Going Home After TBI: Only Vague Memories of Going Home

Going Home After TBI: Craig Part Eight  

In Part Eight, Craig tells us about his experience with going home after TBI.  He has very little memory of this and what he does have is vague.

Difficulties with Going Home After TBI

Let’s get a sense of time.  You are discharged initially in three weeks. Your wife is still with you when you were going home after TBI. come home. 

Yeah.

Do you have any recollections of this period? 

Yeah, it was very miserable.  Because again she didn’t… I mean she recognized me, but she didn’t know me.  I recognized her but I couldn’t… I lost the ability of sense to, normal signals that a couple has between each other.  They were gone.

I’ve never been an aggressive person, so I never physically was abusive.  I was kind of verbally abusive to her at that time.  Kind of just things would come out, just, you know.  It’s just like I would be sitting there thinking I can’t believe I just said that and they just flew out and nobody had any answers for that.

When we talk about amnesia there are, there’s the period before the accident.  There’s the period after the accident.  You’ve mentioned that you’ve had some amnesia for a period of eight months.  When is your first memory after that other than that first minute?  When is your first memory after the accident? 

I don’t know because it’s, it’s pretty much amnesia but I did  Christian camp.  Hence that is where the brain injury camp comes from.  I did the youth and I didn’t want to let them down and so we did this fall camp.  And I shouldn’t have been there.

I remember walking around and a gal named Toni who was in psyche ward and I knew her.  I took care of her son and so glad that I didn’t run into her when I was there.  I remember thinking that.  She’s looking at me because she had a brain injury a couple years previous to that.   She goes, “you know you’re going to crash.”  They were her words to me.   And I looked at her like she was crazy. I remember doing that camp and I just remember like from Point A to Point B, I couldn’t remember what I was going for, ever.

Your accident happens what day of the year? 

It was in August.

So fall camp would have been when? What day in August? 

            In November so it was a cold camp. 

What was the day in August of your accident? 

15^th.

So, when you’re talking November, you’re out as much as eight weeks after the after the accident. 

Yeah, I shouldn’t have been there, yeah.  I mean I’m on crutches and…

Early On Craig Has No Memory of Going Home after TBI

So, your first island of memory after the accident is actually about 7 to 8 weeks post? 

Almost, almost ten weeks.

Do you remember going home after TBI  from the hospital the first time at three weeks? 

Yeah I remember not… I remember being glad to be out of the hospital but I remember not being so glad to, uh, going home.

Next in Part Nine –Marital Help Fell Thru Cracks After TBI