Brain Injury Part IV

Originally, the plan was to postpone my Senior year of High School for as long as a year, until I was capable of completing it.  At this point, doctors believed that I would be about 80% in a year and finish my full recovery of all brain function in about 18 months total.  As you'll see, this didn't happen, but the idea of postponing my high school graduation was given to us by my Doctor and Psychologist. 

I competed at a national 4-H competition the year before, and at the time, the local newspaper had done a story on my team.  Since the owner of our local newspaper had seen me and spoken to me on repeated occasions, they sent a columnist to interview me and do a story on my injury and recovery.  The young woman they sent happened to be the same reporter who had done a story a year before.  She came in my room (about a week before my release) and began a fairly extensive interview on what had happened.  At this point, emotion (and vocal inflection) had just come back.  The reporter asked me to walk her through the evening of my accident.

Up until this point, I could remember up until about three hours before the accident.  I was traveling with my horse judging team, and I we were driving through LaPine, and that was all I knew.  When I started to talk to the reporter about that night though, I remembered everything.  Distressed, I started to cry as I told her the whole story.

At the conclusion of my trip, we had decided to go out to dinner, but when we got to the restaurant, I realized I had left my wallet in the glove box of the rental car, which was being returned by the chaperone of my trip.  I called her, and we decided to meet about 15 minutes away and pick up my wallet.  My mother and I went to get the wallet, and by the time we returned to the restaurant Dad was almost done with dinner.  We had a little bit of food, and then I wanted to go home to ride my horse.  It was nearly dark, and I had a horse show in two days so I wanted to use the daylight.  Mom and Dad let me have one of the cars, and I drove home with my brother and started to tack up my horse.

That’s all I remember.

The particularly distressing part about this whole episode is that I remember that I felt bad that night.  It was terrible.  Everyone seemed displeased with me (my coach, my Dad for missing the dinner, and my parents for forgetting my wallet) and I was mentally resolving to make it up to all of them later.  But instead, my parents drove home and then about an hour later had to watch me being loaded up into a helicopter. 

While my Mom told about how heart-wrenching it is to see your daughter shaven, stitched up, and in a coma, I cried more. 

When the newspaper article came out, it was a wonderful representation of what had happened, and the success that we had seen in the hospital.

And we had seen success.  My physical therapist didn’t see me for about a week, and when she returned she couldn’t stop talking about all the amazing improvements I had made since she left.  Of course no recovery speed was fast enough for me, but I began to understand how unusual my recovery really was.  I went on a field-trip to the local High Desert Museum just a few days before I got out.  My driver was talking to me before we left.  She told me, “You know, I think I’ve honestly seen about as much progress in you in a week as I see in most head patients in a month.”

One of my friends who came to visit me said she was in a plane (her Dad’s a pilot) with a couple of medical personnel, and one of them turned to the other and said, “Did you hear about that Shoffner kid?” 

Also, one of my Dad’s employee’s wives works for the hospital.  They were at a party where there were a lot of medical personnel, and the employee said that I had come up in conversation repeatedly.

Quite probably the most amazing part of my recovery (for me and everyone else) was my positive attitude and my parent's believing.  My mom put Bible verses on the walls in my room, and we prayed every night before I went to bed.  My parents and I only spoke positives while I was recovering; we told all the therapists that I wanted a 115% recovery, instead of just 100%.

With all the positives that we spoke and all our prayer, God blessed me greatly.  It is not uncommon for brain patients to curse (which I did) and be rude to hospital personnel (which I never did).  Many brain patients are extremely gloomy and even violent, but I was only ever bright and cheerful.  I am so thankful to God for the remarkable strength that I had during the hospital portion of my recovery, and for the AMAZING process that I showed throughout my stay (and at home).

Brain Injury Part III

At this point I was still extremely uncoordinated and couldn’t see very well, so everything became a chore.  Every day, three wonderful meals arrived perfectly on time.  Eating them, however, was another chore.  I had great trouble wielding a spoon and fork and I dumped food everywhere.  All my food arrived already cut-up, but Mom and Dad would cut up and feed to me anything that looked like it might be difficult.  My left hand was still extremely uncoordinated and I had trouble with decision-making processes that would help me to slow down and not spill things.

Those first few days in Rehab were weird.  I was at a point where I could speak, and I was excited to make phone calls to some of the people that I knew would be missing me.  When I tried to make a phone call however, I would greet the person and start having a conversation while the phone was still ringing!  I knew that this was both odd and wrong, but I still had difficulty controlling it.  It was one of many things that I would have trouble learning to control.

One of the most significant things that I remember about Therapy was that it was hard.  The therapists pushed me beyond my extensive physical limitations.  Even the simplest task was a challenge for me mentally.  Then the therapists would somewhat dispassionately review and correct what I was doing, and I had trouble with being corrected like that.  I remember that I would complete a simple task (at least it felt simple) and then my therapist would go back and point out some detail that I had blatantly missed.  You cannot understand that until you’ve experienced it: patting yourself on the back for a job well done on what you know is a simple task, and then having someone inform you that you missed the first step.  It’s disheartening.

This was particularly a challenge in Speech Therapy (the one that is for mental processes).  Throwing a ball or going for a walk was nothing compared to completing puzzles and games.  I had two Speech Therapists: Mike and Marie.  Mike was alright.  He was kind of quiet and shy.  Marie, however, was very different.  She was little (maybe five feet tall) and she challenged me constantly.  She was also merciless.  If I completed something wrong (like alphabetizing all the states of the US, for example) then she had me go back and do it all over for homework.  Even normally that would have irked me, but after a few days in Rehab, I was starting to complain to my parents about her.

After a few days in Rehab, things got worse instead of better.  Now I was reaching the point that I could walk with just someone holding my hand and my belt and I could eat on my own.  I also was able to be quiet when I wanted to now, but a new problem started.  Even though I could stop talking, I couldn’t stop or slow down with doing other stuff.  I did everything quickly.  I walked quickly, I had trouble focusing, and it made everything into a nightmare.  In therapy, if I went up stairs, I was in such a hurry that I was almost tripping over them.  When I ate, this became a particular problem; I would shovel food in at speed until Mom practically had to restrain me. If my Physical Therapist told me to sit down, I would get up almost immediately.  At this point, the Therapists told me that I had to warn people whenever I did anything.  If I was going to get up, I should tell someone; if I was going to walk, I should tell whoever was with me.  At the time I knew that all they really wanted was to force me to slow down a little bit and maybe think about what I was about to do before I did it.  The results were frustrating.  When people told me that I should slow down I felt like a child.  I was ashamed that I couldn’t control myself, and I felt incapable because even when people were standing by me telling me to slow down I could barely do it.

Thankfully, that phase lasted only a few days, and I reached the point where I could eat and walk slowly again.  The next problem that I had was with over-focusing.  Because my phone was bad for my eyes, Mom only gave it to me for about ten minutes twice a day.  I would take my phone and text on it until my ten minutes were up and then she practically (she actually did a couple times) had to wrestle it away from me.  It was the same with my computer and other basic tasks.  Repetitive, simplistic motion comforted me, so at this point, if Mom and Dad had let me, I would have spent all day on the computer just scrolling up and down on a page.

I complained to Dad about all these problems only once.  Up until now, I had kept a cheerful outlook throughout the entirety of my hospital stay, but I remember that there was one day where it seemed like everything was too hard.  I talked to Daddy about it and he reminded me that I would never improve unless the people around me, including all the therapists and Mom and Dad, pushed me.  Dad told me that he and my mother had a meeting with my physical therapists at the beginning of my recovery process.  He said they told my therapists that I was a hard worker, I was tough, and I was capable, so they should push me a lot harder than an average patient.  I was flattered, but it still didn't solve my problems.

The next day I had regained my positive outlook and healed to a point that I had lost (overnight!) some of the problems that I was having difficulty with.  In retrospect, that was overcoming a huge hump for me because after that one day the rest of my recovery was one big downward slope.  Easy.

Brain Injury Part II

At this point, I could walk if one person held on to my belt with one hand and held my hand in the other to support me.  My balance was still not very good and my handwriting was worse, but I could at least walk with support.  That became my Mother’s task: walking with me and supervising me while I used the restroom (some of that was embarrassing, but I was beyond embarrassment).  I had a tiny room with a hospital bed (for me) and a terrible mattress set (for Mom).  There was a bathroom in my room—if you could call it a bathroom (it was really a tile room with a shower head and a toilet inside of it); and a sink was next to my bed.  The nurses had given me underwear-like bottoms, but they were no longer sufficient.  That evening, I wore my first diaper, and I had so little control that I wet myself four times before I figured out to that the solution was to go to the bathroom all the time.

Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Physical Therapy were difficult.  I couldn’t see very well, which challenged me in all of them, and I had trouble focusing my brain for more than a few seconds, so even simple tasks could take a very long time because I had to re-focus my brain so many times within the space of a minute.

Within just a couple of days, the fourth of July came.  We were at the hospital, which is exactly at the base of the Butte that our city does fireworks off of for the fourth, so we had a prime space to view the fireworks.  My Daddy went and got me a wheelchair to take me upstairs to a balcony so that we could watch the fireworks.  The fireworks were incredible, and I remember sitting in my wheelchair with a blanket wrapped around me, watching the show.  At this point in my hospital stay, my parents were so nice to me.  My Dad gave me foot rubs and shoulder rubs all the time.  Whenever I told him I loved him (which was all the time) he told me that he loved me more, and I quickly gave up trying to argue with him at all.  I just agreed.  Daddy also sat there and held me a lot when I was in the hospital.  He would put his arms around me and his lips on my head and kiss my stubble and tell me how much he loved me.  Mom also gave me foot massages every night before I went to bed.  At the time, I perceived that this was odd and that it meant that something must be seriously wrong with me, but I didn’t say anything, I just appreciated my parents’ love.

I got several different therapists in everything at first.  One of my first Occupational Therapists was a wonderful woman named Jane, who was middle-aged and thin, with long, dark hair.  I loved her.  She was one of the therapists that I instinctively got along with.  Jane decided on one of my first days that for OT we would make pancakes.  My first duty was to get out all the ingredients and write down a list of what I needed.  Jane also appeared one day in my room with a game of “Connect Four.”  I wasn’t very good at the stratagem of the game, and she took it easy.  At the time, I knew she wasn’t really trying to beat me.  Even though I could tell, I still didn’t say anything or try to up my game and challenge her to match me.  I just went along with it.

At the point that I moved down to Rehab, I began having visitors en masse.  I remember that on my first night having visitors, I ended up having fourteen people come see me.  Part of my injury was that I lost my “social filter” and so I said a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally have thought or said out loud.  Mom stayed by to watch me with people and make sure I didn’t do anything too terrible.  I also managed to remain in control enough to be kind and welcoming to people who visited me. 

I remember excitedly coming to the conclusion that I could suddenly say anything with a straight face.  At this point I had a “pan face” and no expression in my voice or face and no gestures.  With this in mind, I said mean, funny things with my straight face.  All my visitors ignored my lack of expression and were extremely kind to me, and I was kind too, even if I never smiled.

I remember that Daddy brought the family dog, Lucky, to visit me one evening.  Daddy was forever doing sweet things like these for me.  He brought the dog and when I was cleared to drink coffee he brought me coffee every morning.  When he brought Lucky, I looked at him and said (without an ounce of expression), “So where’s Snoopy?” Snoopy was my horse, so it was pretty smart and a little cruel to ask that, but of course she couldn’t visit the hospital.

It wasn’t until a few days into my residency in the Rehab floor that it even occurred to me to ask my Dad,

“Daddy, what happened?”

He looked at me with the air of someone who has grown politely bored with explaining something.

“Well, Anna, your horse fell and your brain started bleeding so they flew you to the hospital for observation, and in the morning you were worse instead of better so they operated on you.”

I remember being stunned yet detached, like someone who hears of an earthquake in a distant land.  The flames and damage are no less real, no less tangible, but still far away.  That was how I felt about my accident.  I knew that I should feel bad, but I had difficulty with summoning emotion.  Later on, as I quizzed my family members and the story unfolded, I would shed tears for the months that were taken from my life and for the emotional trauma my family was put through, but in the hospital I shed no tears.  I asked my Dad what happened after surgery:

“You were unconscious for about five days.”

“Does that count as a coma Daddy?”

“Yes, honey.  You were in a coma for about five days.”

This was a remarkable revelation.  A coma is a big deal.  If I was in a coma, then this was perhaps even more serious than I thought.  And they did brain surgery on me!  I couldn’t believe it.

Brain Injury Part I

The following is the first installment of the story of my hospital stay and the remarkable things that God did while I was recovering from Brain Surgery:


I don’t remember a definitive “moment” that I woke up.  There was no specific time of lucidity that marked, to me, a time that I “woke up.”  What I do know is that it was like a dream: I could not recall a specific beginning: just that I was there.  It was like certain types of revelation, where you suddenly know something without necessarily knowing how you know it.

            I remember that my experiences up until this point had been full of miracles.  I couldn’t tell you specific instances, but I just knew it. One of the other several things that I just knew was that I was in a white room with lots of stuffed animals. Three stick out in my mind.  Two of them were horses (One a buckskin named “Bucky” and the other a bay named “Brownie”) and the third was a brown-colored monkey.  He had on a green shirt that said Cheeky Charlie on it.  I remembered my friend: his nickname was “Chile” and I wanted that monkey’s nickname to be CHILE.  I couldn’t talk at that time, but I decided to bide my time.  A couple of days later I had a willing audience.  I looked at the monkey and I said, “Chile,” hoping that the people who were around would understand.  They didn’t.  So I decided to wait a few more days and then explain.

            One of my other memories is of Physical Therapy.  I only specifically remember one of my physical therapists.  His name was Jeff.  He was nice, he was kind to me, and I thought he was wonderful.  I don’t specifically remember instances of him talking, but I remember how he talked.  I can recall some of his mannerisms and that he went on and on.  I remember thinking that I wished he wouldn’t talk quite so much.  There was one time that I was walking and I remember that we were at the end of the room and Jeff made some kind of a comment about how when I was further into my recovery I would walk differently.  With that in mind, I changed so that my manner of walking matched more to what he had said.  I was only able to take a couple of more steps, but I did them the way Jeff had said I would.  At that, I remember that Daddy was there and he kept talking excitedly about how proud of me he was.  I thought I don’t know why they even care.  All I did was walk right.  I’m a perfectly intelligent and capable human being and walking isn’t that difficult. Several times throughout the next few days Daddy reminded me proudly of that particular incident, and each time I mentally scoffed that he was so proud of (what I thought to be) such a menial accomplishment.

At the time that I was undergoing physical therapy with Jeff, I had almost no strength and coordination.  At some point during this duration of my hospital stay, Jeff and my other Physical therapist (I had two.  The other one was female but I don’t remember her name even though I met her later on) stood a mirror up in front of me to help me with posture and balance.  I remember a (seemingly) inhuman effort being required for me to sit up and when I did, I was still crooked and slouched to one side.  Needless to say, they propped up a mirror in front of me.  I hated my reflection: I looked at that mirror and I saw a pale girl in a hospital gown.  Her head had been shaved, all that was left was dark stubble, and she had a line of bloody stitches sticking out around her scalp from one temple to the ear on the other side.  I looked at that mirror, at this disgusting girl trying to sit up, and I thought this is going to take a really long time.   I didn’t even associate with that creature looking back at me.  The moment I looked at that mirror I wished they would take it away so I didn’t have to look at myself.

            When I got my phone, I knew that there were two people I wanted to contact: My friend Chile and my piano teacher.  At this point I had double, blurry vision and I couldn’t see very well under any circumstances.  I tried to find my voicemail to dial it on my phone but couldn’t do it.  Then, once I found voicemail, I dialed it and couldn’t find the buttons on my phone to fill in the password.  A friend of mine and the family’s took my phone to see if she could help.  I told her the password, “It’s -------,” and then blurrily watched her call my voicemail and try to find the password.  She couldn’t figure it out from the “numbers” dial on my phone.  I told her again, and she started trying different passwords.  I thought that this would be like Cheeky Charlie, I would just have to wait a few more days until I was better at seeing and talking and then explain or just do it myself.  At this point, the family friend called my sister and asked her what she thought it could be, while I waited in pouty, frustrated silence.  I ascertained that my sister had replied that she didn’t know what my password was, and then my friend offered the password  I had given. 

“Well how do you do it then?” she asked.  She thanked my sister and got off the phone.  I sat victorious while she punched in my voicemail password.  I don’t think I had any voicemail, but I was still determined to call my two people.  I called Kris: he didn’t answer, he didn’t have voicemail at the time and I knew that he would see I had called and call me back another time.  The other person that I called was my piano teacher.  Him, I left a message.

The point where I start having real “memories,” instead of just fuzzy shadows of situations, pretty much coincides with my move to Rehab.  Rehab was the lowest floor of St. Charles Medical Center, the hospital I was in, and it was to rehabilitate patients in preparation to leave the hospital.  I was moved into room 702, a closet-space at the end of a long hallway between the offices and the therapy gym.  While I was at rehab, I would have three hours of therapy every day: Occupational Therapy (to help me live life), Physical Therapy (to exercise my body), and Speech Therapy (to challenge my recovering mind).