Kevin

On November 27, 1980, a shipmate and myself were given an order to perform a simple, common and ordinary task that changed my life forever. On this miserable, rainy Seattle day, we carried forth a command to transfer a 350-pound tarp from the pier to our ship. As we lifted the tarp, my partner tripped. Letting go, the mast fell against me, shoving me off the pier, falling 30 feet, landing head first on a log that prevents the ship from surging against the pier. By God’s grace, and a glancing blow, I woke up in the water, no air in my lungs, sinking 40 feet, while unconscious, laden by my zipped-up foul-weather jacket and work boots. Seeing no blood in the water and finding where up was, by a single shiny spot glimmering through the murky abyss I was descending to, I started kicking with all my might, wanting to take a breath of air that was only water, when suddenly my head popped to the surface. I missed the log. I’m still alive. My training worked. In subsequent denial and shock, I told the command I felt no pain, and resumed my duties without medical care, for there was no medical staff on board, and civilian care was no option under the circumstances.

But I get fabulous care at Reno. They took me, the, my primary care doctor sat me down, heard my whole story, and then said OK, we want to start at the top and work down. They did a brain scan. They did a cervical MRI and a lumbar MRI. I knew my neck and back was bad. And this was just a year and a half ago. I had an appointment with my primary care doctor and he was a really, really cool and understanding person. Really good guy. And he wasn’t happy with the VA, particularly the way it was being, the way it was processing us. So, he went out of his way to help better, and listening to their story, because he knew that’s where the disconnect was. The VA won’t, doesn’t believe the Veteran’s story because all they think is you try and get money, OK. A lot of cases that’s true, some it’s not. For me it’s not. 

Anyway, he sat me down and he said, “You’re right, you, you racked your head really, really, really badly.” And I said, “What?” He said, “You have a very bad traumatic brain injury.” And I just kind of, I couldn’t respond. I, I didn’t know what to say. And he said, “I want to make a, an appointment with our neurologist here at Reno so you can talk to him.” I said “OK.” So, about a month later, it was right at a month, real good here at Reno, I saw the neurologist and he sat me down and he started going through the levels of the MRI. And he said, “Now you’re good up here, the top of your brain, the top of your head, front part of your brain is pretty good.” He went down a little further and said, “You see this black?” He said, very gently he said, “Everything that’s black is, is not functioning. It’s dead.” I said, “OK.” He said, “I’m going all the way down through your brain now.” And I couldn’t answer. All I could say, I said, when he was done I said, I said, “That’s my brain?” And he said, “Yes.” And he said, “It’s old. It, it’s an old injury that happened a long time ago. OK.” I said, “Yeah I know, when I fell.” He said, “Yes.” As a result, the whole back of my brain, encompassing about 20% of it, is dead. By God’s grace, I can still talk. I can still, I still have the facilities within my thoughts. I can speak. I can write. But I have a lot of other limitations that I didn’t know I had.

And then I was sent to see a psychologist, and she explained it a little further. And did a test, a 4-hour TBI test that the VA does, that determines what parts of your brain are, have deficits. And, as a result she said, “Well, the front of your brain has been rattled. Not badly, but it got bruised really bad. It doesn’t organize things properly. The back of the brain and into the center cortex got rattled quite badly, which effects your primeval things, senses to want to eat, sexual desires, you’re kind of out of the picture. And temperature, body temperature, organ control, rate, controls your heart rate, probably your breathing, swallowing.” She said, “That’s been rattled quite well.”

I was, I‘m still very intelligent, but I have a difficult time learning things anymore. I can’t, when I’m reading, after the incident. I used to like to read a lot. I, I can’t stand reading anymore because I can’t remember what I just read after I read it. That, that was a big change. So, when I was, when I opened my business and I started getting into business deals and writing contracts and everything else, it became a real disadvantage because I couldn’t understand contracts like I should have, OK. Or I’d engage in conversation and I couldn’t remember what all, everything was said because my thought process, I don’t pick up, when I’m in a conversation with someone, I don’t pick up on everything in a conversation or I, like I had here, I get, I get off on something else other than the conversation, OK. So, it became a real detriment. And, and, like with my wife, we knew, God bless her, we had a wonderful relationship. She knew something was wrong with my thinking and so she, just her blessed heart and the person she was, she became a strong point for me in that area. She could read people where I couldn’t. Because I can’t read people at all. 

And like I said I never knew I had this speaking or writing ability and I’ve since learned that, because of the part of my brain that got messed up, it triggered, and my mind has over the years, and it’s been a slow process, because it takes years, it’s rewired itself to do this, OK. Because I never used to be able to do this. But my mind has rewired itself. And this is what I’m saying, with a traumatic brain injury, your brain always, it continues to heal, but it doesn’t regrow or regenerate but it rewires the other parts of the brain to maybe do the functions that it can’t, that the other part can’t do anymore. And it doesn’t happen immediately or overnight. It’s, it’s been happening with me over the last 35 years. I see it, OK. I just learned my gift to write. I just learned I had it four years ago, OK. Prior to then, I mean, I just, I didn’t know it was there. And I had even gone to college. And didn’t realize it was there. 

So, I finished my enlistment. I got 3.8, 3.9 marks. But by the time I got out, and I don’t like admitting this, I had a horrible cocaine problem, because I was using cocaine for as long as I could and any way I could, any amphetamines, anything to medicate myself so I could keep doing my job for the US government.  And that was even when we were on our long deployment so I would make sure that I would stockpile enough of whatever to get me through as long as I could. I’m not proud of that. I never thought I’d pick up, buy 10,000 hits of speed in Antarctica, from a friend of mine, which, had I not had that, although I’m grateful for it, I hate to say it. So, I had to self-medicate for many years. I wanted to stay in the Coast Guard but I couldn’t, because I had such a raging drug problem they were going to bust me and I was going to be in a lot of trouble. So, I got out of the service and went into drug rehab, because I knew I had a problem and had to undo it. I spent a year in drug rehab and then I moved back to my home town, hoping to make things right with my family, once again, because that was partially why I went into the service was to get away from my family and because, um, anyway I don’t want to get into that. 

I see a psychologist here that helps Veterans and only Veterans. That’s her job. That’s her, she set up a thing called Welcome Home Vets. And she recognized my need, that I was one of those Veterans that just got forgotten about completely. I mean after, when I got out of the service I had an option. They said, when I got my discharge papers, all they said to me was well, and I, I knew I was hurting but I couldn’t put anything together. I, I couldn’t get any medical care. But anyway, they said, they handed me my discharge papers and said, “If you think there’s something wrong, then go to the VA.” And I said, “What, am I supposed to be hurt? Am I hurt?” I don’t know because no one’s told me, definitively. Well, so I just went on with life, OK.

Yeah, don’t, with the TBI, because your mind, maybe your mind still works, but it tends to develop expectations that are way above and beyond what you’re able to do, OK. And that’s because you want to do it and you think you should be able to do it. Because your mind still works, it still works, it just doesn’t work like it’s supposed to or like it should, OK. It, it’s, it’s off all the time. But don’t set too high of expectations for yourself, OK. Because you cannot, you have to limit those expectations and, and understand the way your mind works, and, and learn how your mind is working, because it works differently than other people.

And the VA, when they put me on this Depakote, I mean it’s a medication I will never not be able to take again.  If I do not take it, my head starts feeling so bad, I don’t want to live, OK.  I, I, I will not be able to stand the way my brain feels.  I can not.  I ran out of it here a few months ago and I just, I, I wanted to kill myself, OK.  I wanted to literally kill myself because it hurt so bad, because my thoughts just started going everywhere.  Anxiety started setting in.  I just went into a depression that was so dark and deep it was horrible.  And that was just recently.  And I called the pharmacist and I said, “I need the Depakote man.  I ran out and my script and I’m just not getting enough and I keep running out.  I gotta have it.”  So now I’m getting adequate amounts so that I don’t run out.  But this is where it’s at.