The Day I Almost Died

I was also in a serious automobile accident last August. I was only in hospital for a couple of weeks for surgery but spent the following two months in bed, then crutches. 10 months later I can limp without a stick. Like you, it has completely changed my life. The vehicle I was traveling in was driven by the CEO of the company I worked for as their IT Director. Two months after the accident I was laid off by the same company. I had built up a staff of 18, working long hours and suddenly was by myself all the time and unable to work. I've been trying to go back to work with mixed results as my concentration lapses and I sometimes have problems focusing on a specific sequence of actions needed to complete a task. The feelings of helplessness can be overwhelming. It feels as if one had woken up with brain damage. But just as I left the crutches behind once my legs were strong enough, I know my powers of concentration will return, with training and exercise.

What else is there?
Complete despair? Yes, that's always waiting around the corner---but I can embrace that anytime. Nothing changes in despair. Only actively trying to engage and change circumstance will get me through this statis. And if I'm too tired, I lie down and rest and when I'm hungry, I eat. We are not superhumans. There is no better, flawless version of you: there's just this, the materials you work with.

I still have deep lasting dark moods and I let them pass without resistance. I also have brighter moments as the seasons change. But getting better is now my main work, everything else will have to wait until I am strong enough to deal with it.

I also sufferred a head injury, they call it the invisible disability, because on the surface you look like the person you've always been. The differences can be very subtle, but very significant, to the person sufferring through them and their loved ones.
I hid my depression not just from my family and my doctors, but from myself, for over a year. I finally got to a point I couldn't keep it all in, I couldn't keep telling myself a was just a little blue. I had a baby less than 2 years after my accident too, between the crazy hormones and everything I'm surprised I made it. The best thing I did was to tell my doctor all I had been hiding, how I had been isolating myself, how miserable I was. Zoloft saved my live.
Don't hold it in any longer, tell your doctor, let them help!

I am very sorry to hear about your accident, however I am extremely bothered by the fact that your accident involved no trucks yet the picture for this story is of a truck. I am a truck driver and we get enough bad press as it is. I have driven for 23 years and I have seen some crazy things happen on the road. Again, I feel for you and the situation you are in but i am very disheartened to think that a picture of a truck would be used to illistrate your story when there are no trucks involved.

It's been 2 1/2 years since my accident. I had a closed head injury and brain damage as a result not to mention the pain from injury to my spine. I have experienced everything you all have here. Also, I have been left with other disorders as a result, migrains, motor skills defencies, speech and cognative disablilites, complex seizure disorder. I also developed Type 2 diabeties because the brain is control center and can no longer tell my organs what to do.
I will say that I have recovered some cognative abilities. My neurologist and other specialties continued to tell me that the sooner I accepted my limitations my anxiety would decrease! Well they were right! I just was not willing to accept that my life would not be the same as I Knew it. This took along time for me. It made me feel like saying you don't know me I don't give up that easily, I'm going back to work. I'm going to heal! Some things will not heal! The pain will remain but with acceptance, the right medication and treatment I will live! I just have to remember to take my time and breath! To be honest this site came to me by accident just as the car reck happened but I can truly say that sometimes this site has saved me. So what if I have to write down the steps to get on it. So what if I no longer spell correctly, so what if get off subject. So what if I have to look up meaning of words and spelling.I'm a work in progress! Progress is a beautiful word to me.

Thanks....I was having a good day...I know you know what I mean. Must take advantage of those!

dam ma'am, 10 days in a coma .... pretty serious injury, however, ive got you beat.

oct 27 1997
i was passenger as you.
coma for 11 days as you, except i was not screaming, as i was out on site (few broke bones also)
all this, an' you know the culprit? a dam tree happen'd to just out in the road .... well, it was at the end of a "T" of the road.

Geez what a jerk, I could have been driving a lamborghini diablo and my first concern STILL would have been for the people around me.

I'm glad you are okay now, as for the depression, I don't blame you, but don't hide it, get some help. :)

Jolly - You are right, he needs to focus on the positive.
I have always been grateful for the fact this was one of the times I was wearing a seatbelt and that I would be able to chase after my kids again.
I strongly suggest you join a support group for family members of people with head injury. The effects can be very different for each person, but his first inclination will be to deny the extent of deficits he has been left with. He will try to do things as he did before; relying on his memory, but this will betray him. He should get some occupational therapy, develop some compensatory strategies such as using a day-planner.

Eventually he will appear as the same person on the outside, but there have been permanent changes to his core. Try to be patient and a good listener.

God Bless and good luck.

having a near death experience really shows how much material things and money are worth? nothing without health and friends

i almost died one day when i was on my bike and i was going down a hill no handed standing up and a cat ran out in front if me to wich i swerved and came off my bike cutting up my hands stomach and arms, but i landed in front of a car and my head almost went under the wheel but i moved and my head was hit by the bumper , luckely it wasnt a serious injury, another day i almost couldve died was on my bike going up a dir mound , my bike went sideways and i jumped off landing with my feet firmley on the ground , i didnt hurt my self but my chin was inches away from a spike on a fence, so if i had bent my knees upon landing i wouldve had a gapping hole in my chin to the roof of my mouth ,ouch

I've had many times when I should have been killed, but here I am. Examples: I was electrocuted by 480 volts, hand to hand, standing in water - here I am; a brain ameurysm burst - I was dead, according to the hospital for about 15 or 20 minutes and was sent back; three years ago, I was driving about 75 mph and was T-BONED by another car landed and bounced 3 times on my corner of the roof, broke my C-1 and C5&6 - neurosurgeon sad either one should have killed me.

I suppose I could have given in to depression, but I opted to improve myself in spite of the doctors' prognoses. The aneurysm left me without a short term memory and no facial muscle control on the right side of my face, had lost most of my hearing and had no sence of balance - doc said to get used to it, I would never recover, in my slightly uncontrolled stte I told him what he could do to himself, and recovered all my functions, even controlling my facial muscles even though there's no feeling, except I still had slight hearing; The broken neck left me, once again with loss of balance and hearing loss, still working on that, and I am am in constant pain from my neck down to my right hand - working on that too; electrocution, well lets just say that somehow I was moved to the other side of large equipment that I would have to walked a total of about 300 yards and gone up and down 2 flights of stairs. No explanation given here.

Yeah, I had some tough times. I could have surrendered to my misfortunes, but instead I let those make me stronger and a better man. It gave me a better understanding why we are here and what our jobs in this life really are, and I strive to accomplish those jobs daily.

Come out into the sunshine, never give in to your disabilities, grow new neurons in your brain as did I because it's you body and you have the right to do it. If you have a memory problem, memorize something, a poem or a name; when you have done that, memorize something larger, and continue on to bigger and better things and recite them often. When you are depressed and feel like you want to be alone, get up, take a shower, get dressed and go out and talk to someone and laugh at their corney jokes. you world will get brighter.

NEVER SURRENDER - NEVER, NEVER SURRENDER

You are tough ! .. TOO TOUGH SO THAT NOTHING CAN MAKE YOU GIVE UP ON LIFE !!!
Positive .

People need to remember that with brain injury there are stages. Some where you just cry all the time and are really depressed and feel like the worlds ended for you, others where you laugh at everything. Finally these stages are less frequent when acceptance is found. Just knowing we have to live with this disability and we can work to make it better, but it will always there. We will never be "normal".

Hi hon, I feel for you and know a little about what you're going through too. I had 2 accidents in 7 years resulting in head injuries. BTW neither was my fault, the first was a car accident, the other driver was a kid of 18 who fled the scene, but was brought back by his dad with 15 minutes. Good for dad!
The 2nd was a speeding motorbike hit me as I was waiting to cross the road as a pedestrian. We have it all on a security video from the service station where I was standing.
I have memory problems, minor short term, but my long term memory is full of holes. It has no pattern or time span, weird, and sometimes really gets to me. My face was smashed, the bones on the right side crushed. I had a fantastic Maxillo-facial surgeon who operated from inside my mouth as far as possible to prevent scarring. The one incision on my face was done under my eye, in a natural crease, and is totally invisible. My face is not symmetrical, but then neither is anyone elses', mine is just more so. My eyes have suffered the worst, I can see long-distance, and no longer wear glasses - this is fantastic! But my vision middle distance and close-up is awful. I keep getting eye infections from strain. I find shopping difficult, to my husbands' secret delight :D. It's a brain problem though, not eyes. I've had 10 eye operations on top of the 3 facial surgeries, and 15 broken teeth. My left leg is often very painful and swells, but I walk without assistance. There is another operation looming for a hip replacement, but we're delaying as long as possIible.
I had/have PTSD, and am being treated for depression, which depresses me (:D), because the pill makes me put on weight.
HOWEVER! I am alive, I look very normal, if a bit different, even good if I say so myself! I have a good life, am reconciled to my husband who nursed me, and can enjoy my 2 new grandchildren immensely.
Get your depression treated, not with drugs, if you don't want to, but it must be treated! Try to accept the limitations you now have. UNLESS you can do something about them. This is the new you, not the old one. That person died, this new you was reborn!!!! Give thanks for that, and make peace with that.
And remember, we understand, we empathise, we will support you, listen when you need to vent, will not judge you. You also have family and friends who need to understand how you feel so educate them, point them to this site, to help them gain understanding from others in similar situations. Finally, God bless you x@

My little sister who is twenty just got in a serious car wreck Tuesday the 14 of December. A man distressed about something between his ex girlfriend was turning into his driveway presumably off of the highway and hit my sister driving home from work in the drivers side as she was coming around the bend in the road at sixty miles per hour. I just learned of it this morning and I live states away. The guy wasn't looking at who was coming as he headed towards his driveway. I'm her older brother and I am almost 25 and am devastated by this. I've never dealt with something this tragic in my immediate family.
My sister is in the hospital now with brain trauma, swelling, the second vertebrae in her neck is broken, she has a several broken bones including her collar bone, ankle, and arm. I couldn't believe it when I heard from my Mother in a phone call. I still am deeply upset by this. I am starting to have alot of anger for this happening I don't know why this had to happen to her. I would have rather it happened to me because she was happy, working a good job, doing what she wanted to, and now something like this just stops you in your tracks - in the blink of an eye like others said here.
She is not paralyzed thankfully.