My accident happened on 08/17/86. It was a 60 foot fall while I was rock climbing. It began as a beautiful,late summer, morning. I was on my way to my favorite bluffs, overlooking the St.Croix river in Minnesota. I made a mistake right there by going out on my own. It was somthing that I had done many times in the past, so I figured that was not a big deal. I am a thrill seeker, I have a need to get a charge out of recreational activities. I got to my favorite cliffs, to climb them, and I stood there for a moment just enjoying the summer breezes gently caressing my face. I watched the river boat continue its journey up the mighty river. I continued down the talus slope,to the base of the cliff, so that I could set up for my climb. I set up my anchors to tie the rope to. As I was doing this I was dreaming of what fun it would be in two more weeks, that is when I had planned to run off to northern Wisconsin to go to school so I could finally get my degree after I had spent two years in a junior college to find some direction to my life. I had found that direction to follow my dreams and goals. So I finished setting upand proceeded with my climb. This was the work out I had anticipated, I could feel the adrenalin begining to course through my body. This was such a rush for me. I had compleated this particular climb many times in the past, so I thought it was no problem and I just continued to thrive on my adrenallin addiction. Once I had reached the peek and gotten on top of the cliffs I noticed that I had an audience below. It was neat, this was a very senic view for travelers. And now they were watching me climb. This had become such a passion for me, the workout, the beauty and integrity of the granite rocks and cliffs. The ones that I was climbing. So now I had set up my anchor points on the top so I could repell down the the rock face and retrieve my equiptment, that served as safty anchor for my climb on the way up the rocks. I leaned back against the anchors and began the decent. How I knew that I was 60 feet up the rock face was due to the simple fact that I had a 120 foot rope and I was a little bit past the half way mark on my rope. As I had gotten over the lip of the cliff the top anchors had pulled out!!! Things happened so fast! I had began to fall and had hit my next safty anchor. There was enough force there to yank my rope out of my hands, and I fell the rest of the way down the cliff sliding down my rope and bouncing off the rock face. One lady that was watching me screamed to her husband and told him to grab the cell phone and call 911. I hit the solid granite base of the cliff full force, and the sudden stop was not fun.
Now I will be recalling things that were told to me after the accident. When the medical tech's got there they were so amazed, because I was moving arround trying to get up. They had to hold me down and talk to me. They were trying to find out where I was hurt at. My back was killing me with pain and I could not breath. They stapped me to a back board and put me into the ambulance. They took me to the hospital that was accross the river. Once I was in the ER, they discovered that I had extream lower back trauma. I had landed on my butt! Both of my lungs were collapsed and had to be re-inflated. I was black and blue from my ankles to my shoulders, I guess thats the joy of a big fall. The skin on the right side of my head was peeleddown to my skull. After my lungs were re-inflated I was placed on a medical helicopter and shipped down to the twin cities. According to the tech that was on the flight with me I talked to her durring the entire flight.
When we had gotten to the hospitals in the twin cities, I was put into a trauma roomfor awhile, until they figured out what they needed to do with me. They took x-rays of me but couldn't find anything wrong with my back or my head. They stiched up the right side of my head and sent me another room on the upper floors. I was there for a few days with an IV attached to me continually pumping fluids into me. Out of simple ignorance, the doctors working on me at the time had thought that I was experiencing drug withdrawls. At this time I was very fortunate to have a kidney specialist walk by my room one day, he walked into my roomand took a look at my charts, he was in shock. All this time they were pumping tons of fluids into me and had inserted a catheter, but nothing was comming out of me!! Now come on, even I could tell that somthing was not right there! He took me to the kidney lab where I had dialysis catheters inserted into my veins and I was on dialysis imediately. After a few days of being on dialysis I regained some sense of what was goin on arround me. Then after a few weeks of dialysis my kidneys began to function normally and that chatheter finally got removed from my penis. The first time that I went to the bathroom after it was removed it hurt so badly, it felt like I was peeing razorblades. But it was a great feeling because I was able to go on my own once again. Now at this time I was also out of my wheel cair and able to walk on my own.
Four weeks had now passed and I was still having very bad headaches, But I was finally out of the hospital and on my way home with my mother. I was very tiredand my head was spinning. Halfway home I gave my mother yet another big scare when I had a grand mal seizure! We turned off the highway at the next exit and she took me to another hospital. Once there, I spent some time with a neurolgist who eventually put me on Dilantin for the seizures. I was told that it was more than likely just a temporary condition caused by my head trauma, that did not seem to be the case. Another couple of weeks were spent at this hospital. They had retrieved my records from the previous hospital and time was spent going over them. The doctors were amazed at the ignorance of the previous ones. We spent some time looking at my x-rays and even I could see the compressed discs in my lower lumbar vertibre.
Upon my release from this hospital things were starting to go good for me, I had my dosage of Dilantin increased a couple of times, but after that the seizures seemed to be under control. It took me about four months to finally get my life back to normal, and every thing seemed to be fine. In January of 1987 I was finally off to school in northern Wisconsin to seek my goal in becoming a wildlife biologist. At this point in time I didn't seem to have any more seizure problems and things were working out just like the neurologist told me they would. I was taken off the meds. Then one day in english class I met the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. We eventually got together and traded stories where I found out that she was a single mother.
That spring when school was let out for the summer, I had a couple more major grand mal seizures and had to go back on the Dilantin. That put the seizures under control again and and things were goin good. After spending alot of the summer wrighting to my sweetheart, I got back to school. We eventually moved in together and I discovered that she was an exceptional cook, the true path to my heart! The following spring we ended up getting married and things were fantastic! I graduated the following summer and got hooked up with a wildlife service office who helped me begin my career as a research biologist. A few years later my wife and I had our second child everything was wonderful. One day on my way to pick up our little one from day care I had a seizure. I ran my truck into a police officer at that time. This was in 1995, after things had been going so well for so long, but after that accident things steadilly got worse. I had a cople of episodes at my work, which endangered the lives of the people that I worked with as well as my own. As things progresivly got worse we could not seem to find a medicine that worked and it was determined that I had TBI. Time passed and nothing seemed to help. And now when my seizures would occur they would give me no forewarning that they were about to happen like they use to do. We kept trying different doctors and different medications and we finally found one that seem to have some promise, hopefully it will work out.
In February of 2001 one my wife told me that she could nolonger deal with the stress of caregiver and she had found a special someone in her life that truly cared for her. So we parted ways and continued onward with our lives and got a divorce. Now my x wife is really nolonger a major part of my story even after 13 years of what I thought was a fantastic relationship.
Since the rather traumatic divorce the new medication that I am now taking is showing some great promise. It has cut down on the frquency and severity of my seizures. It has also givin me the oppertunity to start 2 of my own businesses so now I am able to support my self and will soon be buying my own home. The oppertunity and support from this group that is like a family here in the chat room has been very benificial to my emotional well being and just haveing some ont ot talk to and a shoulder to cry on when needed has been a wonderfull aid I truly thank you all for becoming very good friends of mine.
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