It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written anything here; three months to the day to be exact. On June 11th, I fell head first into a wall and sustained a concussion. I remember thinking as my head made contact with the wall, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” As I lay in a heap on the floor, I told myself to “just shake it off and get up,” only I couldn’t. The place where I fell was directly above an emergency room. Once I was able to walk, I was immediately taken to be examined.
I would spend the next two months on what I call brain rest. No cell phone, computer, TV or anything else deemed stimulating. My brain need to rest and heal. The severity of my head injury made it easy to comply. I didn’t tolerate light and so I kept the blinds closed during the day, and the lights dim at night. To use my computer or send a text message caused incredible dizziness and so, I refrained from using electronics of any sort.
During this period of recovery, work was also off limits. I didn’t mind so much the downtime from my day job, but I longed for my computer and desperately wanted to blog and work on my books. For the Fourth of July Holiday, I begged my sister to take me to a local eatery, I’m fond of. We ended up sitting outside to eat, because the noise level inside the restaurant caused a headache so bad that if graded on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst pain ever, mine was a 9.
The one thing I learned through all of this is, I’m not a beast. I’m a human being with frailties and a fallibility, I was forced to acknowledge. I learned that although I see myself as a strong woman, I needed a village to fully recover. I also learned where my support would come from when my back was against the wall.
It’s been three months now since my fall, however, I’m not 100% yet. I still get dizzy every now and again when I write. I’m still a little off balance from time to time when I walk around corners or tight spaces. But I was blessed with a heck of a physical therapy team who specialized in concussions. My team along with the words of a wise co-worker got me to where I am today. My co-worker told me to take my time in my recovery; not to come back to work too soon. “After all,” he said, “You want to come back as you.”
The day I was discharged from physical therapy I hugged the necks of my team and thanked them through tears. I was back, although not 100%, I was still back. And I was back as me.
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