Another New Year Filled With Possibilty

Posted on January 4, 2014 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

      I have been contemplative lately about my life and the realm of possibility that I wish not to squander. The coming of a new year does this to many of us, it’s a new start, fresh tablet of ideas and sometimes a new adventure or a way to get things on track.

      My new year came early and I did not realize it at the time. It’s one of those things that I go through since having a head injury and a seizure disorder; I have what I call Seizure Time or clock, not like any other time to anyone else it is the resetting of an internal clock that ticks down time based on the last seizure. It works like this; I have a seizure and then after I begin to count days later it turns to weeks, then months and hopefully years from the last seizure. I know it sounds odd but I learned this growing up because everyone would say, “You are doing great.” and then the dreaded question,” How long has it been since you had a seizure.” So you get the picture my life revolved around moments of wellness and progress in between seizures. By the way I know no one meant it to freak me out they were just hopeful and concerned.  I look back and think about my family as I write this, because they too lived on Seizure Time, only theirs was a little different in that I am sure they had a sense of anxiety or doom waiting for another one. Because they had to be on watch and needed to be prepared for me to have one any time. They like me would get more relaxed about it as time went on.

     I was a kid, so I realized this later in life and later in life I would get sense of doom waiting for it to happen again too, but usually right after one had occurred. It is a trigger to something else I live with; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a bigger thing than the seizure itself. It was and is a great accomplishment to go for a long time without one. I hate to admit it but for me not having a seizure for a long time is something that I hold on to, it gives me a sense of security and freedom.  Those two things are a hot commodity for me, for they haven’t been felt in great depth most of my life. The other thing I think is important to point out though is that I don’t sit around waiting for a seizure to happen. I don’t live my life in fear of them or I wouldn’t be living at all. In fact, quite the opposite I have lived in spite of all the false sense of security that a little time between seizures creates.

     So this brings me to where my New Year began; on December 13,2013,  which I didn’t realize that day but my Seizure Clock had turned over for the fourth year. It is the first time in my life that has happened; that I have gone for four year without one. So Happy New Year and may your Seizure Clock run a very long time and may you get a sense of security knowing or just maybe believing that it could be possible one day you may not have another. I am still hopeful. Yeah I am a glass half-full person most of the time; which brings me to the other reason I am writing this.

     I have some things to overcome and they aren’t small things, they are big things and one is getting my book Published it is time. I have to give up whatever weird fears I have about not being a good enough writer and just do it. I will let the world know when it is out for everyone to buy.  The others not in any order of priority are losing weight by bicycling, and saving some money. I think other things will fall into place once I am just working on those goals; that’s how my life works. I have something that I say I will do, I work myself up to it and little by little I get it done. I am a process driven person. So Don’t Rush Me! Just give me a little Nudge every now and again.

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Point of Hope, Inc.

Posted on September 21, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

Today I went to Point Of Hope in Smyrna, Delaware and I met some amazing people; some of them feeding others, some feeding themselves, some waiting for their lunch until all had eaten. Some were in wheelchairs with large scars on their head and their bodies contorted in ways that would hurt us if we tried to even attempt, but they were still smiling and wanting to make eye contact, and say, “Hello.” Some were using sign language and I was thinking I wished that I had learned to sign but was intrigued that they did it so fluently; their conversation was private or at least I did not know what they were communicating. One who was in a wheel chair, she will never walk and she told us she was getting ready to study for her GED. She stated she had only gone to 4th grade and the reading was hard.  She then said there was too much noise in the room but was getting ready to try anyway.  There were some suggestions about how to cancel the noise in the room with music, but she did not have any head- phones or device to play music with headphones. One who was so glad to see someone who knew her but she didn’t recall me; her smile and asking me to visit her home  was a pleasant and welcome surprise; making me think that I don’t get out enough in my work.

The tour continued in this manner for about 20 minutes to a half an hour and all I could think about was that I wish I had lot money to infuse into this program to help all of these people and more achieve their life dreams or just do whatever it is that makes them happy now. Sometimes I think that’s enough for people but we always want more, bigger, better, and I bet these folks do not think about this concept in the way that I do. They are happy with a new face, a familiar face, a GED book, a small portable DVD player, a lunch they brought in for themselves, and people who care about them enough to be there.

They Show Up daily for the daily contact of people who take time to care. Those people care so much that when they do not want to feed themselves, they will not go hungry; someone will help them without asking why. While many of us have great luxury compared to them, a great many of us get to drive, work, earn degrees, we have music at our fingertips, phones, computers, animals, houses, and the list goes on. The people at Point Of Hope, they are happy with the smaller things in life, the finely tuned simpler things.

Point Of Hope, Inc. is a Day program service for individuals with Cognitive and Intellectual Disabilities; we also call them Developmental Disabilities and Acquired Traumatic Brain Injuries or TBI. What is the difference? The easiest answer starts with a question: At what point in their lives did their disability occur? If it occurred either in their developmental years 1-21 or after it is a developmental disability. A TBI is a head injury that happened from a Traumatic event rendering the individual to start their life over again. That would be someone like me. There are a list of other definitions and criteria but this is the easiest to understand or explain.

They are the only day program in Delaware that I know of that specifically serves people with Acquired Traumatic Brain Injuries. They strive to have a normalized atmosphere in a clubhouse like manner to help people achieve whatever it is that they wish to work on and that could be as complex as concentration or motor skills to learning how to cook spaghetti (but even this could be the most difficult thing to do for someone with a disability). They help people regain skills that they may have had and lost after a head injury or skills that they never had and would like to learn

I applaud Point of Hope for being a family run organization that started with a vision of wanting to help people build skills to wanting to instill them with Hope, Hope for a better tomorrow and life in the future. I also applaud people who wake up every day and SHOW UP for something that keeps them smiling at strangers just for the sake of being able to.

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Brain Injury Assocation of Delaware

Posted on September 15, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

Brain Injury Assocation of Delaware

This organization has resources, support, groups and lobbies for federal laws helping people Traumatic Brain Injury.

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Drexel University – This Beats a Coma Event

Posted on September 15, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

This Young man is one to follow he was hit on his bicycle and obtained a head injury now he has become an inspirational speaker after he finished a bike across America.

Doug Markgraf's avatarDougTrails!

Coming up on Friday, October 4 2013 from 7-9pm at Drexel University’s Mitchell Auditorium, an unlikely alumnus will return to Drexel… For the second time.  

After having been hit by a large vehicle, adorned in Drexel Cycling attire while riding on Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, Drexel sophomore student Doug Markgraf shattered bones, bicycle, and helmet. Following a half month in a comatose state with more than 20 scattered bruises to his brain, a return to Drexel’s brick buildings and dragon statues was incredibly unlikely. While doctors worked to get Doug back to walking and talking, he had a different goal entirely: he’d ride as far as he possibly could.

Following a quite challenging career at Drexel, Doug graduated from Drexel’s School of Education as a Robert Noyce Scholar and became a robotics engineering/technology teacher. At the first opportunity he earned, he began the challenge of a lifetime: Doug…

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Forty Years Ago Today…

Posted on September 14, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

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  Today was my 40-year Anniversary of traveling through the mountains and foothills of being the victim of a Violent Crime and receiving a head injury from that crime. Forty years ago I was nine years old a joyous child rushing to school on a morning that I was running late. I was in 4th grade and school had just started, I was proudly wearing my brand new saddle shoes cream colored with a blue saddle, I had all new clothes, and it was the beginning of a new year of school. I’ll never forget how much I loved shool. My friends had come to walk with me and Mom sent them on without me. I was a night owl and I always overslept, still do. Some things never change.

   Mom yelled as I ran out of the house, “Don’t take the short cut!” I yelled back, “I won’t.” I rarely listened to anyone telling me what to do, I was independent to a fault but that willfulness was just what I needed for the journey lay ahead. I walked briskly up Market Street, through the back of Beebe Hospital, over the parking lot, and on to the short cut, a little mound with a tree, a small path and a marsh on one side and just a few steps away a parking lot and onto Savannah Road just blocks from school. I never even get to step on the path that day, at the small hill near the tree, I was surprised to see young man of 18 standing, waiting for me. He asked me a question, I stood so still I couldn’t move, he rushed up to me and put a rope around my neck and I don’t remember the awful beating I took, I do recall in great detail begging him to let me go. Even offering him my lunch money, he never let me go but somehow I escaped. I don’t remember it but I told my Aunt when the Fire Company found me that evening at 6:00 pm, that I had gotten away and ran deeper into the marsh, I tripped and fell, that’s where I laid very still as I heard him walking around me.

 

   I had been beaten, punched and kicked; to within an inch of my life, my head three times bigger than it should have been a bloody mass of bruises and a line around my neck from where I had been strangled. I lay in that marsh all day, I had escaped I ran when he took his belt off I was told.  I had escaped being sexually assaulted and murdered. I was taken to the hospital a parking lot away. I was unconscious, I had a broken jaw, a broken nose, a broken cheek, and I was on the verge of death and oddly enough, I remember one day out of the three while at Beebe Hospital where many people from my town came to visit. I was talking, sitting up and laughing. The next thing I know I am laying on a cold mattress; it had water running through it and I had was struggling to get away from it. The nurses would pull from the sides of my metal crib and put a sheet on me. I was freezing but in actuality I was burning up, I had an infection in my jaw and I had a reaction to the seizure medications they gave me to stop the uncontrollable seizures.

   I was in Wilmington Hospital for 2 months, I recall maybe a month of that stay. I had a traumatic brain injury, I could not talk, walk, point, feed myself, or hold myself up, and my wrists had dropped. This was the first time that I saw very ill children, there was Betsy, Meika, Keith, and so many others that I can’t remember and I wish I could. They too were either on the brink of death or on their way to recovery. This is the first time in my little life that I looked out over a cemetery and thought, “I will be in that cemetery one day” in fact I thought that’s why they put me in that bedroom over looking it. This was the first time I experience real pain and the first time I began to get a small glimpse of what I had lost and what I had to regain. I did not get the big picture as my family did. I didn’t know I had almost died several times and it is miraculous that I am able to walk, talk, write, work or any of the many things I can do that no one thought I ever would have a chance to if I actually lived.

    That day my life was ripped away from me and not just me, my family’s life too. The trauma of that day lives with us so vividly that this morning I called my Aunt Mickey and she said, ” I was thinking of you today.” I asked,” Why?”” and she said, “Today is the day that you were hurt.” I knew that too and I said, “I didn’t think you remembered.” She laughingly said, “Well I don’t send you a card.” I said,” I didn’t realize you thought about it.” She said,” Every year I get a little agitated or uncomfortable and then it occurs to me what day it is.” You see most of my family don’t talk about it, I talk about it for my own sanity and to help others understand violence and head injuries and hopefully I inspire others. We have never sat down and actually talked about what it was/is like for us, we talk about what others did, how other family members felt but there are only a few of us that can actually just open up about how it really affected us.

    After Forty years, it is still too difficult for some of us to acknowledge that it happened. It is too sad to think about or it is still something we haven’t come to terms with. That is sad to me and yet it so very relevant to this story because the reason I write tonight or ever about this topic is because I will never forget and we should never forget or we become encumbered with things we need to learn from these kinds of experiences. I have learned many wonderful lessons one is that I can be more than what happens to me and I am not weak because I was a victim of a violent crime, I am all the stronger for having survived so well afterward.

*** Some of the pictures on this site are from Block House Pond the Park that was a marsh in 1973. I walked in a happy child striding to fourth grade and I was carried out ten hours later a child almost dead.*******

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Being Resilient

Posted on August 24, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

Being Resilient.

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Being Resilient

Posted on August 24, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

I have always believed that I am a resilient person, which has made life easier when things go wrong but I must say I have had at least a couple things happen recently that have really tested not only my resilience but also my skills in all areas. One of these events would have been enough to at least make some question your faith or actually get some serious religion the other just a test of endurance in a natural environment where it was just bound to happen.
Are you intrigued yet? Ok the other day I am driving home from work on Delaware RT 1 South at the Dover Air Force Base and I was fortunately in the left lane when a plane flying about three feet off the ground enters the southbound lane going north. Yes I said,” north” and it was coming right at me and at least 50 other cars, luckily I was one of two cars come up on it first and I was in the furthest lane away from its entrance onto the highway from a gravel pit road. Now let me just stop a moment and say you kind of expect planes to possibly fall from the sky in that area you hope they never do but you think of the possibility; while the huge C5’s are flying what feels like inches from your car overhead as they land next to you. You never really expect a Cessna to almost effortlessly float out into the highway, like a slow motion action movie; yes that is contradictory but then again so is a plane driving on a highway. I braked and then since it was out of control and you didn’t have an idea where it might go next I realized quickly it’s headed towards me. I then move quickly into the left shoulder and then hit the gas avoiding the thing from hitting me.

Am I rattled, distressed, freaking out? Hell yes I was. I look in my rear view to see everyone going all different directions trying desperately to avoid it hitting them. I am shaking like a leaf and I do not shake like a leaf, and I realize that I better stop and pull myself together. I then realize I better call 911 and they ask if I’m on the Dover Air Force Base and I yell,” NO it’s on the highway.” calmly she says,” Yes we have received many calls.” Before she hangs up, I say, “OH. MY. God!” I am still rattled and then I realize no one is passing me. I was the only one to get away from it and actually keep driving. I wonder is it a terrorist? Not such an out of the realm of possibility thought; it is heading for the Air Force Base. Is it going to blow up? Is everyone O.K.? I have to vent so I call my Aunt and cuss a lot, as I do in Exclamation especially when I’m stressed. So then I get back on the road and think I have to get home, I have to see the news, no one will believe this.
So now I am thinking how many of my lives have I used up? I’m like a cat that way. That incident made me realize again, how quickly I think in an emergency and how resilient I am. The plane belongs to the Air Force Base, they were training a pilot and the plane had some kind of failure and they couldn’t stop it or so the news said. I wonder if that pilot is/was as resilient as I am? I joked that he or she may have a new career and when someone at the Air Force Base asks who wants to be a forklift driver, that person may be the one to raise his or her hand. Fortunately, no one was hurt and one car ran into the guardrail trying to escape it. I would have done the same if I were further back on the highway.

The next thing is just an annoyance but once more pushed a bit too far and now I am maxed. My sister and our friend Kathy were here for the weekend, we attended a funeral of a longtime friend of mine on Friday and I was fine, sad but fine. Then on Sunday all the water from the hot water leaks all over the place and I am tested once more and I respond quickly, precisely with some calm bodies around me as I spazz out and dive under the house to turn the water off and then the electric, and lastly unhook everything after draining to replace it. I think I freaked poor Kathy out but she held steadfast and helped me through, because this time I do not hold up well under pressure, kind of like the hot water heater. I get a new one that night. I took off work 1/2 day in the afternoon to go home and fix it myself, it is actually pretty simple and somehow it just doesn’t work, after many hours of work, I am very frustrated but not as bad as the night before I have no energy to rant and rave. I realize it is time for some professional help; no not psychological. I call a plumber the next morning. Since I did half he was here an hour and ahhhh, breath, bathe, and back to work.

So ok, I am resilient. I bounce back even if I freak out in the middle after making quick, snappy, accurate decisions… I bounce back. Pull myself up by my bootstraps, with help some friends, family, and I am off and running again. Now I need a massage.

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Things I’ve Learned

Posted on August 1, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

 Having a head injury and surviving is not what it’s cracked up to be, life is fraught with misfortune and difficulty for many of us. I must say that I am one of the lucky few that were able to get back to my life. I know many who struggle longer and harder than I ever did or will. So I am grateful!

That being able to not just express myself but talk and write about who I am and what I have gone through is helpful to me. I hope others can benefit. So I want to give back to those who need a lift, for those who have no voice of their own.

That being a victim of a violent crime is one of the hardest things in my life to overcome because I still cannot say I that I can forgive and in fact I wish he did not exist. But Justice is being served he is in Jail and has been. He deserves to pay for what he did to me. So justice can work.

I have learned that many who have seizure disorders have multiple complications from medications and from  the seizures themselves. This I can relate to; I have had too many bad falls and I empathize with individuals who seize. It is a horrible feeling of being so out of control. This, in and of itself will make someone want to have more control in their life. I have come to realize that being in control is not the goal, being good to yourself is. We must like who we are and understand our importance before we can heal. This is a goal I will probably revisit all of my life, now and again.

Accepting that I am imperfect and even more so than others, was very difficult.  But then I met people who could not make their own choices, walk, talk, own a home, ride a bike, and I realized that I was so very fortunate.  But also that I needed to find ways to learn from everyone I have met. Even though I  never wanted to have a faulty body and that’s how I felt for a long time, I am imperfect. However; I know that I am unique and that has made living all the more important! I also learned  that you don’t have to be able to do any of the things I mentioned above to be a unique individual.

I am happy! I am someone who  has an acquired brain injury and was the victim of a violent crime and I can walk tall and I can just walk.

Thank you to all that I have met in my life who have taught me that I am good enough and unique and fortunate and just me! I have learned that that is the only thing that matters is that I am just who I am no matter how I got here; it is a journey that was well worth walking, running, biking, and driving through! Headed for the next junction of this ride.

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Being an Advocate

Posted on July 27, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

Yesterday being and advocate was difficult but the end result was worth every bit of the stress we endured getting there

It was very difficult day that made me realize the disparity between what could be and what is.

I am being cryptic as I must because it was work. But Just know that my Warrior friend and I came out of the situation with our eyes opened, once again to the sad realities of some peoples lives; even though these things are around us much of the time we encounter mostly positive interactions with our work and the people we serve. The situation we encountered yesterday was above and beyond what we experience in our work most of the time.

Yes it is difficult making sure people with Intellectual and Cognitive Disabilities get the best possible living conditions but then we strive to have them also Live well. Yesterday It worked after a horribly failed attempt we and many others in my field, other fellow warriors heard our pleading, and we all helped a young woman start her life fresh with people who care about her and will care for her well.

Let’s just say that yesterday was a reminder of how fortunate many of the individuals I know are and a note to self to be thankful for all that I have and am able to do for myself.

Being an advocate sure is worth every ounce of energy we put into it and teaching others to be self advocates is a very worth while goal.

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The Car Awaits It’s Tune Up

Posted on July 14, 2013 by www.recoveryofthemind.com

I believe that I should have been an engineer. In fact the more I think about my interests and live my life, I am almost certain I could have easily been an engineer. I have an eager fascination with and enjoy designing things in my mind or thinking about how things work. Well maybe that’s why I began helping people with disabilities and then went on to earn a degree in Psychology. I wasn’t a math genius; so I began an adventure of working with people who’s bodies and minds didn’t always serve them well.

I found that I was just as intrigued with the human brain and the emotional self as I was with how machines worked. But there are similarities. The brain is a machine that runs our bodies and if part of it is broken like the car that needs a tune up, other parts sometimes compensate and get over used or under used and sometimes that car breaks down on the side of the highway. Well this was me and my life; I would get over worked or over stressed and then I would have a seizure. A big one that would render me unconscious and flopping like a fish on the floor.

I love working with people and I loved school but struggled in school. I struggled to get assignments done, to remember things I read and over all, was just an average student. I didn’t tell anyone that I had a head injury so no one would have known to help me. I was afraid to be vulnerable, to let others in; I was a broken down car awaiting my tune up. I was also twenty two at this point and the wise part of my life was just being cultivated.

I was working with people and going to school this was taxing my mind and body and things were going ok but I was not being balanced in my approach. The stress of full time work, full time school was making me sick, or should I say stressed. When you have a head injury, I don’t care how long ago it was you may be more easily taxed by things that others find very simple. So keep your life balanced. I mean this is a holistic process which I still try very hard to do but it’s not always easy.

Instead of being an engineer I became someone who studies people and tries to figure out to keep people going through their life. Now I have always found seeing other’s issues and helping them fix them is easier than fixing myself but I believe through helping others, I have helped myself too. That wasn’t even the end goal. Of course I am also a writer which is part of my balance.

So here’s a list of things to help people with head injuries that keep you balanced:
Rest, proper routine for eating and sleeping, taking your medications if you take them, exercise as much as you can but stay hydrated, balance with social life and alone time. Most of all surround yourself with things and people that fill your soul not deplete it. Stay away from negativity and always find time to be with yourself for reflection and inner peace. Follow your dreams. Last, even if it’s difficult, ask for help.

Amy L. Kratz

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