part of My story

I know I'm bad at writing. I took it a while ago, I need to take it again, so I am. This is a paper I had to write. It had to be about an experience in my life, descriptive writing I think.
Let me know how to write well, that would help.


Eric Lopez
Writing 121
CRN:43546
Prof. Sears
10/8/08
‘Silent Killer’

There is a silent killer that can strike anyone at any moment. Sometimes there are symptoms; most of the time there aren’t. People drop suddenly because they are not able to walk, breathe, or see. This condition happens to soldiers, athletes who go through head trauma, and the everyday person just going through their day. It is called Traumatic Brain Injury (T.B.I.).
On April 3rd 2005 I moved from Kimball, Nebraska to Redondo Beach, California when it happened to me. Seven days later on the evening of April 10th, I was in Downtown Los Angeles “doing my thing” when all of a sudden my head starts throbbing and burning, like it was screaming from the inside and pounding, similar to a jack hammer but with a saw blade, pounding and ripping the inside of my head apart. Later I learned I was having a brain aneurism, An Arterio-Venous Malformation (A.V.M.) aneurism, to be exact that happened in the cerebellum part of my brain. It wasn’t a hereditary thing, just a random thing. As it happened I immediately collapsed, partly due to the pain in my head and partly because I lost the ability to stand. A friend helped get me onto a bench and off the ground in order to see if I was all right. I started throwing up at that point. My friend noticed that I couldn’t speak right or see and I needed medical attention immediately. With only minutes passing so far, there was time to get to the nearby hospital, this was an emergency and there was a Good Samaritan Hospital a few blocks away on Wilshire Blvd. The hospital I was taken to happened to have one of the best brain surgeons in the country working that night, and he quickly got to the root of my symptoms. I passed out while in the ER before the surgeon had a chance to look at me. I have no memory of what happened the next few weeks.

I awoke about a month later with the strongest coherency that doctors had seen in me. I was immediately put on the rehabilitation roster. Physical, Occupational and Speech therapists then worked to challenge me with basic exercises to further this progress, since there was no telling how far progress would go. I was constantly told, “The brain is amazing at recovery when it is triggered to do so”. The next months were full of therapy sessions, two kinds of wheel chairs and walkers, swallowing solid food and liquid, brushing teeth, combing hair, basic things that I’ve been doing since birth, twenty-three years ago, but all I wanted to do was sleep deeply. Thankfully, I was not on any medication, but I did acquire a side effect from brain surgery known as insatiable thirst, leaving me constantly thirsty. Three months later, after I showed enough progress, I was off to an assisted living rehabilitation center for further improving or until my health insurance ran out. My mental capacity at that point was that of a small child and improved with more exposure to physical and mental activities. Like a chalkboard, my mind had twenty-three years of experiences and muscle memory that were instantly erased, but they’re still in my brain somewhere waiting to be triggered, hopefully. The goal of rehabilitation was not to get me back to how I used to be, but to get me capable.
Casa Colina Rehabilitation Center was my home for the next few months. When I first arrived, I was incredibly disoriented, and the place seemed very strange to me. It was one hour east from where I had lived in Redondo Beach and the recovery hospital in San Pedro, California. Pomona (where Casa Colina is), is hot and dry in summer. I remember it was a big house, a short distance from the main hospital, hard wood floors, Spanish style architecture, and a court yard, all surrounded by walls. No Doctors or Nurses just Therapists and patients and sheets that did not smell like a hospital. I have never been much of a family man, but seeing such warm smiles and genuine care during this whole ordeal was a very life changing experience. My perspective of family was being changed. I never realized how beautiful family is.
My time at Casa Colina was awkward. We had free time, meal times, and outings, but I didn’t know what to do other than practice my exercises almost non-stop. I did not want to be there. I got a lot of, “what are you doing, it’s lunch time, take a break”, but every moment was an opportunity to improve. Eventually I got to the point where I could handle a pass to leave for the day on Saturday or Sunday, I remember getting back from my day with family or friends, slowly getting up the ramp to the front door on a Saturday night, stopping to admire how dark and quiet it was, time for more rehabilitation. I wanted out, I didn’t want to be in that position, but what can you do? It was like a job that never ended and there was nothing I could do about it except, do it. Day after day, I saw how incapable I was: my limbs were not doing what they used to. That was discouraging and really getting to me, I kept thinking, “why is this taking so long?” However, once I discovered I had access to the unlimited supply of yogurt, cold Sparklets water, juice, cereal and fruit, the place wasn’t so bad. Unfortunately, I realized this just before I was discharged. The place was actually becoming all right to live in now. Wow, I was settling there. I also had a great roommate towards the end of my stay. In mid September I was discharged from living there and began outpatient day treatment at my father’s home, fifteen minutes away, for continued therapies.
This was the first year of my Brain surgery experience. It has been a very educational one, not a good one at all, but I have learned to take nothing for granted and I thought I had control of things, I don’t. I never knew how to trust; now I have a picture of what trust looks like. I never thought about change, now I do. I try not to take things like walking on grass, drinking water or how special family is for granted any more. Come to think of it, this experience has made things ‘sweeter’.