Five Years Ago Today

July 27, 2017... 5 years ago.

It was 9 pm. I was driving my SMART car over the San Mateo Bridge on the way to Carmichael, CA for a workshop for martial arts school owners. I was listening to a podcast where Robin Robert's was interviewing Tony Robbins.

We had close to 200 students in our school, and I had dreams of taking our leadership program to the level of "Tony Robbins for teens." The school was the strongest it had ever been. I was physically the strongest I had ever been. Life was awesome.

The traffic on the bridge had nearly stopped. I think there was construction. Honestly, I don't remember. I had just taken my foot off the break when the guy behind me got impatient and cut into the lane to our right. He clipped the rear bumper of my car on his way. I don't remember it being a huge impact but it sent spun my car enough, and as I moved forward and rotated, I hit the rear bumper of the Yukon in front of me. MY Yukon, with my husband driving it. We had taken two cars because we'd be coming back separately.

I don't really remember the details of getting hit. I only remember needing to pull over to the shoulder so nobody else hit me, and wanting to get our of the car to show Rich I was okay.

The truck had a dent the size of a cell phone. The SMART was totaled, completely crumpled. From nose to windshield. I'm not including photos, I don't want to look at them.

I was shaken, but as far as we could tell I was unharmed. We felt incredibly lucky as they loaded my little car onto the tow truck.

I asked Rich the other day how long it took him to realize I wasn't okay. He said he knew the next morning.

I woke up the next morning with a raging headache, something wrong with my shoulder, horrible back pain, pain in my hip, and something very wrong with my big toe. I was very much NOT okay. It took a week to get in to see my doctor at Kaiser. She confirmed what my chiropractor suspected: I had a concussion.

She told me it would clear up in 3 days to a year, and that as long as I continued to improve, I shouldn't worry. The only symptom she gave me to measure by was headaches. Nobody mentioned that the mood swings, light sensitivity, ringing in my ears, motion sickness, lack of balance, flashes of anger and anxiety were also symptoms of concussions. They also didn't tell me that after 10 days, it would be considered "post concussion symptoms" or PCS.

As the days turned into weeks and then months, I started to wonder if I'd ever recover. I still had no idea about the personality and emotional changes that had occurred.

A year later it was clear that I was different. It still wasn't clear to what degree I would recover. I promised myself I would not split my life into "before" and "after" the concussion. It wouldn't be necessary because I was going to get back to normal.

Today I mark the 5th anniversary of "new me" because she is no longer ger my adversary, and I becoming less and less of a stranger. My life changed completely 5 years ago, but mostly foe the better. Here's how:

Having lost many of the abilities that I had used to define myself, I began to look for who the subject was in the sentence "I am ____," rather than looking for something new to put in the blank.

When I stopped being angry at how differently my brain works, I started to recognize that slowing down was an advantage, not a curse. People understand me better. I can see my own thought processes differently, and I have learned to enjoy the pauses and allow my intuition to participate more in how I interpret information.

Once my empathy circuits came back online, I think I became more empathetic than I used to be. I definitely have learned to process emotions more completely, and have learned the importance of listening to the messages that my nervous system sends me when I'm anxious.

I've also learned the importance of listening to my body. I had a lifelong g habit of "pushing through" pain and fatigue, and the habit always led to injuries. My PCS brain would literally shut down when I tried to push through. I would lose words, lose my balance, or have toddler sized meltdowns. I had to learn to identify the clues and stop before I fell over the cognitive cliff. This has been a lesson that has greatly benefitted me in the last few years.

On top of all that, my marriage has improved. I can't really imagine what Rich went through when I was a crazy mess. He and I have talked about it, but I can't really fathom it. I know that for years I was unpleasant to be around, and neither of us knew if I'd ever be okay again. But he just kept showing up, taking care of me, forgiving me, and helping me learn to relate with the world. Somewhere in all of that he also found a better sense of himself. We have done some remarkable things and have grown closer and healthier together. Our priorities have changed. We have learned how strong we are, and how much we can rely on each other.

Today I 90% recovered (I think.) My ears still ring almost all the time. I lose words or say the wrong thing from time to time. I'm still working on vestibular challenges and stamina issues, especially for my martial arts training. For the most part, my life is really good now. Possibly even better than it was.

Could I have gotten here without the accident? We will never know. But when I track that it's been 5 years since the accident, I think I'm really tracking how old this new version of me is. This version of me that I'm learning is not so different from "original me," but is different enough to still surprise me in the most interesting ways.