This seems like a good time to do an update. A lot has happened in the last 5 years since I rec'd my Brain Injury. I have had all the ups and downs of dealing, and learning about the BI. It it still a learning experience, always will be, a life-long learning process. I have accepted the new person I have become, in some ways she is actually a better person. I live life slower, more fully now. I relish each day I wake, and suffer through the 'bad head days'. I still deal with constant headaches, they still vary in intensity with the weather. Still miss not being able to play music on my keyboard, but now I am toying with the idea of hooking it to my computer, and seeing what I can create that way. I still retain the ability to play, just one hand at a time, both hands together is a lost art I do believe now. But we shall see what havoc I can create with the help of the computer!!!
The hardest part of my life after the BI, was Dec. 23, 1998. I got home from work that evening, and found Red dead on the floor from a heart attack. He never had heart problems, or troubles. Turns out 80% of one side of his heart was clogged with what is now called 'soft plaque'. On the other side, a piece broke loose, and blocked the blood flow. He was gone before he fell on the floor. Without the help of my dearest friends in Chat, and our friends there in Utah, not sure how I would have survived. A very rough time, not one I would recommend to anyone.
In July of 1999, I flew to Fort St. James, British Columbia and spent a week with Ax and Hatchet. He was even so kind as to arrange to have my luggage lost, such a considerate guy. Thank goodness it was found the same day I arrived. Did not relish the idea of rummaging through his closet for clothes to wear! Then we traveled to Victoria, British Columbia, and attended the BrainBash there. I will admit I was scared and leary of meeting all these people. Boy, was I in for a surprise! I have never met with so much total love and acceptance from a group of people in my life. Especially after the BI. It was a great time in my life, and gave me the confidence to face life alone, on my own. This is one experience I would recommend to everyone.
Then in Dec, 1999, I slipped on some ice at work, and rescrambled the brain some. So now I'm one of the lucky ones, I have BI#2. I really know I deal with BI now after the second one. It is like the period of a sentence, justs makes it more real. All of the conditions I dealt with are now re-inforced with the second BI. Reality has definately set in, even with the fact that I had come to terms with the BI already. Within 3 months, I had to quit work, could not keep up, I made mistakes constantly, and was not satisfied with the quality I was turning out. That in hindsight was the best decision I could have made. I finally started to relax, and the anxiety was much less.
Sometime during this period, (I have no sense of time), Bluebear became a major focus of my life. I can not remember how long we had been chatting, he says for a long long time. After a bit, we realized we were meant for each other. I was so scared to let someone else into my life, hurts to damn much when you lose them. But he was persasive (the silver tongued devil), and I finally came to gripes (oops?) that I was not destined to spend the rest of my life by myself, alone. So major decision time, (and we all know how we hate making decisions). I put my house in Utah up for sale, and moved to Ohio to be with the Bear. It has been an 'interesting' adjustment, but great fun at the same time. You have never had a good conversation till you get two BI's trying to talk about the same thing, in their own version of Semantics. Talk about giggle time!!! I call the fridge/freezer (in the kitchen) the upstairs fridge/freeze. There is a large freezer down in the basement, so that is the downstairs one. He is wandering through the grocery store, trying to figure out where on the second or third floor of the house the upstairs fridge/freezer is. Guess the kitchen is not considered upstairs from the basement. He thinks that is the main floor, well DDUUHH.
The first of Dec, 2000 (do I detect a pattern now for Dec's in my life?), we made a trip to Phoenix, Az. The Bear took me to meet his mum, can you imagine that??? A person my age, going to meet the mum! Even better, I got the go-ahead from mum, and sis, and his youngest daughter. We spent almost a week there, then started to wander home. We did a little sight-seeing, and ended up at the north end of the Grand Canyon. We were in the high desert, open skies, view that goes forever, warmer climate, dry air, no hay fever. We decided to make a fresh start in Page, Az. Make our own life there. We also made our committment to each other in Dec, night of the full moon. On the way back to Ohio, I took him to the New Mexico Zuni Indian Reservation. While there, he found a very special ring there for me to wear. Made by the Zuni, in their Needlepoint Style.
So here it is now, the end of Jan, 2001 (that looks so strange). We are in the process of getting the Bear belongings boxed and packed, ready to head out West. We will stop and visit as many of our friends from Chat that we can on the way. And we will be in Calgary for the BrainBash in August. Guess I should metion that Bluebear does have a real name. He is sometimes known as Richard (Ricky) Forrest. But Bluebear fits him.
Life is definately a mystery. You never know what the next day will bring.
Lee "lee" and Clyde "Red" Norris
Everybody says it's always best to start at the beginning, so here goes. I was born on a dark and stormy night.what? oh -- not that beginning. Well let us try again.Hi, my name is Lee Norris. I consider the day of the accident, Sept. 29, 1995 as my "unbirthday", the day the new me was born. Unbirthday is from Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatters Tea Party. Appropriate don't you think?
Piecing the accident together afterwards, we were lucky to live through it. Traffic came to a stop on the freeway (due to another accident miles ahead). The lady behind us did not slow down, much less stop. She hit us hard enough to lift the back end of our car (Mustand convertible) completely off the ground. It came back down on her mini-van and went forward (2 car lengths) and under the pick up in front of us. It started moving and flipped over onto the passenger side and was sliding down the freeway. Red was able to steer into the middle lane to 
go around it and pull back into the lane in front and finally coast to a stop. The cop and all the wrecker drivers just could not believe that he was able to avoid hitting the truck. If we had, we would have been killed, along with the the two college kids in the truck.
Red came out of the accident with neck whiplash, and messed up lower back. He will always have back problems. Red is a big man, he filled up the drivers side of the car, so he didn't rattle around like I did. We had our seatbelts on, but they didn't do much good when the force of the impact breaks the seat backs and they are laying flat. The only thing my seatbelt did was keep me from going into the dash or the windshield when we went in under the truck and then bounced back. For 2 yrs now I have had to learn how to live and like the new me. Sometimes it's not too hard, other timeswell you all know how it is. I deal constantly with a headache since the accident. It's always there, sometimes nagging, sometimes pounding, sometimes bad enough to make me sick to my stomach, but it is always there. It has something to do with fluid pressure building up in my head due to the neck injury. It's a good thing (I guess) that I have a high level of pain 
tolerance. Anything else, do you ask? Well let's see . mood swings, patience level is low to non-existent, memory loss, can no longer do simple math in my head use a calculator (I have also rediscovered the joy of figuring with my fingers). My concentration level is about 15 minutes long, makes it hard to follow involved, or multiple conversations, plus my thinking processes are slow. I can only deal with one thing at a time, don't give me more than one thing to do. I loose balance easily if moving slow or standing (I have a cane that I use as a kickstand), average 3 hours a night of sleep. I have lost most of my sense of taste and smell - hell of a way to lose weight. What hurts the most that I have lost (still trying to find it), is I can no longer play the piano (actually I have a huge keyboard more sounds and versatility that way). I can play right or left hand separately just fine, but can not put the two hands together. I sit there and have no idea what to do, as if I've never done it before. I mention that to the Drs and their answer is "huh, I've never heard of that before". Three or four years before the accident I changed the style of music I played. Got tired of classical, and changed to New Age. I was playing Yanni, David Lanz, Enya (her music is very basic but great), Mannheim Steamroller. Now I can't even do the scales. Music has always been my refuge, either playing it myself or have a CD on. I would play for hours at a time. I had also been kicking around the idea of learning how to play the harp.
I'm sure there is more I could go on about, but this is the basic idea of the new me. Not sure if I like her yet, she's so different from the original mold (but now I can say they definately broke the mold). My husband has been great through this whole thing, wonderful support, helps me deal with the demons. Not sure if I could have made it this far without him. So many times I wanted (and still do) to just quit, but that won't make it "better". There is no "better" just variations of "now". Red is not a quitter, and is always pushing me to try again, he will not let me quit. We have 2 girls (24 and 21), 1 son-in-law, and 1 grandson. Our best friends have accepted the new person I am, and that has meant a lot to me, they are a very special couple. I have quite a good support group, so I may just make it. The new me is quieter, more cautious, I'm more introverted aound crowds and strangers, the changes in me are numerous.
This is my story for what it is worth. If it helps maybe just one person with TBI/ABI then maybe that's why it happened to me.
The family picture is of our oldest daughter and her son in the middle Lee and myself (Red) on the outside and our son-in-law and youngest daughter middle front. The picture that looks like it was taken underwater was and is of Lee at catalina day before the accident the the hobie cat is Lee and I also before the accident.
Email Lee
