BLAM: Desperate to Dance
Days 17-21 - From bus ride hell to bathtub heaven
January 6, 2001 - Day 17
28 years old
Since I still wasn’t cleared to return to the internet company where I worked as their office manager, I made plans to stop in so I could show my temporary replacement which projects were the most dire. I’d originally inherited the position from her once the company got too big for her to be front office gal as well as IT, but I had overhauled that whole place in the two months since my arrival, so I needed to catch her up to what I’d done.
🎶 I say whip it! Whoo-tsh! Whip it good!
After nearly three weeks of treading water and waiting for everybody to go back to work after the holidays, I received authorization for an MRI—not of my brain. That wouldn’t come for another seven weeks (and be way too late to show anything). But at least they finally got a good look at what had happened to my neck, seeing as how the hospital had sent me home without so much as taking an X-ray of it because the tech couldn’t figure out how to get my necklace off. 🤨
For those of you new to this story, I barely had a mark on me, yet inside:
The bones of my skull had been smashed up against one another
My jaw had been knocked off kilter
My eyeballs had been stretched out of their sockets
My muscles, tendons and ligaments had been overstretched and torn
My spine—especially the cervical vertebrae—had been warped and twisted side-to-side, in a horizontal rotation, and front-to-back.
You know that natural curve your neck is supposed to have?1 Mine was curved in the opposite direction, because the bowling ball of my skull had been blasted against the seat back, then hurled forward and snapped short by the whip of my spine.
Kinda why they call it whiplash.
Talk about whip it! Whip it good! Sheesh.
After that, I got whirled around, shaken and stirred before my skull got slammed against the door frame. But that’s bone. It would take the MRI to show what my chiropractor’s x-rays couldn’t: the disks in my neck had been so smashed by the compression of my vertebrae that they were bulging out like too much PB & J squishing out the sides of a sandwich. Thankfully none of them had ruptured or fully herniated.
In spite of all that, my doc was impressed with how quickly my body had healed in those first three weeks. I wrote about it to my boyfriend:
I know my body well—dancer, duh—and I am extremely determined. I WILL prevail and come out of this stronger than before. Dammit, I will!
**Recap-recap-recap of stuff you already know.**
Ugh! This whole thing sucks. But hey, there are some good things to come from all this. All this extra time with you has been one. *soft smile* And learning to accept sweetness from the hand of a man who stands by me through one of the most traumatic incidents of my life, although you have only known me about a month and a half.
Thank you, darling!
LeXX-OO
January 7, 2001
Day 18
I took the bus to my work since I couldn’t drive. Mom and Dad would be returning back home to Minnesota soon, so we decided to do my trial run while they were still there.
Ugh. We should have had one of them go with me, but only hindsight can show us things like that. Besides, if I hadn’t tried to manage that herculean task alone, we never would have really known how bad things were with my spine and brain.
The office was only 6 miles from my house. Yet it took me two hours to get there.
Twooooo. Houuuuuurrrrrrs.
See, the only feasible route to get there was to freeze my keister off at the nearest bus stop, head south all the way downtown, change busses, and then travel back up across town via Nevada Avenue—a mere four streets away from mine. But that was too far for me to walk, so I had ride the too-loud bus in the too-bright sunlight with the brain-piercing flashes off other vehicles. Having no seatbelt completely freaked out PTSD Monkey.
Heck, PTSD Monkey was freaked out while drooling on her couch, so riding that bus?
Hooooo-boy.
Then there was the physical toll. All that jerking-stopping-starting-slamming was hell on my neck and back. It whiplashed me all over again. With all the soft tissues of my spine, left hip, and lower abs overstretched and torn apart, I couldn’t do any natural bracing in the torso.
Instead, I had to press my hands against the seat in front of me, which was excruciating to my neck and shoulders, and made my right hand go numb more than usual. That still couldn’t stop the big, skull-sized bowling ball from snapping on the end of the whip or choking me on the neck brace every time the bus stopped, started, or veered through traffic.
By the time time I got to the main station downtown, trying to navigate a transfer melted what was left of my brains. All I wanted was to plunk in some quarters (no cell phones in those days), and bawl for my mommy and daddy to come pick me up and take me back home.
But I would have to do this every day once I was cleared for work because we had no idea how long it would be before I could drive again. I couldn’t turn my head at all, not even to look at cross-streets. I had to scootch my whole body around on my butt to see sideways, so I certainly couldn’t look over my shoulder to change lanes or make sure my blind spot was clear.
I HAD to make this bus thing work.
Ummm…
Have I ever told you how teeth-grittingly, stubbornly, unrealistically optimistic I can be?
During that whole bus ride, I kept dangling the carrot ahead of me: my boss’s wife would give me a ride back home in a comfy car with a seatbelt, someone I knew and trusted, and some friggin’ non-jolty suspension, yo—if I could just get to the office.
So I dragged myself onto the second bus where, this time, I used my feet and legs to brace on the floor with my back and head immobilized against the seat back. This way I could use my hands to pull my hat down over my eyes and plug my ears for a little while, thus cutting down all that sensory overload.
Can I tell ya how much those two actions endear someone to the general bus-riding population?
This was waaaaay before anybody had ever seen autistic kids walking around with noise-cancelling headphones and hoodies that create horse-blinders, or heard about sensory-friendly hours in Walmart. The way people looked at me with my squinty eyes and cringing face, my slurring words as I tried to explain—
Oh, honey.
Sweetheart.
Seriously, just keep your darn mouth shut, ignore them, and let them sidle away from you on their seats as far as they can get. Trying to explain brain episodes while having a brain episode only makes it worse.
But I didn’t know that yet.
At last, I dragged myself into the office where I promptly collapsed on my chair and tried not to bawl all over my desk. Tried and failed.
The whole office crew was so great with me. After cramming the liquified contents of my skull back in through all my bodily orifices, I attempted to teach my temporary replacement what needed to be done.
I have no idea if I was successful or not.
Joyest of joys, when my boss’s wife helped me up the stairs and poured me into my apartment, I found a package in the mail from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It included that brochure about a malady that was commonly overlooked amidst the louder, more overt bodily injuries. Not a “little concussion.” Not a mere “bump on the head…a knock on the noggin.”
They were talking about “Mild” Traumatic Brain Injury—which, let me assure you, is not remotely mild.2
TYPES OF TBI WITH SYMPTOMS LIST FROM MAYO CLINIC
The symptoms I had are bolded, italicized and denoted with a 👹. (That’s the Beastie symbol. Rawr.)3
Mild traumatic brain injury
The signs and symptoms of mild traumatic brain injury may include:
Physical symptoms
👹 Headache
👹 Nausea or vomiting4
👹 Fatigue or drowsiness
👹 Problems with speech
👹 Dizziness or loss of balance
Sensory symptoms
👹 Sensory problems, such as blurred vision, ringing in the ears, a bad taste in the mouth or changes in the ability to smell
👹 Sensitivity to light or sound
Cognitive, behavioral or mental symptoms
👹 Loss of consciousness for a few seconds to a few minutes
No loss of consciousness, but a state of being 👹dazed, confused or disoriented
👹 Memory or concentration problems
👹 Mood changes or mood swings
👹 Feeling depressed or anxious
👹 Sleeping more than usual
👹 Difficulty sleeping (Always a good time - not being able to stay awake more than 2-4 hours, yet not able to stay asleep as long as your body needs for proper healing.)
Moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries
Moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries can include any of the signs and symptoms of mild injury, as well as these symptoms that may appear within the first hours to days after a head injury:
Physical symptoms
👹 Loss of consciousness from several minutes to hours
👹 Persistent headache or headache that worsens
Repeated vomiting or nausea
👹 Convulsions or seizures
Dilation of one or both pupils of the eyes
Clear fluids draining from the nose or ears
Inability to awaken from sleep
👹 Weakness or numbness in fingers and toes
👹 Loss of coordination
Cognitive or mental symptoms
👹 Profound confusion
👹 Agitation, combativeness or other unusual behavior
👹 Slurred speech
Coma and other disorders of consciousness
Fascinating how many symptoms I had in the Moderate to Severe list, but yet I was only diagnosed as “mild.” Things have shifted over the years. The way it was explained to me back then was that if 1) your skull hadn’t been cracked open and 2) you hadn’t lost consciousness for more than 30 minutes, your brain injury could only be “mild.”
They’ve learned just a little bit about TBI since then.
Journal - Day 20
1/9/01
Well, it seems my insurance company finally decided today that I’m human and that they’re actually on my side after I lost it and bawled because they were taking so long to OK my medical care and start on my case.
It's just been one thing after another after another, but I was finally treated with some understanding today—like I'm an injured human instead of some slime bag trying to screw everyone out of their precious money. Ugh. At least my medical professionals have all been good so far.
Except I have chosen all of these from people I know.
The next ones I’ll see are unknown to me and they’re more MEDICAL instead of HEALING so...we'll see how that goes.
Journal - Day 21
1/10/01
After the way I came home from the bus the other day, we decided there is no way I can keep doing that. Only in emergency. So I got cleared to take disability bus. It'll take me anywhere in the city for $2—and I'll have a seatbelt!!! I won't have to lurch to the bus stop and freeze out there, and also, no jolting and stop & go!
*huge relieved sigh*
Of course, I don't think I'll be in the system until next week, so it's the cab for me for the next few days. At least the insurance company will eventually reimburse me for that. (Or…they say they will. I’ll believe that when I have the cash in my hot little hand.)
LATER…
Holy crap!!!
I just got done with one of the most intense meditations I've ever done in my life! Just before the crash, I’d read that little book about the power of mind over matter, and it said this “imagine and make it so” technique worked for every aspect of your life, so I’ve been experimenting and practicing.
I’ve started taking baths by candlelight every night. I put on my B-Tribe CD5 and lay in there, imaging, imagining, imagining my body healing itself. Every place that’s injured. Every place that’s uncomfortable. Imagining the vertebrae aligning. Seeing all that space between them, and the disks going back to their natural shape, plump and cushy and happy.
I did a bunch of belly rolls and loosened up my digestive system, which has been in knots for several weeks. Ugh. I think I shall purge it tonight with a bunch of Vitamin C because I can feel when I try to do belly rolls—everything is just…stuck.
But then Desesperada came on.
All my hair stood up on end because I kept seeing and feeling what it would be like to dance again. Envisioning all the different ways I need to be able to move again. The music would swell and I pictured myself spinning, spinning, spinning. I imagined being able to lift my head, to move my hips without pain, to undulate and bend, to twist and turn, to swirl my hair around again. The song crashes like surf against rock, and I see myself exploding up in a fountain of hair, fringe and bliss!
I imagined this over and over and over for the whole rest of the album. I really started to be able to SEE it, and then to FEEL it! My pulse was racing and I was sweating, just from lying there.
INTENSE! Whuff…
At the end, I was resting and breathing calmly, and all of a sudden, I could notice the tiniest, most subtle shifts in my body! I could feel my jaw shifting back and forth, penduluming right to left, trying to center itself in the correct alignment. It was so subtle and so gentle, but I could tell that it had been slammed to the right. It’s easier to move that way but geez does it hurt.
While my jaw was working, I also felt one of the plates in my skull shift! My ears opened some more like when you go down from the mountains.
That was so cool!!!! I’ve never felt anything like that before. Blows me away. The body is such an amazing machine! It was mind-blowing to FEEL it healing itself!
P.S. In case you’re wondering how many of those dance moves I transformed from envisioning into doing…well…over on my Tinkerings publication6, I’ve started detailing the origins and evolution of a 30+ year dance career and it only started in 1993, so you do the math. 😜
And yes. In spite of everything going on right now, I do consider it to be 30 years and counting. Because I’m still dancing. In fact, I just did, here in the dark and the faerie lights. To this day, I cannot hear that B-Tribe album without getting up and moving to it.
© 2024 Hartebeast
Up Next - Valentine’s Day & other love letters:
Why the natural curves in your spine are so important—and what happens when you lose them
“Mild” Traumatic Brain Injury Isn’t Mild - a cheesy poem that sums it up
Symptoms list from the Mayo Clinic and way more about TBI
I’m not much of a puker. Instead when I get nauseous it has to travel the whole length of my guts and finally come out the other end. During this time, I vacillated between diarrhea and constipation. Yum.
In the DanceStory Section of my Tinkerings publication, you can find the origins and evolution of my 30+ year dance career:
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“Talk about whip it! Whip it good! Sheesh” — this second ‘whip it’ line was so well placed after the first one being about your work and this one being about your whiplash! Bravo :)