I was very fortunate that when I was injured I was 34 I had a sense of self and a
developed adult identity. I had an education, a successful career, various
hobbies, and I had lived more than 16 years as an adult and had a chance to
experience some of life and what it has to offer. I can use that as a frame of
reference for living life now.My background
I had a terrific job experiences, I completed a 2 year college diploma in Surveying Technology in 1976 before I had turned 20. Then I worked 9 years in the Land Survey industry before I went back to the University Of Calgary from 1985 - 1989. My years doing field work in the Land Surveying industry took me through Southern Manitoba, and then from 1978 - 85 I worked for the most part to the bush in Northern Alberta. For 5 years I worked for the Alberta Government and my mode of transportation for 5 months of the year was a helicopter in order to perform the installation of Survey Control monuments in a network that covered the entire province. Working out of a helicopter was of particular interest for me because when I got that job I had 125 parachute jumps. GPS has made that network of Survey monuments for the most part redundant, but this work was from 1980 - 85. When I left in 1985 I had done 770 jumps, mostly out of airplanes, and had done 20 free jumps with my 'machine' either before or after work. In 1985 I jumped on the National Skydiving team, and then moved to Calgary in 1985 to attend the University of Calgary in order to get a B.SC. in Surveying Engineering. While in University I was President of the Survey Engineering Students' Society and Promotions Director for the U of C Skydivers.
I then got Marketing training and experience working for IBM, until I got a job
marketing for a Land Survey and Survey Engineering firm. I was very qualified for
the niche that I was creating for myself professionally at that time. Everybody
around me thought that I was in my element before the accident.
Skydiving
In my past life I had been on about 60 exhibition jumps. I used to love jumping in front of a large crowd. It's very much a rush being in freefall over a city you know, looking down at traffic on streets you know so well.
I shook Wayne Gretzky's hand in 1986 when they hired us to jump into the beginning of the 'Wayne Gretzky Celebrity Golf Classic' in Edmonton. Other exhibition jumps were into 3 Edmonton Eskimo football games, 3 Calgary Stampeder Games, in front of 45,000 people at Spruce Meadows Horse Show Jumping a total of 15 times, and at the Calgary Stampede 3 times.
I jumped on the Canadian Freefall Formation Skydiving Team in 1985, and did about 400 jumps that year.
I used to go Florida every winter to jump. I had been there 10 times over a 10 year time span time to jump, usually at Christmas for between 4 and 10 weeks. I probably have about 500 of my jumps there, almost all out of DC-3's. When I was there to visit friends, the 2nd time post injury, I met a girl that was from there that I married. We separated in January '97, and got divorced, but she was a good influence in my life due to the fact that we had reason to go there for a total of about 6 months during 5 visits in a 2-1/2 year time span. That was a nice departure from the Canadian way of life. Very much like a permanent holiday at times. The town that she's from is the one that I always went to jump. It is one of the world's skydiving hot spots, so it's nice to have that connection with a subculture I know so well.
I've just done 15 jumps since my accident, and I love being in freefall. My last jump was in June 2003. I have a very unsteady ataxic gait, but once I get in freefall, I can fly. Flying in freefall doesn't require the motion of walking so I feel totally unencumbered; in an environment that I know quite well. It's really like entering a familiar and missed dimension for me in freefall.
I had done about 1800 jumps and had accumulated about 20 hours freefall time.
I used to know exactly how many jumps I had, down to the very one, but the time around the injury is a blur so I just know it's very close to 1800.
Another connection that I have with the skydiving community is that I still run the 'Flying Colors Skydiving Exhibition Team'. I handle certain of the P.R. and marketing duties. Marketing isn't exactly my strong suit any more, as I make interesting first impressions, be it in person or on the phone. I used to lead the team on the jumps, but now I can't.
When I jump since my injury, freefall is something that I've spent a lot of time doing so it still feels natural. Especially at how your body feels against the air at 120 mph. It was so good to feel that again. When my parachute opens, the tone in my muscles make them feel like hard Indian rubber. One concern of mine is that in an emergency, my fine motor skills might fail me, but that is quite unlikely.
The accident
On May 5, 1991 , I was in a mid-air collision with another jumper who descended down to collide with me, after a successful 8-person freefall formation skydive, about 35 miles northeast of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I was knocked-out/possibly-brain injured by the impact. Our parachutes 'wrapped' and sent us plummeting to earth at high speed(probably 50-70 mph downward, and spinning violently). The other skydiver pulled his cut-away handle and opened his reserve parachute just before hitting the ground; and me being unconscious I rode the two tangled canopies in until impact. We were about a kilometre away from the parachute centre, as we were planning to ride the wind back, instead of descending straight down.
When a group of jumpers came out to inspect the damage, they were ankle deep in soft dry dirt.
-'Miracle #1' The field had been plowed the day before. The ground being so soft is one big reason why I'm still alive. I broke the first bone of my life with a compound fracture of my right fore-arm. And somewhere in all the activity I broke my brain.
'-Miracle #2' One of the jumpers brought a cellphone. Cellphones weren't all that common in 1991. Back then they cost about $1500 a month to lease and were the size of a Buick. And the guy with the cellphone called for
'-Miracle #3'- STARS Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (helicopter), and they came right away and flew me to the Calgary General Hospital.
A normal ambulance would've taken too long. Plus I landed well mile into a freshly ploughed field, so access was a problem. The ambulance would have taken a fair while to get out to me. The ride back to the hospital would have been a rough ride with a fresh brain injury over the soft ploughed dirt. My rescue would have been at least half an hour longer, to a much smaller rural hospital, instead of 15 minutes by air to Calgary General Hospital where they had a trauma team ready.
When my parents were phoned the hospital's instructions were to and catch the first flight out, because I wasn't expected to live till morning. They thought that they were probably flying out to arrange and attend my funeral.
My Glasgow Coma Score was 4 out of 15. The lowest score possible is a 3.
My coma lasted 4 weeks, but I have no memory of the first 10 or 12 weeks.
For 3 years leading up to that, I had run 5 miles a day x 3 days per week, and I developed pneumonia after 6 days. The doctors thought my running habit and the fact I had never smoked, were factors in my surviving pneumonia.
My hospital stay lasted 5-1/2 months. I had a remarkable number of visitors back then. Then I was an outpatient for Speech therapy for another 6 months.
With better technology in medicine and emergency medical treatment, the chances for survival are enhanced, and subsequently we have more TBI-survivors. I'm involved more and more with Brain Injury groups, and they're full of people who consider themselves, and rightfully so, 'walking miracles'. Because for the ones that make it, there are the great numbers that don't, and so incline the Dr.s to give the very little hope, something that my own family experienced.
Recovery
When I tried to go back to my marketing position at a Land Surveying and Survey Engineering firm, I wasn't clicking into the fact that I was in WAY over my head, what with my memory and attention problems. I had very slurred dysarthric speech. I was emotionally way too sensitive to interact with staff at a workplace, let alone clients and senior executives that I was in contact with up until 'the accident'. Add to those problems my slow, shuffling gait. But I thought that a positive attitude could overcome all kinds of obstacles. A brain injury changes what you have learned to be true. Brains tend to think that they are right, and that something external must be amiss. That is a big factor denial. Denial is very prevalent with Brain Injury, for those that might not know.
My DEFICITS
I consider myself a V.B.I.-Visible Brain Injury. Because of the way I walk, my dysarthric speech, and the odd word-finding problem, people at times don't quite know what to make of me. I don't have a set of problems that is unique to any common syndrome. It really allows me the luxury, if you will, of observing mankind through my own set of filtered glasses. Stories I could tell.
I'm also generally quite clumsy, even though I deal with clumsiness on a conscious level most of the time. I know that I'm prone to drop stuff, but that doesn't stop one of just always dropping stuff. Unless someone is around me a lot, they would not see that part of my disability.
I still retain a large vocabulary and score very high on I.Q. tests, yet those are done in a controlled environment, and don't require the concentration span of any duration. But my alternating and divided attention are very limiting. There are so many times when I'm just in a conversation and someone interrupts, and I or we cannot think of where we were in conversation. I know that when I'm around other TBI survivors that they are quite the same way. I also have great difficulty learning new information, something I thought until recently all TBI survivors shared, but have found out that luckily that is not common to all survivors.
Physical
When I walk, I have a shuffling gait as I have poor balance, and on my left side I have 'drop-foot', meaning the dorsi-flexion muscle that raises my foot when I step is pretty much non-existant.
When I go to a club to see a live music show my legs don't seem to have any bounce. People have physically tried to force me to dance, because they are so uncomfortable when the music so stimulates them, and all I do is stand there. My feet feel clamped to the floor with no natural bounce, I don't feel the need to move around - I'm just glad to not be falling over.
With my ataxic gait, most people's first impression is that I'm visibly intoxicated, especially if it's the weekend or I'm around any place that serves liquor. I get a lot of smart comments from staff and waitresses because they think that I appear far gone to catch their not-so-subtle-comments at times. With such a gait, I tend to tie my shoelaces even if I'm just going outside for a quick trip to the van because that would look a lot more like a drunk.
I started using a cross-trainer, 30 minutes a day, in January, and it has done good things for my gait.
Speech - very slurred, especially later in the day or if I'm tired.
Fine motor skills - always dropping things, very clumsy - sloppy eater.
Mobility - little old ladies at their normal walking pace usually pass me going twice the speed I'm going.
Pain with handwriting - which is far sloppier than before. With normal walking in both my left foot + left hip, With my right forearm, which was broken and not set quite correctly. I feel pain when doing arm curls, or shoveling snow.
Vision - I used to have 20/15 vision, - better than 20/20. But now if I go to a hockey or football game without my glasses, it's essentially a waste of money.
Headches - Most Brain Injury survivors suffer from debilitating headaches, but I never got them much pre-injury and don't now. The same with seizures, the same with energy level and fatigue.
Emotions - weeping, I cry a lot at live concerts, but usually when I'm enjoying music way more than anyone could know. People would love to feel what I feel when music moves me.
Cognitive
Short-term memory - I make great use of Palm Pilot which I've learned to back up daily. Almost all TBI-survivors have very poor short-term memories.
Attention - Something that's often confused with a bad Short-term memory is Attention. Poor attention can involve not being able to hold several thoughts simultaneously. Call waiting has been known to cause me real problems switching lines and having another conversation and not being able to recall any details of the first one.
Spontaneous thinking - thinking on one's feet at times can seem non-existant.
Word finding - putting thoughts into sentences can be quite a task. Putting thoughts into words can be a real problem for a lot of TBI-survivors. Often the meaning of a thought is lost because you can't put it into words. It's like you can't speak for yourself. I do fine with a computer where one edits for hours and days, but not being able to thinki on one's feet is an invisible injury.
Information processing - problem solving, figuring out life situations can take a long time
***Learning new things*** Whereas in University, learning new things has to come easily, I now need lots of repitition and lots of time to process the information.
Dealing with Public - the human race can be so cruel, and I don't have symptoms that are easily related to any typical medical condition, so I see mankind's darker side.
Always thinking of lots of things pertinent (major points and issues) well after it was useful - long after conversation was over.
Forget details, remember generalities of what I've discussed with someone./ often forget that I've had conversations with people, or what and what level of detail what was discussed.
One thing that slows me down is the amount of time that I spend just looking for stuff. Always. I try to use all the compensatory strategies that I'm a slave to, yet a friend with.
I make very extensive use of electronic organizers. I've gone through quite a few of them because I always use them and being clumsy I can't help but drop them sometimes, so I learned the value of backing up the data often.
I can come up with some very high level thinking-but usually at a slower pace than pre-injury. A Brain Injury doesn't erase all knowledge, it just makes your Brain functionally like Swiss cheese - holes or gaps everywhere.
I don't work well with deadlines. I can think a problem through, and I do have episodes of brilliance, but it may take hours or days for things that were much more spontaneous pre-injury. In conversations I digress often, going off on tangents rather than keeping it to the topic at hand. I can'y focus on a task for too long and can't have distractions around.
I'm very analytical and I see things most people have the luxury of not seeing. Like how cruel a small minority of mankind can be. But, they're everywhere in small numbers, often where you'd least expect it.
My Life Now
My emotions are quite sensitive, at times with a hair trigger now, although along with the catastrophic reactions, I also know ecstasy that few will. But I have to admit, I tend not to have just average rock and roll experiences. Certain rock and roll experiences have had me crying like a baby. Literally. Complete loss of composure. That usually means I'm feeling better than you could know. You'd love to experience what I feel.
Last July 28th I saw the Rolling Stones, AC_DC, Rush, the Guess Who, the Tea Party, and 10 other acts in Toronto for SARStock, an all day concert with 450,000 people. The entire crowd was standing on a flat airfield, looking over and through the people in front of them.
Except the disabled, we were on a deck for suitable for wheelchairs that was elevated 8 feet. I had a Bird's eye view of everything. I could see all 450,000. Each and every one of them. The crowd went back 1 1/2 miles from the stage. What a mass of people to behold. The 'Accessabilty Deck' where we were was 150 feet or so to the right of the stage, just outside the enclosed masses. What a scene we witnessed. There was a river of people feeding, 12 and 20 and 40 rockers abreast walking briskly into the flood from 3 Gates into a flood that was dammed up at the stage. At our section we had our own concessions, and we had dozens of volunteers handing us free water, inside the fence there was water for sale, but not where you were standing.
When the Guess Who played "Taking Care of Business", the masses started clapping above their heads, I noticed that as the sound travelled out from the stage at 1086 mph, there would be a corresponding wave of clapping which to me was very apparent. It moved in lightning fast waves (actually thunder fast), in accordance with what people were hearingat that instant. To go 1 1/2 miles sound takes 8 seconds. I also realized that you could only witness that from above. With limited wheelchairs and attendants able to see it, it very well could have been that I was the only one to witness it for what it was. When enormity of that hit me after about 4 seconds after seeing these waves, I exploded with emotion. Another minor miracle.
Inside the fence there was a thick gridlock of people walking against each other, elbow to elbow. The high that day was 28.On the deck it felt like 35. We had water to guzzle, and pour over our heads, yet across the fence, I can't imagine but they did without.
I've now seen the Stones 6 times, Rush 10 times, AC_DC 5 times, the Guess Who 4 times, the Tea Party twice. I've now seen Justin Timberlake, albeit dodging incoming water bottles. It was nice to see that he dodged them all.
When I see a band, they always sound far sweeter to listen to after. I enjoy them way more after seeing them. With Sarstock, I appreciated the Stones and AC_DC a lot, but the seeing the 35 mintutes of Rush, for me just made listenung to Rush so enjoyable, I can't describe the magic I experience. I also saw Rush 4 times in 2002, Toronto, Kansas City, Edmonton(2nd row)and Calgary(4th row). In Edmonton and Calgary I was directly in front of Geddy Lee. That's a first. The Calgary show he looked directly at me for 45 seconds or so. I imagine I have an intersting face to look at, I'm so emotional with music.
I've been to probably about 400 rock concerts, and I quite often get the very best seats, most times in the first 5 or 10 rows. Once you've been up close you realize that it makes such a difference. So I make it a priority to know how to acquire good seats. It's fun being 25 feet from Eric Clapton, the Eagles, or Jethro Tull. I've been to concerts with hundreds of people. A lot of people I take along with me get spoiled and get 'hooked' into my unofficial front row club.
I've lived in Calgary since 1985, and love calling it home as it is very spread out and scenic. It has lots of dog-parks and bike paths. We also have 'Canada Olympic Park' inside the city limits where I downhill ski with their program for the disabled. Through my Skydiving, my University days, my Land Surveying employment and my time with IBM, I seem to know a very large number of people. It seems that when I get out I'm often running into people I know.
Lewis
Just when I got out of the hospital, I was given 'Lewis', a 6 week old female Siberian Husky/Alaskan Malamute-X as a birthday gift in late October. I used to shuffle to speech therapy with Lewis (1-1/2miles one way) back to Calgary General; at times in the dead of winter(sometimes -30, inside a duffle bag the size of a small loaf of bread) but usually on a leash. Lewis and I spend a lot of time together. She goes most everywhere with me in my van. I've spent the last 12 years with Lewis, and I find that I can relate to dogs on very different levels now. When you see how an animal aligns their priorities, it at times allows one a different focus or point of view.
I see Lewis play her game at barbecues. She will just fixate on a food treat and eventually someone, usually a female because they all have maternal instincts, will think that she looks so beautiful that she just has to be given that treat. She knows what works, because she is a dog, and dogs are very much a creatures of habit. She won't yelp, or paw at the ground, she'll just stare. I think it works so well, that she must think that she's telepathic. 'Just focus on the food, and you will have it.' People enjoy her immensely. Her dog-brain is just always full of dog-games. Lewis and I achieve a certain synergy. Both our lives are far richer with each other. Lewis has been to Florida with me 5 times. She seems to settle into travelling as if she knows what the routine is and what spoils the 4-day journey will bring. The last time, coming home on the last day on the highway she was standing on the van bed with her front on the cooler just smiling looking at the mountains. After a month of being away she knew she was home.
I've suffered badly from fatigue, until summer of 1993, when I started taking certain vitamins which I now feel give me boundless energy. I now work out at the Westside Recreation Centre up to 6 times per week.
I used to be a leader in the classroom, at work, on the drop zone and with friends and family. Where there used to be confidence and leadership, now my life is filled with uncertainty and doubt.
Perspectives
-One can't focus on those worrisome thoughts too much. Or one could really get tied up in that end of it. How bad things are compared to the way they were.
-One should choose to focus on the miracles in life. They are there if you look for them. Taking inventory of your blessings daily can put things in a brighter perspective.
-I like to pursue things in life that provide extraordinary experiences, a passion for excellence if you will. A brain injury provides for interesting contrasts.
-When I interact with the public I've come to realize that I hold the key to something very powerful. As people see my gait which at first glance has an impact on most people which carries with it a heavy connotation of struggle, if they then see a smile, and that things are quite allright, it is very uplifting for them and I in turn draw energy from that.
-Also, I realize the value and subsequent reward from a simple smile or a Hello to someone in a wheelchair or someone that's disadvantaged somehow. Knowing the Public scorn that I witness, it has to be a struggle that I will have the luxury of not having had to endure for an entire lifetime.
I like to pursue things in life that provide extraordinary experiences, a passion for excellence if you will. A brain injury provides for very interesting contrasts.
