The Walking Wounded

My husband had been the hospital for nearly 3 months now.  He had gone from as close to dead as possible to the bionic man suffering the effects of a traumatic brain injury.  People with traumatic brain injury appear normal, look good, but they are not.  My daughter tells me that they refer to people like this as the “Walking Wounded.”  It is a difficult thing for family and friends to understand and many do not.  TBI people have a difficult time with too many people talking at once, concentration, over stimulation from the TV or radio, light bothers them, memory fails, speech is sometimes difficult as words don't seem to form right, decision making is challenging and frustration becomes the worst part.  It’s just all going on in their brain and they do not know how to express this.  Instead it can come out with yelling, hitting, throwing things or inappropriate behavior.  Much different from the “storming” that occurs just after coming out of a coma.  Their brain is just on overload and suddenly it short circuits.  There is no rhyme or reason to it, it just happens.  

My husband was fortunate enough to not have some of the worse forms of this as the nurses and therapists warned me could happen.  (Another patient on the unit punched an aide in the face.) But he did experience some of it and still does to this day.  Although at the time he was still recovering in the hospital, he had very little control over it.  Nowadays when it happens, which is very infrequent, he can seem to gain quicker control of himself. 

It is scary when it happens as it comes out of nowhere.  The first time it occurred, he was still in the hospital.  He had a very difficult day.  All kinds of new things were being thrown at him.  The therapists were getting him prepared to eventually be discharged from the hospital.  I of course was there all day with him as usual.  I had just gotten him ready and into bed.  I was putting away a few things and had left his room for a moment.  When I returned, I said something to him and he looked at me and just exploded screaming at me.  I had no idea why.  His nurse and several of the aides came running into his room.  My husband kept screaming at me to get out of his room and never come back.  I left quickly and stood out in the hall, visibly shaken and in tears.  What seemed like an eternity was actually over in a few minutes.  The nursing staff were just great to me and my husband’s aide was wonderful with him.  He was fine, but the next day his psychologist came in to talk to both of us.  She explained what had taken place and how to deal with it should it occur again in the future.  It did, another time in the hospital and several times after he got home.  It still scares the wits out of me, but I know why it happens and what to do and I am now better prepared than the first time.  I also noticed that after an incident, he gains a new stride in something, whether it is in his memory or speech or suddenly his gait becomes better.  The brain is simply a working mystery!