think fast and it actually hurts to do so BUT I WILL NOT STOP TRYING its important even when you feel you are getting no were to say attempt to relearn an old skill or way of acting, and trying to get over the why me thing.

we are all worth it welcome again

[GmaSue]

Fellow Sufferer, first of all, the reason you are here, to answer that question is that there are people here that can help you. If you keep coming back, you will meet many people that have had it all swept away and somehow managed to rebuild their life.

Sometimes, it is not the same life that we had before, or not the life we had envisioned for ourselves, but a good life, nonetheless.

It is wonderful if you have someone in your life that can be a mentor and someone to help you plan a way of recovery for yourself, but that is not always possible. Although, if you think very carefully about everyone you know, there might be someone who could be a support person for you. If you can think of someone that could be that for you-take a risk and ask them. What do you have to lose?

If you can't find someone like that, keep coming back here. People here have spent so much time sending me private messages abd encouraging me to have courage. They have also helped me to see things with a different perspective. Things about myself and my qualities.

For example, even though your story is so hard to read because it is so painful and because life has not been fair for you, it still reveals some amazing qualities that you have. And you might not be able to see them right now or realize their potential.

Your qualities of persistance and tenaciousness can help you to keep fighting. You have a strong sense of loyalty and a stong love for people as shown by your career desire to be a doctor and to help people, and your desire to help your nieces and nephews. Even though you have had and still have so many challenges, you still care for others. That is a great attribute that will enrich your life immensively. You still have a great ability to communicate and to think logically. You have a very persuasive way of presenting facts.

In re-reading your letter, I can see there are many people at the university and the hospital who know you and what you have accomplished so far, and would be good candidates for you to contact and ask them if they would be willing to mentor you and be a support person to figure out your next steps.

You have learned a lot of lessons about life, albeit in a hard way, and can put that knowledge to use. I predict there will be many people in your future that will benefit from what you have been through, because you will be able to help them through their struggles.

NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER UNDERESTIMATE HOW MUCH MOTIVATION CAN LEVEL ANY PLAYING FIELD !!!

[MRH.]

Just tonight I went out to grandad's bluff. Climbed over the fence, looked down over the thousand foot drop to a sheer rockface and played chicken with death for half an hour.

I just recently got a letter that the lawyer i had on my case wasn't going to represent me anymore, leaving me with a little over a month to find a new lawyer to take my case. I was just hoping to return to school this semester and that my lawyer would mostly deal with any legal issues and I could stay focused on school itself. Instead, I'm back in the frying pan. since 1.5-2 years after the accident, I think I got back to about 95% of my general functionality. But that last 5% turns up really quick on any really tough tests, especially timed tests.

I won't be able to do well on the MCAT in this condition, I won't be able to be a straight A science student if I return to classes. If I return to classes it will ruin my academic record because professional schools will mostly focus on your most recent grades, not your "old" grades. My one dream in life, what i had worked for for so long is not just dying; it's a fossil.

I grow tired of everything. So tired. Live like a cockroach. Afraid to be around my own family. No money, no assets, can't get any sort of medical assistance and the reason i'm depressed isn't because I'm simply "depressed", it's because my whole god damn life is a smoking pile of ruins. No depression medication is going to fix that anyway. I don't even have any decent clothes that fits anymore. In september the statute of limitations is up on the accident I had. If I don't find another lawyer by then, my three year "anniversary" might also be on my tombstone.

[Phyxius]

I totally understand where you are coming from.

I've been waiting for the last 4 weeks on the results from a SLPI test which is basically an interpreter student's equivalent of an MCAT or LSAT. Problem is I pretty much KNOW what the results are-- I blew that thing. With that being the case, my college career will be over.

I know what it feels like to want to just end all of the fighting to continue the hell. For whatever reason, we as human beings are most often hard-wired to continue the fight to go on. Believe me though, in the last few days I've been right there with you equipped with my own secret fantasies.

I say all of that just to let you know that you are not alone. I don't know if that helps or not, but it's certainly the truth. It kind of stinks that these boards have kind of died lately. Maybe they will pick up.

[Lucy]

I am so sorry that you are going through all of this.

But you know what, you are strong and things will improve.

Just look at what you have accomplished so far and on your own!

Is there a student union or similar that can help you? I have found that when you ask for help people are mostly keen to help you. I had to get over my pride and ask - never had to ask for anything before in my life because I had my wonderful memory etc.

The best recoveries or in some case "adaptabilities" have been with the younger ones amongst us.

I am sure that Mark will have some good suggestions for you. I would make it my priority to sort out the legal side within time. You can repeat a year of school which I understand will upset you - but remember - you are young and time is on your side with school.

My life changing head injury was when I was 45, I lost everything including a 23 year marriage and eventually my career.

I did find out who my true friends are and how strong I am. Sounds weird but I believe I am a far nicer person.

You are not alone

Lynlee

[Mark in Idaho]

mrh,

Sorry to hear of your struggles. Been there, done that. Dropped out of pre-Dent program almost 40 years ago. I was almost straight A's during high school. I just had a year of B's after a concussion as a sophomore. And I had to deal with the Bakke Decision ( quotas limiting white males in admissions to med/dental schools)

First, lets focus on your ongoing symptoms. The tingly arms/hands is likely due to a neck issue. Have you had any chiropractic work done? A good upper cervical chiropractor may be able to help. Many Chiro's are usually good at waiting for settlement funds for payment.

You also may find a good Physical Therapist that can help. My chiro diagnosed Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. He referred me to a Rehab and Physical medicine doctor who got me to a good PT. The relief was almost instantaneous. It took almost a year to get my upper back stabilized. My left arm/hand had been tingling on and off for almost 1.5 years.

Tell us about your other physical symptoms. We likely have experienced them all. You need to consider each symptom individually. Some you have to get to understand and live with. Others can be resolved over time.

Have you spoken to disabled services at school. There should be some help for you. Tutors, note takers, extra time for exams. Currently, you should qualify for assistance under ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act. Yes, you are currently disabled. Accept it and ask for help. It will make you a better doctor down the road.

Sorry, I could not read your whole story. Too much for my demented brain. If I read it, I would probably need to take a nap for my brain to recover. PCS is a struggle.

Have you kept any kind of journal of symptoms? Charting individual symptoms can help you learn to work-around some and accommodate others. Most of us have developed a number of coping skills to deal with our ongoing symptoms.

Hope this helps.

My best to you.