Today is my second day back at the office. I came in and worked a full day on Friday, had the weekend off and am now back today. I won’t be back in until Wednesday, however. Tomorrow I will spend most of the day talking with neuropsychologists and completing the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. Yeah. Six hours of testing to make sure that my brain works correctly.

The pessimistic side of me is looking at this test battery and saying to myself, “No good news can come of this.” I mean I’m already back at work and doing pretty well with that. I’ve made some good strides in the other areas. I haven’t seen anything overly strange with respect to my reasoning ability or general cognition. I have noticed an increase in anomia — difficulty in finding the right words or names – and am working to rectify that as best I can. But that is really about it as far as the things the test is looking at goes.

The optimistic side of me looks at the test and says to myself, “Well, at least we’ll know and be able to maybe treat it or at least work around it more easily.” For example, if the test were to show that I had suffered a loss in my ability to concentrate or my short term memory, my therapists explained that I might teach myself ways to work around that – writing things down and the like.

I’m still grappling with what has happened to me. At the same time I get angry about the damage, the strange behaviors – the missing days! – the same time I get angry about that, I struggle to try and understand what it means for me moving forward.

I just want things back the way they were before. – And I know that’s something I can’t have.

St. Patrick’s Day news came in the form of an approval by my neurosurgeon to return to work. Earlier this week I had been discharged from out-patient therapy. They said I’d made the sort of recovery one just does not see with that type of injury. What type of injury is that, exactly? Well, now after all of this, I can tell you with some degree of understanding.

There are three general bits of information most commonly used to evaluate the severity of a head injury: Glasgow Coma Score, time spent unconscious, and a CT or MRI score.

The GCS was devised by doctors to assess head trauma and, importantly, to help keep track of patients’ progress over a period of time. The scale is comprised of three tests: one for eyes, one for verbal response and one for motor response. The three values separately as well as their sum are considered. The lowest possible GCS (the sum) is 3 (deep coma) whilst the highest is 15 (fully awake person). When this test was first administered to me in the emergency room, I scored a 7.

Doctors use time spent unconscious to rate the severity of a head injury. Generally speaking, longer time spent unconscious means a more severe injury. Anything over about twenty-five (25) minutes is considered at least a moderate injury. In my case I was knocked out at the scene, and stayed that way for at least a couple days. At some point I started to wake up, but the doctors decided it was best to keep me in a drug-induced coma for a longer period of time, to aid the recovery. All together I was in that coma for nine days.

CT and MRI scans are often employed to examine the brain and skull. It is possible for nothing to show on these scan and for a patient to have symptoms of a brain injury. But usually, if a scan shows a hematoma or other type of injury the likelihood of brain injury symptoms also occurring grows considerably. In my case, a large subdural hematoma was clearly visible on the first CT scan.

About that time is when they drilled into my skull to try and reduce it.

So, the initial diagnosis — which does not change — is that of a severe traumatic brain injury. Serious stuff. Whirl had several conversations with doctors about long-term care for me. But I seem to have broken the odds. Most of the symptoms I was suffering — and it was a long list, let me tell you — are now gone. What ones I’m still experiencing, are certainly at a level where they’re not interfering with a normal day. At least not most of the time. I can walk and talk. I can even do those things at the same time. My sense of balance that had been knocked for a loop is steadily returning thanks to some rigorous therapy and a double set of exercises I do.

So here I am. I shouldn’t be here. But here I am. — And I got to tell you, it’s good to be here.

We’ll see how work goes, tomorrow.

Now that the surgery is over and the stitches are out, I’m cleared to head back to outpatient therapy. I’m pleased to announce that therapy is going well. I’m finding that I’m regaining some of the abilities that I had lost. I can taste most foods now, for example, which is rather exciting. I like food. Being able to taste makes eating much more enjoyable. My sense of balance is slowly starting to return. And my level of endurance is growing. Much of my therapy is concentrated on these physical things. I go to therapy for about eight hours a day, and usually three to five of those hours are focused on physical therapy.

So, it’s sorta like going to a gym for the brain-addled.

In any event it seems to be helping. I feel better, both physically and mentally about myself. I feel like I am improving which is doing wonders for my self-esteem.

And the haircut helped.

Friday, after I had the stitches removed I treated myself to a haircut. I had the rest of the crazy neurosurgeon hairdo clippered off, so that all my hair is a nice neat eighth of an inch long all the way around my skull. I haven’t had hair this short since I was in high school and we would shave our heads for the big championship meets at the end of the year.

Anyway, I like the haircut. Probably most of my like for it comes from my dislike for the crazy buzz saw haircut I got in the operating room. That one just had to go.

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I had my stitches removed, today. Other than some minor tugging, it was over rather quickly. I also got the OK to go back to therapy on Monday. And for the first time, I can now get my head wet without worrying about where the water might be going. We talked briefly about the few symptoms I’m still experiencing, but by and large my neurosurgeon was quite pleased with my progress.

Hopefully, today’s plan will take me to a barbershop that will trim the rest of my hair down to a length similar to what was buzzed for the surgery originally. I think that will help a lot towards making my haircut less freakish. — Plus, the idea of having two-length hair, with one section being the giant middle of my skull and the other being the periphery, does not sit very well with me. Just something to sort of clean it up and make it look less monstrous. That’s all I’m really asking for. I don’t want to be Riff-Raff.

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I was released from the hospital on Saturday afternoon after a successful surgery the Thursday previous (February 24th). My neurosurgeon determined that the cause of my mind-splitting headaches was a build-up of fluid inside my skull caused by the original injury and decided to perform a procedure to drain this fluid and reduce the pressure it was causing.

This was all fine and good, but I must tell you that the sensation of having someone apply a power drill to your skull while you are still awake is one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. For my trouble, I now have several new scars, a very strange haircut (they had to shave a lot of my head to get to where they needed to go with the surgery) and a couple more Burr holes through my skull. — As you might have gathered, the procedure was done under local anesthetic. I was not unconscious, and talked to the surgeons as it proceeded, to let them know what I was experiencing.

The good news is, the headaches are gone. I have not had any of the very intense and aggravating headaches from before since this procedure. For that reason, alone, I consider it a tremendous success.

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My neurosurgeon has looked at the CT scan I had done last week and concluded that the cause of my incredible headaches for the past three weeks is due to continued bleeding and fluid pressure build-up, inside my skull. After long negotiations with the new world Illuminati, Whirl was able to convince various insurance companies and medical shops that treating these headaches is a good idea.

Treatment will include going to the hospital to have the fluid pressure drain replaced in my head for about two days. I had this procedure done immediately after the accident, and the drain stayed installed for about nine days while I was in a coma. I’m not entirely excited about this possibility, but that’s just the way it goes, I suppose. If they do away with the headaches, I will count the procedure a success. Let’s just hope that is in fact what happens.

Not that I remember a whole hell of a lot of this, but the story goes that late last month while Whirl was away in Washington state, I decided to spend some time with my friends. First I spent Friday night with Princess FixIT and Farmboy up in Roger’s Park. We watched some TV and played some video games and had some really yummy pizza from a place I have missed since I lived up that way.

Saturday, I spent over in Wicker Park with my friend Mick. That was also quite fun until the moment came that required me to go home. On the way to the train station, I was struck violently by a bicyclist. I suffered several skull injuries. Police came within a few minutes and took me to the hospital. (I have no memory of any of this, and have sort of pieced the narrative together out of versions of the story from others.) Anyway, after about two hours, I was in surgery. They put a drain in my skull, doped me into a drug-induced coma, and stuffed feeding and breathing tubes down my nose and throat. (I’m not sure if it was in that order, or what, but I had both.)

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