Sproutings Life - 29 years of Acquired Brain Injury: the way things move in the wind

This is a follow-up to two stories that I wrote in 2014 about my car accident in 1995. They all concern broken neck and permanent brain damage, identity and recovery.

“Fish hears the winter rain hissing on the tin roof. When lightning flashes he sees the fruit trees without leaves down there in the yard. On still nights, cold nights, clear frosty nights, he hears the river a long way off across the rooftops and tree crowns.”

Cloudstreet, p69, Tim Winton.

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Around ten years ago I wrote a pair of brief stories about navigating life with injuries I sustained in a car accident in 1995. I wrote them each in one sitting, without real thought or editing. They represented the purest truth of my experience.

Both stories were published in the public domain at The Footy Almanac. I remain very grateful for that and for the generous responses from readers.

Today I would like to give a small update to those stories (“A search and a small revelation on 21 January” and “…and we’ll be us; you and me. Soon”). Things have changed. Things always change.

How Things Are Now – 29 years after the accident

So in general life is pretty great. Loving it. In terms of injuries from that car accident, there are two types of ongoing issues for me – one related to broken neck and the other related to closed head injury.

The accident

As I wrote in “A search and a small revelation”: One and half days out of Darwin, about 30 minutes east of the Threeways roadhouse, we stacked it. 4.30pm in the afternoon, I think. I’ve lost that day and about three weeks afterwards.
The short version of the story is this: I was front seat passenger in a single-car rollover. I ended unconscious and hanging from my seatbelt as the car ended up on the driver’s side after rolling. I’d sustained a fractured C5 vertebra and a closed head injury. K was conscious and alert and suffered minor physical injuries. The Royal Flying Doctor came to fetch us: K to Alice. Me to Adelaide and intensive care.

Months later, following transfer to Austin, surgery to stablise my neck, admission to the Acquired Brain Injury unit at Royal Talbot, I was discharged. I had regained most of the use of my right hand. My legs were alright. Unlike for that Fish Lamb in Cloudstreet, my head injury was improving. Yet everything was different.

The world was different, somehow.

Broken neck issues update

Because I suffered fractured vertebra at C5/6, I have permanent weakness in the extension muscles of the fingers of my right hand, of my right wrist and of my right arm. So yep, still permanent. I have slight weakness in my left arm. Some muscles around the right side of my chest and shoulder have not received a clear signal from the brain since 1995. My right tricep is like custard. I have tried to build strength. But if my right tricep is isolated, I cannot raise my arm against gravity.

So I’ve never taken up body building.

And since 1995 I’ve not performed a single push-up.

In cold weather I struggle to straighten my fingers. If I make a fist and then try to straighten my fingers in cold weather, it feels like my fingers move against resistance. As if the air is made of honey.

Mostly these things are minor annoyances. Little inconveniences. I have altered the way I take off a t-shirt, for instance (withdraw the arms first, then lift it over my head - rather than ask my triceps to pull the whole thing off my torso). Mostly gravity does the job to straighten my arms, so the marooned tricep isn’t too big of a deal. The combined weight of small disappointments can be significant though, when enough of them are held for a while.

I do have to be careful of my neck. Because my C5 & C6 vertebrae are fused, my neck is not as flexible as it was originally - not up to design standard. This is mostly OK. But I need to avoid situations that could threaten the integrity of my neck. Roller-coasters, bungee-ropes and diving platforms are certainly OUT. So is body surfing. A neurologists once suggested that I try to "live my life, but be careful." Wisely or not, I still ride a bike. But not on busy roads and not on bumpy surfaces. I opt for the slow, stable path through this adventure now.

These restrictions are also mostly minor annoyances.

I can’t use my arms as I would like for sport/ play. Basketball, tennis, netball, cricket - even a social kick of a footy - I just can’t do it. That is more than annoying. I have felt that as a restriction on my life choices, for sure.

These issues do have a cumulative effect. But I know that I cannot change my neck injury – I can only change how I react to it. It’s alright.

Brain damage issues update

I have what is called permanent brain damage from a severe brain injury. This was my diagnosis in around 1997. I had a new neurological assessment in March 2022 and was amazed to receive exactly the SAME diagnosis. The main take-aways were:

• I have permanent brain damage from a severe head injury.

• I have worked out ways to compensate for my injuries in most situations.

• In complex environments, my work-arounds cannot cope. My brain cannot cope.

• Complex environments include where there are things competing for my attention and senses (e.g. a noisy room, clutter, a feeling of pressure). Complex environments encompass any emotional situation.

Still, after the injury I completed BE (Hons), B Sc, Dip Ed and PhD. So I am fortunate enough to be able to leap over academic hurdles.

After the injury I started writing. I have many stories online and some in books. So the writing is intact.

On a day-to-day level, I work at a professional office-based job 4 days per week. Recently up from 3 days per week. And I find that quite enough. The cognitive demands of that job are real. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with those demands – even with things as mundane as organising a workshop or planning an invitation to a meeting. Things like that I find hard. So I work only 4 days a week. This means I don't earn as much money as I could otherwise and I don't progress as perhaps I might have in the absence of brain damage (but who really knows?).

On a day-to-day level, I have trouble with decisions. Should I catch a tram to work or ride my bike? Should I work from home tomorrow? What will I do about health insurance? What will I do about climate breakdown?

On a day-to-day level, I am a separated father of two teenagers. My place/ our place is a terrific 3-bedroom apartment. I am able to cook and clean, to have fun, to teach these teenagers how to drive. People I live with probably see the best and the worst of me. When emotions get high or when a room I am in becomes noisy, chaotic or loud, I simply cannot cope. What happens for me in those times is that I see blotches in my vision. My ears ring. My thinking doesn’t really work - like gridlock. What I should do then is to retreat, to walk away.  To remove myself from the complex environment. In the past that didn't always happen and instead I may have yelled (not often) or I may have dissolved into tears (more frequently).

For many years I had a low sense of self.

Today, from a place of relative enlightenment, I see my low sense of self was due to stories that I told myself.

Sure, my severe brain injury is a concrete fact. But statements or thoughts like "I am hopeless," or "I always muck things up," are not concrete facts. They are ideas. They are stories. Something that continues to help me enormously is to separate facts from stories. This is an ongoing effort. And something that helps me in this is to practice mindfulness.

“Mostly Fish is quiet. He talks, but not much. He likes to stand around in the yard and see birds. He likes the way things move in the wind. Wind excites him. When he feels a breeze on his face he smiles and says, Yes.”

Cloudstreet, p.70, Tim Winton

Mindfulness

I feel very lucky. Mindfulness has helped me and is something I practice every day. Recently I recognised that it has become my default way.

In my 2014 story of head injury, I wrote that I would have a quiet cry once a fortnight or so – when head injury difficulties would arise. Today, I’m pretty happy to say that I cannot even remember the last time I felt overwhelmed to that extent. Many things have changed for me – including the role of mindfulness.

What does the practice of mindfulness look like? Well, I walk. I sit. I stand. Whatever. And I empty my mind of thoughts. Empty empty empty. I might do this by observing things around me (the finishes on an old Victorian terrace house, flowers, a bird careening across the sky, clouds, rain, a vintage old Citroën parked on a Fitzroy street). By being totally present. Truly seeing that uncurling pink rose bud in the Lowan Street front garden, smelling that rose bud, seeing the way water droplets bead on the head of that rose bud, hearing that nearby magpie's call, feeling the cold air around my legs as I drop into the Merri Creek channel. And if a thought comes into my mind (for example: "I wonder does that magpie feel cold?"), then I notice that too. And I say "oh hello thought. You’re a thought. Off you go now." And then I get back to noticing things. Toddlers are experts at mindfulness, apparently. It seems to come naturally to me.

Sometimes, after dropping into presence, I have the sense of sliding backstage. It doesn’t happen so much when I'm walking. But it sometimes happens if I'm seated quietly, seeking presence. It's a peculiar sense of inhabiting a different type of time. A slow time. A strange, suspended thing. Everything falls away and I am still. I find it Very Restful. Very helpful. It might be a form of meditation. Anyway. That is something I do now.

The act of mindfulness helps me separate fact from opinion. Fact from story. And usually it’s the stories or opinions that get me into trouble (even (or especially!) those I tell myself). So it’s a ticket out of catastrophising – a way to stay in the present.

And because I don't always have control over my environment, it is lovely to know that mindfulness is available. It is a way I can react to complex environments.

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Mindfulness is not just a tool for me, though. It is also a path to something much bigger. I don’t know what that bigger thing is - and it probably it doesn’t matter - but I imagine it as Life. This is a story now, rather than a concrete fact. But all the same, I feel very grateful to Life. At times I have the impression that I’ve felt or experienced other dimensions - other levels - felt an expansion in my chest and in my awareness. It’s hard to describe. But I’ve been there.

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Recently I sent away to Northern Territory Police for information they held on the car accident. Below is what they sent back. I was struck by the diagram of the accident scene, showing the various places the car landed on its side and door.

The way things move in the wind

And so I go on. Life goes on. And it is wonderful. These are some of my favourite things right now:

• sometimes reading aloud to the buds of an evening while they paint with watercolours,

• playfulness,

• riding my upright bike with the wind through Fitzroy and Carlton back streets,

• a little eucalyptus that grows on my porch,

• hope,

• receiving a ping from a friend to catch up,

• sunrise,

• writing these stories here at sproutings,

• watching Seinfeld with the buds,

• cooking with the buds,

• a good laugh,

• sunset,

• that feeling of excitement and anticipation that comes from hanging out and sharing life with a creative, generous, funny, loving other

• play.

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Ten years ago I ended my story with this:

These days I don’t expect ever to catch up with the old me.
Most people now in my life didn’t know that me, anyway.
And so I try to be myself.
Though which version of myself, 20 years later, can still trip me up.
Soon I’ll be myself. Soon!

Well ten years later those versions of self have resolved. That all happened during March 2019. I can’t be too prescriptive here - and I need to stay humble with it. But it’s taken much work and much play, too. Mindfulness is part of it. Following joy another part of it. Certainly anything that gets me out of my head and into my body is part of it. And family, friends. Supporters.

Brilliant.

Sometimes I think I’d like to write a book about all of this.
But then I find it tricky enough to make a shopping list and decide what to do on Saturday. Who knows? For now I’ll keep the ambitions manageable.

How much is enough? This is enough.

“Soon you’ll be a man, Fish, though only for a moment, long enough to see, smell, touch, hear, taste the muted glory of wholeness and finish what was begun only a moment ago down there where the fire crackles by the bank and those skinny girls are singing, where the light is outswinging on the water and your brother laughing. The earth slips away, Fish and soon, soon you’ll be yourself, and we’ll be us; you and me. Soon!”

Cloudsteet, p 420, Tim Winton

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From NT Police internal memorandum, 1 February 1995:

1.     At 1710 hours on Saturday the 21^st of January 1995 a call was received at this station from staff of Threeways roadhouse to report a single vehicle roll-over accident approximately 40 km east of Threeways along the Barkly Hwy.

2.     The circumstances of the accident are that a Victorian registered HK model Station Wagon with two occupants was driving in an easterly direction along the Barkly Hwy and at about 38 km east of Threeways the driver of the vehicle lost control of her driving resulting in the vehicle rolling over an unknown number of times.

3.     The driver of the vehicle K was not injured as a result of the accident being treated for shock only at Tennant Creek Hospital. The male passenger D was seriously injured due to the accident and after being conveyed to Tennant Creek Hospital it was decided that he be flown to Adelaide for treatment. D was unconscious on arrival at the accident and at the time of reporting he has not regained consciousness and is believed to have suffered spinal injuries.

4.     The accident was not witnessed by any persons and was attended by Officers X and Y. Investigation of the accident leads to contributing factors being inexperience of the driver who stated that she panicked when momentarily taking her attention from the road and the passenger side wheels of the vehicle went off the sealed road and into the gravel. The driver states that she panicked seeing a white road marker and trying to avoid collision with it turned the vehicle hard right. In doing so she appears to have over-corrected resulting in the vehicle sliding across both lanes of the road and ending up in the gravel off to the right of the road. While in the gravel she has turned the vehicle hard left attempting to get back on the road. This seems to be the point where the vehicle commenced to roll onto the driver's side and continued to do so for an unconfirmed number of times before coming to rest on the driver's side.

5.     Driver fatigue should not be a contributing factor as the couple had only driven from Mataranka that morning leaving at approximately 0600 hrs and then had taken a break at Threeways the driver states for about three hours.

6.     The speed of the vehicle prior to the accident is not known but a statement from the driver of a vehicle overtaken by the vehicle involved about 20 km prior to the accident states that he estimates the speed of the Kingswood to be approx. 100 km/h and "Not out of the ordinary."

7.     K is not a resident of the Territory and since the accident has departed from Tennant Creek. She currently holds a Victorian drivers licence (probationary) and at the time of the accident states that she was not taking any medication and was not under the influence of alcohol.

8.     The vehicle is believed to have been in sound mechanical condition having recently been serviced at an automotive workshop in Darwin. An inspection of the vehicle by a qualified inspector has been requested.

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