letters

My darling husband, then fiance, Eddie, wrote me a letter every day when I was in my coma. Then, he gave them to me the next christmas, that was about 5 months after I woke up. I read them then, of course, but then when we got married and I moved I put them in a box and packed them up. I have some real memory problems. I wasn't sure where they went, but I figured they were in this certain box at my parent's house that was too high for me to reach. I just figured it was there so I didn't worry too much about it. Then, a couple weeks ago my dad and I got it down and to my extreme disappointment I realized it wasn't there. I really didn't know what I was going to do. Eddie didn't even think it was that big of a deal and that I was over reacting. I'LL SHOW YOU OVER-REACTING!!!! But then the other day my dad found 3 more boxes, one of which contained my letters. YAY!! I was so happy about that! They are really wonderful. I thought about typing one out and sharing it with you guys, but then I read one and decided I think its just a little too personal. And I don't think he'd like his words tossed around on the inter web. I haven't read them for over 3 years and I forgot how beautiful they are (due to the above mentioned memory problem). He just says who visited and what the nurses did with me and stuff. And stuck in there there are some more personal things. About how much he loves me. :) They just make me cry and cry and somehow its really enjoyable, all that crying.

my busy life

Ahhh sorry I'm such a mess of a poster!! I feel like its been forever and I am sorry.

Things have been a little more busy. School started up on the 31st of August. Even though I don't take too many classes its still a super busy week. I have some crazy things at work and then I sign up for lots of classes and go to all of them and decide which ones I want to take. Pretty much the class thats the easiest....And I have to get all sorts of stuff sorted out with Voc. Rehab. Not to mention we went to D.C. to visit my husband's parents and we came home to find out my once wonderful car's transmission is crapping out. And I need to get a new transmission or a new car. Also, OUR PETS HEADS ARE FALLING OFF! K totally kidding. We don't have any pets.

I'm really excited though, despite all the craziness. This semester I'm taking my capstone class to finish off my BYU psych major. Last psych class and then I have to finish 11 more credits of whatever electives to appease BYU!! So close! For my capstone I'm doing an internship here in Provo at a residential treatment center for adolescents. They have a equine center, so I'm working with the horses for 11 hours a week. Well, the horses and the kids. I love horses and I love helping troubled teens so it couldn't be better. I really hope to work here one day. It really is all I want! So I'm really happy going there and its going to be a great semester. The book I'm reading for my internship class, "The Successful Internship" by H. Frederick Sweitzer, says that there are 5 stages to an internship-- Anticipation, disillusionment, confrontation, competence, and culmination. I hope I'm not in that "disillusionment" phase and I'll be let down soon. I really like it.

words.

I was thinking about language. My husband had a friend come into town who's from Japan. I was talking to him and I reminded myself "just because he's not fluent in English doesn't mean he's stupid." I realize we often talk to people who are either
1. Not fluent in the current spoken language, or
2. Hard of hearing
as if they are stupid. Or sometimes we just think of them that way. Like if you have to talk slow to a foreigner automatically you percieve that person as slow.
So, bringing this full circle, sometimes the brain injured are just speaking another language, even if...say...you're like me and you don't talk normal. YOU, brain injured people, have you ever just forgotten a simple word but you know what you're talking about but it makes you look like your unintelligent?
My husband's friend was talking to some people in Japanese and I realized I was understanding about as much as I was picking up when I went to Sprinkler World yesterday....what I'm trying to say is that I got NOTHING from it. And its not that I'm stupid because I can't understand Japanese-- if more people could it would be the universal language-- and thats the same with sprinkler talk. I just don't know. No ones taught me about it in the language I speak. If I lose a word, maybe I just don't speak the same english as you. Right?

The Old Lady Hip

I have the hip of an old lady. About 2 times a week my hip will absolutely kill. And it rotates, both hips. This has been going on since I was about 10. Then it was about once a month. So I went to the orthopedic doctor, and about 6 x rays, an MRI, and over $1000 latter we find not too much out. Apparently, I have just pretty bad hips and probably partially because of my accident they're worse than most people my age and worse than they'd like to see, but not bad enough that I'll be having surgery or anything. Which is kind of a bummer cuz I'd like to not limp around every so often. And at the Dr they ask you to rate you're pain on a scale of 1-10, and you think its pretty bad, but what about the people who break their femur? Or have to cut their own arm off because it gets trapped under a rock when you're hiking. And nothings broken, but HELLO, you're limping and this goes on week after week. You know when one area hurts but it makes your whole appendage ache? My hip will hurt so much that my whole dang leg will ache sometimes. I just take Advil, and that helps, so I think I'll just keep that up for a few more years and then go back to the Dr. so they can say "Oh, well, if you have caught this a couple years ago, it would be real cheap and real easy to fix, but you didn't, so you need your entire hip replaced." Then I'll make this Dr. pay for the surgery and be my nurse for a while. Actually, if you can't tell I love to exaggerate. She's having me to physical therapy to see what that does.

movement

I was thinking about my tendency to get dizzy when I move my head, and about how the answer I got in regards to curring this problem was simple. "Make yourself dizzy lots until you can move without getting dizzy." I think its important to go to the doctor and then that real doctor can tell you if you just need to move your head more, but if you're a 20 year old girl who gets kicked in the head by a horse and are in a coma for a month and have a little cerebellum taken out and you get dizzy when you roll over in bed, you just need to roll over in bed more, even if its not fun. And certainly its not. 3 times a day I dread my exercises but I do it because I'm not sure if I can live my life without laying on my back or looking up.

I am a REALLY hard worker, right? I mean, 3 times a day I move my head back and forth and up and down 40 times.

movies

I always have had this thought whenever I watch movies: "Am I healing more so I notice more things or did I just forget from the last time I saw it." I would think the same kind of thing when I was younger: "Am I just getting older so I'm smarter or did I just forget from when I saw it a couple years ago?" Take for example Nacho Libre. I just watched it yesterday and I thought "I don't know if I knew that the kids Nacho was a cook for where orphans. Did I notice this before or did I just forget it, because before I watched it a second time I had no idea." Oh the questions that arise when you were in a coma.

inappropriate things

Its seems that since my brain injury I say many more inappropriate things. All sorts of things just come out of my mouth. This one time I told people something that happened with my husband involving that "special time." I won't repeat it now because my husband told me it was kind of inappropriate. Its always completely honest, these things I say. I've always been of the mindset that people never say "something they don't mean." You ALWAYS mean it, you just don't mean to say it. Like if I were to tell a certain teacher that they are stupid, obviously I think they're stupid, but if I wanted to use tact and get a good grade I wouldn't say it. At least when you're talking to me you know you'll get the honest truth, I just can't guarantee you'll like it.