TBI, a friend's perspective

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.  ~Sicilian Proverb

Jennifer is my friend.  My roommate.  I consider her family.  As a former co-worker, she worked with me when I was at the top of my game as a Webmaster/Go-to-girl, she knows a wider version of the Kristy I was and am now.  After learning what changes my son sees, I needed to know her perspective.  Are there things I should change?  Can I change?  How bad am I?  She asked for a day to gather her thoughts.  Oh.  Great.  That doesn't sound good.

Jennifer has her Masters degree in Journalism and is completing her Ph.D. in education (the technicalities of her area of focus still confuse the hell out of me).  She is highly intelligent, funny, straight forward, honest and yet provides a balanced view point that I treasure. She tells me when my face is dirty...usually in front of someone to embarrass me, but hey...I love her anyway.  Did I mention she is Sicilian?  She is Sicilian.

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"First, I know what Sean said upset you. (previous blog topic)  I have to tell you that the core of you, the being that I know as Kristy, is the same.  You have the same twisted sense of humor, you are still highly intelligent, you are still compassionate...you give WAY too much...none of that has changed.  You are good people.  You STILL have value. (tears. I needed to hear that)

Having said that, anyone off the street would never know you have a brain injury.  They would see this whole being that is smart, funny and never suspect anything is "off" with you.  Working with you for several years and being your friend through some of the worst times of your life...I KNOW you are a bit more than slightly off.  I say that because I love you.  And.  Well.  You ARE off.  I watched you manage people, several websites, take on publishing jobs that were not even part of your job, create web marketing plans for 13 colleges, create a radio ad, speak to college presidents and just shine.  I witnessed this amazing woman handle some challenging situations with her kids while you worked full-time and went to night school.  You were a multitasking dynamo.  Now?  Not so much.

From what I've observed in you over the past couple weeks is a change in how you function cognitively.  You are not as bad as you were immediately after the car accident.  While I made you the butt of jokes to lighten the situation and make you laugh, I feared you'd never be the same back then.  I now watch the cogs turning in that brilliant mind of yours searching for the appropriate words. You say out loud what you are thinking until you finally speak what you knew in your mind you wanted to say the whole time. (Oh my g-d...she sees me!)  I don't fill in the blanks for you because I know you're brain is making new pathways to that Rolodex of information in that head of yours.  (Thank you!)

Your mind still operates at the same near genius IQ (she made me take the Mensa exam years ago because she was convinced I was near her genius IQ level and I scored 14 points higher than required to enter Mensa.  She found my mind entertaining...must have been the wine. Laugh - ) you had prior to that damned car accident.  What's changed is your ability to express what your mind is thinking.  While not as bad now, there is this pause that happens between your thoughts and verbal expression.  When you get frustrated with communicating I've noticed you drop off the end of your thought because it's just not worth the brain drain it causes. (Huh, I didn't know.. something to work on.)

Now, do I believe you can be a Webmaster again? Frankly, no.  You have all of the knowledge.  You can still write, do graphic design, market the hell out of anything and create the architecture of a site.  By the way, I never understood that huge chart you had on your wall until I got into making websites.  It blows my mind that you managed such a huge website and did a complete redesign on your own.  I have total respect for you. (wow)  Previously you worked both sides of your brain. What I've observed in you now is you operate at a slower pace and have difficulty accessing the technical/left brain functions.  You can do the left brain functions, but you get fatigued quickly.  If you were self employed without a time crunch I think you could be a developer again, but your slow pace wouldn't cut it in the business world.  Just sayin...(It's ok.  Already knew that part.)

This is what's been interesting....we went to see the dog trainer for a few hours, made dinner and stayed up late talking.  After a very full day you were what I'd call "baseline" or "normal" after a very long day.  Several days later we went to Ikea.  After about an hour into the store I looked at your face and knew you needed to go home. NOW. I also knew you'd crash as soon as we got home.

You went from being a bouncy kid joking with me while sitting on the furniture with smiles galore looking at all of the products to sitting on a bench with a blank expression on your face.  At that point you couldn't hold a conversation and to be honest...became cranky. I could see that your batteries were completely drained.  Put a fork in you...you were done.  In fact, I spoke to Martha (another friend) about the differences of the two days and the first thing she said was, "Duh! Sensory overload."  I knew that!

The sensory or cognitive overload...man it's really something to witness.  I've read about this, but to watch it happen to you is...I don't know what it is, but I know this...you can't fake what I saw.  It was like what animates your body stopped.  Your nap lasted 10 hours.  You pretty much recover after your naps, but not this time.  You looked like hell for the next few days, started stuttering, your balance has been off since then and sleep, sleep, sleep...but hey you don't have horrible bedhead.  There's that. (Thanks)

After saying all of this I'm sure I'll observe more as time goes by.  In the meantime, I think working with your right brain and exercise will help stimulate the connection between both sides.  I know you want to work again, but you are NOT in any shape to do that yet, but we'll get you there."

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The best thing about Jennifer is (just like at work) we are working together as a team to create a reasonable game plan to get me where I want to be. (thank you!!) This is the type of help I've needed all along.  Between Jen and my son they are taking an active role in helping me recognize my deficits then discover new ways of working around them.  I'll share the strategies as I work through them.  Namaste

One doesn't know, till one is a bit at odds with the world, 

how much one's friends who believe in one rather generously, mean to one.  

~D.H. Lawrence

Kristy