A Place To Share

Rick is now running his own business with a moderate degree of sucess. This has really improved his self esteem and confidence something that really takes a beating after TBI.

We've also added another addition to our family. A lovely surprise package named Shelby. She is now 5 years old and has her daddy wrapped around all her fingers and toes.

At first I wasn't to sure about having another baby when Rick still had a ways to go in his recovery but becoming a father for the second time seem to focus him back into life and the people around him instead of on himself only.

We have had to add an anti-depressant to his situation He takes Paxil every other day an dthis has helped him with the anxiety attacks and concentration. Cant say it would work for everyone after all if Ive learned anything with this experience it is that all TBI's are different.

There are still things that have changed that are different and that will never be the same with Rick but I can tell you hang in there it can get better.

I was just at the end of a emotionally abusive marraige and Rick was three years after a very bad divorce. I was playing a word pun game at the end of the bar, when this very deep bass voice came back with an even better word pun. From that point on we were pretty much inseperable. I had finally found my other half. It was like having a siamese twin. We knew what each other thought and why because we seemed to always be on the same thought patterns.

A year and five months later we were married on November 18, 1994. I had married a wonderful man who took on three teenage kids and handled them like a pro.

In March of 95 we found out we were going to add our own addition to the family and on December 12, 1995 our son Jordan was born. The day of Ricks accident is very vague for him but is burned into my memory. It was Labor Day, September 2, 1998. I think I will probably hate Labor Day for the rest of my life. Rick, my 15 year old son Aaron, our 8 month old baby and I had gone out to do a survey job that Rick had bartered for the lot our home stood on. We had borrowed the clients three wheeler to get between survey points.

Rick was having trouble finding one of the points and decided to go look for it on his own with the three wheeler. We were out in an alkali flat ten miles north of town. He gave me a good bye smooch told me he loved me and took off over the nearest hump of sand. That was the last thing he said to me for four days. He was going at least thirty five to forty miles an hour over the hill and had no protective gear on. No helmet, with shorts and a T shirt.

Aaron was beginning to worry about how long it was taking for him to get back. He started to walk around the sand hump Rick had driven over to check and see how far out he was. When I saw Aaron start to run I knew there was something wrong and my heart went into my throat. Rick was down on his back about fifty feet past the hump he had just drove over. The three wheeler was about ten feet to his right upside down. I played typical female for the first thirty seconds, panicked and got our pickup stuck in mud. There was standing water in the area and mud about three inches under a dry surface.

My son will always be my hero. When he realized what had happened he ran to the three wheeler, flipped it over, got it started and took off for help. Aaron at that time weighed about 140 pds. The three wheeler weighs about 400. Thank god for the wonders of adrenalin.

Our baby and I waited with Rick and tried to keep him quiet and shade him from the sun. He kept trying to get up but couldn't because his right side was completely paralyzed. I was worried that my son wouldn't be able to get out of the area or bring back help since it was his first time in this part of the boonies. I needn't have worried. Within an hour, a policeman and a paramedic team were with him.

We aren't exactly sure how Rick tipped the three wheeler. From what the policeman and a friend who went out to pick up the three wheeler could tell, he hit a bump of sand about thirty or forty feet past the top of the sandhill that he didn't see and it flipped him off. Then, the three wheeler rolled over him.

Rick was care flighted into Reno,where he was put in ICU. He had shattered his right cheek bone, bruised his right lung, and had a major case of road rash especially across the right upper thigh.

His brain injury was a hematoma to the left parietal lobe and damage to the right front temporal lobe. A plate was required a month after his accident to force his cheek to hold his eye in place so he could see properly. Rick was semi-comatose for four days. He did not recognize family but he did respond to voice commands sluggishly and some times belligerently. Once when the nurse asked him to raise two fingers he raised one and not a very nice one either. To me the sweetest,word in the english language is uh-huh. That is the first words Rick said to me that I knew for sure he was saying to me and not just rambling deliriously.

The next three months were at times funny and at times scary. Rick could be very aggressive if you prevented him from doing something. At 5'11" and about 160 pds that could make him quite intimidating. He could also be quite a hoot like when he wanted the nurse and his sister to kiss him because he thought they were me.

Rick has no memory of his stay in the hospital. From noon of the day of his accident, until twenty eight days later he remembers nothing. For several months after he was finally aware of where he was his memory is patchy also.

We are now dealing with the aftermath. Rick has problems concentrating on more than one thing at a time. Occasionally he will say the same thing over and over but in different ways every time until you have to tell him he is doing it. He has less tolerance of crowds, he frustrates easily and gets agitated quickly over situations. He has headaches whenever low pressures come through and has some problems occasionally with his right leg due to muscle damage of the thigh. The most prominent thing I have seen though is the change in personality. My energetic, take charge, husband has had to be at times, literally pulled out of the bed to get him to do the basics in life. His sleep needs have greatly increased and he still tires easily. And one of the hardest adjustments for me is that I have lost my siamese twin. His thought processes are completely alien to me now. I have been married three times. Once to my first husband. Once to Rick and once to the person he has become. They say that the third time is the charmer. We are both praying that is so.

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