My Cognitive Exercise: One day after my 50th birthday, my rescued retriever and Natasha Richardson saved my life.

My rescued golden retriever, Seamus

On the 16th of January, 2012, I turned 50 years old.

On the 17th of January I was admitted to the head trauma unit at Medical Center of the Rockies.

It’s not what you may think. I didn’t implode with any newfound realization that 50 years of my life had gone by. Quite the opposite. Just the day before I was telling my sister that I felt “emboldened,” in the same way that an elderly person feels comfortable spewing whatever comes to mind whenever it comes to mind. Not that I wasn’t already like that, but now I felt like I earned a certain privilege.

We started the celebration on Saturday with a gorgeous hike through the Devil’s Backbone, not five miles from our house. Imagine this miles-long gnarly spine of rock towering out of the ground, where dinosaurs once roamed, and you find yourself in a place that’s otherworldly. Then imagine the wisdom of present-day citizens who fought development and spared this local world wonder from asphalt and gaudy icicle holiday lights. (Ice factors into my story but not just yet.) One couldn’t help but smile walking through this untouched pristine wilderness, one that compels you to continue ’round the next corner…and the next…to see what Mother Earth concocted for you. It felt good to get the blood pumping and the nostrils flaring as we enjoyed an afternoon of sunshine with any thought except of gratitude very far away.

With my birthday falling on a Monday, a national holiday that’s not a holiday for those of us who had to work, we enjoyed a special dinner a day early, high on a mountainside overlooking Boulder’s magical city lights. It’s the kind of place you’d find in fairytales, especially those set in snow. A particularly dry winter here in Colorado, there was very little snow up on the mountain, but we speculated how beautiful it must be when dusted with “sugar” (my term of endearment when snow is not a threat). I was celebrating my milestone birthday with the person I loved best, doing what I loved best: drinking fine wine and eating a gourmet meal. Life was good. Tim honored my wishes by not throwing a party, letting me usher in this milestone in contemplative style. 

The Monday holiday—not in celebration of me but in commemoration of someone who had blazed trails of empowerment for his fellow man in both his life and in his death—was a day of reflection. Working on a college campus, we celebrated Martin Luther King Day but not so much that we actually got the day off. There was a weeklong schedule of events, kicked off by a big faculty/staff breakfast with an inspiring guest speaker to put this bold and courageous man into historical perspective. This is the reason I worked at a university, to surround myself with Big Thinkers who analyze everything. Life in the ivory tower doesn’t allow one to simply go through the motions without thinking about the deeper meaning of things, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. By now my Facebook social network was buzzing with birthday wishes, necessitating the silencing of my phone. A few people in the room wished me happy birthday the old fashioned way. 

On my way back to my office I overheard a man at our front door saying my name. I passed him; he walked back to his unadorned white-panel van. I had no idea why he asked about me, but curiously I waited and watched to see what he was doing. Out from the darkness of the van sprung this overflowing bouquet of red roses, blue thistle, and godetia, under the canopy of three big balloons. Once again Tim had chosen my favorite special occasion florist, Fleur de Lys. I carefully carried them up the stairs into my office, but the arrangement was so large that I was nose deep in the sprawl and nearly knocked over Nick when he came out of his office to see why his female colleagues were buzzing. The scent was wonderful; the sentiment even more so. I peeled off a quick lovey-dovey text to my sweetheart for loving me that much. Then I reported for volunteer duty serving (MLK) birthday cake to the campus community. There were two kinds, but using restraint I tried only the blueberry-filled white cake with lemon butter-cream frosting. To hell with Weight Watchers points. It was my 50th birthday!

Back at the office I managed to squeeze out a few hours’ work and then left early to meet Tim in Boulder at the Apple store. Finally the new phone I had on order was in. While in the store it started to snow and the roads began to get icy. Driving home I was held up in accident traffic on a single-lane rural road where, around a hairpin turn, someone was going too fast and flipped the car. Flashing blue and red lights from fire trucks and ambulances lighted the scene. I felt for that person, the terror of being upside down, trapped and quite probably hurt or maybe even dead. Turns out that we made a good decision to go out to dinner the night before, and even though the Flagstaff House would have been magical in snow, therein always lies a little bit of danger. I’m wise enough now to make safer decisions. 

Once home, Mom called to sing happy birthday. I soaked up every note. How many more times would I hear that sweet voice? Mom had me when she was 40, and she was just one month shy of 90. I couldn’t bear to imagine my life without her. At that moment, I was content and happy. I wanted to enjoy the happiness of the day. We spent a pleasant night at home sipping a memorable bottle of Dom Ruinart blanc de blanc brut that we had been stowing for a special occasion and blowing out my candles arranged in a Roman numeral L for 50. Only clever Tim would think of that. As it was a national holiday, my accumulating birthday cards were held hostage, making the next day the birthday that just keeps on giving.

It continued to snow into Tuesday. It had snowed more near home than it had near work, an hour south, and the temperature plummeted to just 6 degrees, encrusting the roads in a sheet of ice. (Rewind: Just three days earlier we were hiking in balmy 60 degrees!) When I returned home at the end of the day, it had gotten a tad warmer, but it was still freezing cold and there was plenty of snow still in the driveway. I saw no new tire tracks, signaling to me that I was the first one home. The garage door opened to expose an empty bay, confirming my suspicion. It was 6:45. There’s no telling whether Tim would be along at 7:00, 7:15 or 7:30. I let myself into the house and the dogs out, and as part of my customary routine I asked Seamus (our rescued golden retriever from just a year ago) if he’d like to go with me to pick up the mail. With MLK holding up my birthday greeting delivery the day before, there was bound to be a stack. I had taught Seamus to wait at a certain point in the driveway without following me too close to the road, but this time with snow covering his markers, he escorted me all the way to the box. Was this foreshadowing? A minor blunder, I didn’t correct him; I prefer to positively reinforce his behavior when he does what I expect.  

As I suspected, the mailbox is full. On the very top of the pile was a mysterious envelope with all sorts of warnings. I can’t help but be intrigued. “Hand Cancel, Please.” “Fragile.” “Do Not Bend.” I made my way back through the snowy driveway anticipating ripping open that baby first and with abandon. Only I didn’t get to do that for three more days.

Almost back to the house, in a single instant my sure footing evaporated on glare ice disguised beneath the snow.  Suddenly airborne then violently thrown backward, my head hit the ground with a heavy whack. The world went black. When I opened my eyes, the starry, starry night was swirling in a way that would have inspired Van Gogh. But not me. I smelled blood. I felt immediately nauseous and like I had to void at the very same time. I tried to lift my head, but the sky was still swirling. I tilted my head backwards toward the street to see if any cars (or my knight in shining armor) were coming down the road or if anyone at all was around. Of course not. This is why we lived so remotely, for the peace and quiet. I tried yelling for my neighbor Pam across the street. The light was on, but the shade was drawn. I started to cry, wondering how I would get out of my predicament. I knew immediately that this was no ordinary fall. I had plenty of evidence to prove otherwise: the sound of my head hitting the ground; the throbbing pain; smell of blood; nausea; dizziness; and inability to get up. I could move my limbs; I just couldn’t get everything moving in the right direction. I thought of Natasha Richardson. She fell while skiing in Canada, hit her head, developed a headache, and died. I needed to take this seriously. I’ve got all of this evidence. Seamus had curled up alongside me on the ground, sharing his warmth and his 82-pound bulk. It’s all I had. Together we could do this. He let me roll over onto his back to steady myself on my knees and we crawled ever so carefully to the door.

I got to the phone, brought it to the bathroom with me, tore off my coat and made it to the toilet. I didn’t know what was going to let go first, but I was in the right room for all of the options. Should I call 911 first and then Tim or vice versa? Not knowing how close he was, I didn’t want him to be surprised by rescue vehicles when he arrived. Better to tell him first. “Tim, where are you? I’ve fallen and hit my head and it’s not good.” He had stopped for gas and would be home in a few minutes. When he found me, I was ashen gray. He made two calls, one to 911 and one to our neighbor Donna to come stay with the dogs when the EMTs arrived. 

This isn’t how I imagined this night to be. Instead I found myself experiencing my first ride in an ambulance as a patient. When in hell are they going to fix these bumpy roads? Don’t they know it’s agony for someone with a massive headache? Riding backwards and looking out the rear window, I had no idea where we were until I saw the cobalt-blue-lighted trees of Centerra. We were near the hospital. Help was close by. 

Questions, needles, IVs, narcotics and drugs to curb the nausea—only the last two weren’t working. How could morphine not be knocking out this headache? Why did I feel like I have to puke? I didn’t understand. I just wanted it to stop. I tried to practice deep breathing, like a woman does when she’s in labor, only I had never been in labor and breathing deep was merely a mental exercise to convince myself that I was doing everything within my own power to beat the pain. The doctor explained that I needed a CT-scan to make sure I hadn’t fractured my skull or there wasn’t any bleeding lurking and threatening my existence. When I got to the imaging room, I was asked if I could move myself from the ER transport bed to the table. When I lifted my head, the room started spinning again and the techs decided to move me by litter. I closed my eyes through the whole procedure, and then when I even thought about moving from the table to the transport bed, I yelled for a vomit bag. Once I started, I could not stop. The last thing I had eaten was a Hershey nugget in the middle of an afternoon meeting, followed by my free Starbucks macchiato in honor of my birthday. I vomited until my stomach muscles hurt. I dry heaved until my whole body shook. Back in the ER I was given more drugs and admitted for a traumatic brain injury. Fortunately the scan showed no bleeding or fracture but a very bruised brain. I was officially diagnosed with a severe concussion. So this is what it was like to be Mohammed Ali or play in the NFL. Why would anyone risk this willingly?

I sent Tim home so that he could try to get some sleep and I went up to my private room that wasn’t so private when four nurses witnessed the unrelenting puke of my lifetime. My head was banging. Light was excruciating. Please, I just wanted to be left alone in the dark. The night pulsed slowly: 1:10, 1:30, 1:45, until hours later when I finally caught a glimmer of daylight peeking from around the closed shade. The nurses had been in routinely checking my vitals, hitting me with more morphine and more anti-nausea, alarming my bed so that I didn’t get up (how could I? But I was not thinking clearly), giving me ice packs for my head, ice chips for my mouth, cold cloths to wipe my sewer-like lips. I hadn’t been to the bathroom in more than 12 hours. I puked my way to the john, nurses and IV in tow, and my full moon surely exposed. I didn’t care who saw it. It was inconsequential at the moment. I couldn’t pee, not with all these people anticipating the big act and I couldn’t be left alone. I went back to bed. I decided that when I really had to go, I would go because I couldn’t fathom a catheter. 

The doctor came by to do some cognitive testing. He told me that light and sound are going to hurt for a while. I wouldn’t be able to watch TV, use a computer, make decisions, work on finances, drive a car, do anything of any consequence for at least a week, if not longer. Believe me, I had no desire. My brain was scrambled. Is that a medical term? My stamina for completing simple tasks, ability to remember names, and make it through a routine day without a nap would be affected. I would grasp for a word and then it would be…gone… These kinds of injuries usually take about a month before I’d feel good again. The best thing I could do for myself was to give my brain the rest it needed. Don’t give others the chance to question my judgment. I was going to be fatigued, irritable (more than usual), confused, frustrated and sad. Those are all normal symptoms. I was told to call off work, appointments, commitments; they are all secondary to clearing the pea-soup fog I was in.

I continued to vomit. I couldn’t hold down even sips of water. How could this be anti-nausea medication? Get me off of the morphine! I was convinced it was making me worse. Try something else: Tylenol, Tramadol, a Glock, I didn’t care, but no more of those over-rated drugs. My anti-nausea medicine was changed. A merciful nurse stepped outside and turned her back to the bathroom door sparing me a few seconds alone with my bladder. Priceless. It really is about the little things in life.

After my withdrawal of morphine and with an onset of new anti-nausea medication, I made slow improvement. While my head was still banging, I was no longer leaving internal organs in the Pepto Bismol-pink basin. I eventually made it to the bathroom without puking. I could lower my head a bit to the sink so that I could brush my teeth. I looked like hell, but I turned a corner. A team of a dozen doctors and nurses visited me the next morning and decided to try Vicodin for pain. If I tolerated that, that’s what I’d go home with. Tim peppered them with questions, and they unknowingly made me laugh under the surface of fog, telling us stories about a farmer ziplining from one barn to another, only the zipline wasn’t secure at the other end. He too ended up on this ward. Perhaps I was a caught unaware walking in my driveway, but at least it wasn’t my carelessness that landed me in the head trauma unit. Still I was warned that each successive head trauma, should there be any, gets progressively worse. Listening to my protests about morphine, the docs declared that I would never make a good drug addict. Thumbs up on that one. I need every single cell and neuron in this brain without me carelessly frying them for pleasure’s sake. 

Later on, the new wonder drug started eating away at my headache. In turn, I managed to eat half a bland chicken sandwich and kept it down. If I am stable like this for a few more hours, I could go home later that night. It would feel so good to take a shower. By now Tim had been out of work for two days and the next day would be no different. I couldn’t be left alone. But I’d be home in my own bed. The only tough decision I was going to make was whether I should wear my pink underwear with lace trim or the ones with little red hearts. I didn’t know if I could handle it, but I was willing to give it a try.

I did not tell my family about my accident until I was markedly better. Mom was a worrywart of the worst kind. She’d lose more sleep than anyone. My colleagues at work had been concerned. My boss left a sweet voicemail message, showing his softer side. When someone in his circle was sick, he could be very compassionate. My teammates had been cooking up a storm, and Serena planned to make a special delivery the next day. She planned to bring my lonely roses and several meals so that we didn’t have to cook. This was a gift for Tim as well; he didn’t like to cook, but he would without complaint if he had to. At moments of crises, Tim was the rock I leaned upon. I was so grateful for him and hoped he knew that for him I would have done the same. 

My first night home was a drug-induced blur, but the next day the doorbell rang and there were flowers, a Teddy bear, balloons and candy from Tim’s workmates at Raytheon. At lunchtime Jen came by bearing roses and offers to take Charlie and Seamus for a much-needed walk. Serena came later on with a week’s worth of food: delicious quiche, soup, chicken and almond rice, chicken enchiladas, turkey meatloaf, blueberry muffins and a red velvet cake. I tried to find out who sent the red velvet cake, but Serena wouldn’t give up any names. A couple of students with whom I had been working on a project sent along a new blanket to curl up in and chocolates. Serena left, I went to bed, and Tim was left alone with the quiche. Serena thought we would have it for breakfast. It didn’t make it that long, though there was some left for Sunday breakfast, two days later. I woke at 10 pm for another Vicodin with a side of quiche. Back to bed for more unsettling dreams…I’m floating on an iceberg and I can’t get off...

Those who know me well apparently know how important food is to my life and sense of well-being, and Saturday and Sunday produced more evidence. Another group of workmates sent an Edible Arrangement of oranges, berries, grapes, pineapple, and melon. Our friend and neighbor Donna rang the doorbell at dinnertime with straight-from-the-oven stuffed shells; a jicama, carrot and broccoli salad; and a small pear and blue cheese ciabatta. I was surrounded by angels who knew how to cook! “That meal was nearly worth the conk on the head,” I jokingly texted Donna later on. More angels descended on Sunday: Tim’s workmate Jan and his wife Terry thoughtfully delivered homemade sausage and bean soup, crusty French bread and a bottle of wine. Though I couldn’t drink the wine, therein presented a glimmer of promise. Just the night before when Vic, Susie and Cindy, more neighbors, stopped by to check on me, Vic told us about a car accident he had been in back in 1979. Thrown from the car, he tore up an elbow and had quite a head injury. His only long-lasting effect was his loss of smell. I hadn’t noticed if I suffered a similar loss in the deep fog I had been in, but now I was curious. “Tim, please bring me the strong-scented Aveda candle Jen gave me for my birthday.” Nope. Nothing. Nada. I couldn’t smell that, the pumpkin candle, hoppy beer, or anything else that passed under my sniffer. But on Sunday when Tim opened the bottle of Cline Cashmere, I detected the faintest smell of a luscious, full-bodied red wine. That had been the extent of it. I put on perfume, showered with Tim’s manliest soap, willed myself to discern familiar fragrances but to no yield. Maybe when the fog fully clears and I eventually come up for air. At that point, I committed to memory the unmistakable aroma of freshly roasted coffee; lemon; and the smell that spills from a torn-open box of chocolates, the kind that evokes an instantaneous Pavlovian response. There are others for which taste is no substitute: the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine; the sea; a wood fire; a Balsam Christmas tree; orange blossoms along the Greek countryside. I couldn’t afford to think about those at the moment… I had to think about what I was lucky to have.

In lieu of working on crossword puzzles as a cognitive exercise to get the synapses firing again, I decided to use my vocabulary for the many thank-you notes I needed to write. And math? I worked that in by following a recipe for the brownies I baked for the local firemen and EMTs. Those selfless souls, who choose to tend to the goriest emergencies and disasters, deserved a little sweetness in their lives. It wasn’t the first time I made them brownies, though it was the first time for treating me personally. There are times when they work for days fighting wildfire, and there was that other time when I hiked my Northeasterner physician-brother to dehydration and then watered him with Scotch. 

Over the previous two years, my body needlessly reminded me how fragile it could be. Those who rallied around me—friends, neighbors, workmates, EMTs, docs and nurses, pets, husband— were synonymously angels. And I was the one-more-experience-wiser recipient of their loving and caring acts of kindness. Life was indeed good, even in—or maybe especially because of—challenging times.

Have you or someone you love ever experienced a traumatic brain injury?