Tag Archives: TBI

Where’s the fire?

Brain Injury, Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Two weeks ago, I wrote a tale about my mother-in-law needing to move to assisted living because the fire department had been called one too many times when she left things on the stove.

I thought that was the end of my fireman stories. Until yesterday.

I went to visit my friend, Lisa, at her brand new Senior Living apartment. As hip young seniors we keep trying to turn this experience into a fun-loving event, rather than a crystal ball into our future as we look down the hallway at the walkers and scooters sitting outside apartment doors.

Every time I go there, Lisa has a new story that most assuredly will provide material for our sitcom about TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injuries) combined with Senior Housing. It’ll be a  hoot, based on our initial research!

She’s been in this newly built apartment building for about a month, as has everyone, so the glitches are still being worked out. The biggest challenge is cooking, not because these people don’t know how to cook, but as I suspect based on my mother-in-law’s experience, because the designers of senior housing were forewarned that seniors leave things on the stove.

In response to that, the smoke alarms have been set to super-very-sensitive. So that if your tea kettle steam starts to sing, off goes the smoke alarm for the entire building. If you’ve burnt your toast, because you LIKE burnt toast (yes, there are some of us out there), the smoke alarm goes off. If you have a few items on the top of the stove that are boiling, the smoke alarm will likely accompany your potatoes, carrots and green beans.

This alarm is not just in your apartment. The entire building goes off with blinking lights and shrill clanging that does not stop until the fire department arrives and shuts it off.

And remember, this is senior housing. These aren’t sprinters who live here. They have to find their keys, get their coats and purses. Don’t even think of telling them to go outside without their purse. Sometimes they are napping and are jolted out of their beds. This has danger, broken hips and fear-of-cooking written all over it.

Lisa told me this has happened at least a half a dozen times in just the first month. I, of course, think she is prone to exaggeration.

Until we come home from our shopping trip, and everyone is out in the parking lot, lights are blaring, we can hear the fire engine several blocks away, the clanging alarm is assaulting our conversation, and I notice that there are half-naked people standing in the parking lot.

aka "Silver Lining"
aka “Silver Lining”

No, they are not Seniors. Sorry, but nobody wants to see that. They are lifeguards from the YMCA, which is attached to the senior housing building. So every time the alarm goes off, they have to clear the YMCA, which includes the pool, in November, when it’s 40 degrees outside and raining. And yes, there is always a silver lining.

Lisa’s 85-year-old neighbor approaches us with:

“Why don’t they just take out all the stoves in our apartments?”

To which another replies:

“I made chili yesterday and didn’t move from the stove until it was completely done. I was afraid to even go to the bathroom, in case it set off the fire alarm. And it wasn’t even five-alarm chili.”

Yep, this sitcom is gonna’ be a hoot!

“You Just have to Laugh……”

©2016 Cathy Sikorski

Another One Rides The Bus…..

Brain Injury, Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

For some reason, my friend, Lisa likes to be featured in this blog. So here we go.

For medical reasons, a traumatic brain injury, Lisa had  to give up her driver’s license several years ago. Eventually, she became quite savvy and capable of taking public transportation. In her small town, that means the bus. A perk, if you would like to call it that, of being on Medicare, is that you get to ride the bus for free. Otherwise it costs a dollar.

Lisa has been riding this bus for a few years now. Until recently, all she had to do was to show her Medicare card to the bus driver, and she was allowed to take a seat, gratis.

Apparently, there’s a new sheriff in town.

A few weeks ago she had this encounter with a female bus driver, whom she never saw before.

“Sorry, ma’am, but you need a special card to ride the bus as a Medicare rider.”

“No,” said Lisa, “I don’t. I have been just showing my Medicare card for years and that is sufficient.”

“No, you need the special card,” said the bus driver.

“Since when?”

“I don’t know. I just know  you need it.”

“I’ve never even seen ‘the special card’, “said Lisa.

“Well, I’ll let you go this time, but you need to get it.”

Lisa never saw that bus driver again. Since she didn’t know where to get the special card, she just let it pass.

The other day, as she was getting on the bus, there was a new young male bus driver, whom Lisa had never seen before. He’s holding a pamphlet in his hand as she ascends the stairs.

“How old are  you?”

Lisa, thinking he is complimenting her……as every middle-aged woman thinks when handing a Medicare card as ID, replies a bit quietly so as not to alarm fellow passengers who most likely think she is quite young:

“I’m 63.”

“Well, you’re barely that, I can see.”

Lisa is flattered,until he drops his bombshell.

“You can’t ride the bus for free. You have to be 65 years old.”

“I’m disabled and I’ve been doing it for years.”

dollar“Nope. Not allowed. Here’s the brochure. It’s a dollar.”

I’m happy to say here that my friend Lisa has come a long way since that TBI. Not only does she get around on her own. But after many years of trepidation just being out in the world, well, she doesn’t take crap anymore. Yay, Lisa!

“What’s  your name?”She demanded from this arrogant brute, who was so willingly ready to accost the disabled and the elderly.

“Well,ma’am,” he sheepishly replied, “if you don’t have the dollar today, you can pay next time.”

This bus driver was on a mission to save that bus company a dollar, or take a power trip every stop along the way, or who knows what, maybe her bus driver was Donald Trump in disguise and he was testing some of his new economic policies to see how to save government funds.

Never did give her his name…and…..weirdly, she hasn’t seen that bus driver again, either.

For a dollar…..did I say that already?…………..a dollar.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

TBI or TMI…..Huh!

Brain Injury, Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

When my friend, Lisa fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a traumatic brain injury almost six years ago, those of us in her inner circle, including Lisa, were completely unfamiliar with the rabbit hole we were entering.

Eventually, as we learned to navigate the medical system, the caregiver system, and the devastating financial consequences of just such a trauma, many in the inner circle, including Lisa became less and less cognizant of the fact that she continued to suffer from a TBI and that the long term ramifications were unknown and ongoing.

Because Lisa is an extremely lucky gal and has brilliantly navigated these shark-infested waters of unknown medical complications, many people, even in the medical field, and including Lisa, would take for granted that months and years into this recovery she was just fine.

So we would go to her neurologist, or neurosurgeon and they would tell her that this recovery takes time. And she would say, “but i feel fine!” Then we would go to the grocery store and the price of oranges would be higher, or they would be out of her favorite toilet paper and she would tear up. And I would tell her, “it’s okay, it’s the brain injury.”

And so I told her, ” it’s okay to tell people you have a brain injury. In fact, when you are interviewed by Social Security, or your family doctor, you need to tell them that things like that just happened  in the grocery store, and it takes you unaware. That’s the brain injury.”

We would be out with our friends, and Lisa would either just stop engaging or step out of the restaurant. The over stimulation was too much for her. At first, we all thought she was being rude, only interested in conversations that were about her, (because she always jokes that oh, this isn’t about me?), but then we realized, then SHE realized that she just had to go rest, her day was overwhelming her quickly and dangerously. She has to continuously protect herself from possible seizures. So again, we told her…just say you have a brain injury and it makes you take some actions that seem weird to others.

“Huh,” she said.

So for some time, we would be at a medical appointment for say, her wrist, or her toes which would not seem to be the stuff of a TBI.  And Lisa would wax poetical with the nurse, who was just trying to get her vitals, about how she has a brain injury and this is how it happened and these symptoms she is here for may seem odd to you, but not to me, since I have a brain injury.

Or we would be in the drug store buying shampoo and vitamins and nothing of any medical significance and she would tell the clerk that it was so nice to be out on such a beautiful day, and you really appreciate those things once you’ve had a brain injury. To which the 16 year old clerk would respond with a look of panic.

Or in a coffee shop, she would tell the waitress that she probably should not have any more coffee, because she has a brain injury and she’s thinking that since certain things can cause seizures and over stimulation is one of them for her, that perhaps too much coffee isn’t a good thing. But it really hasn’t proven to be the case, so what the heck, fill up the cup. To which the waitress looks at me with the coffee pot poised in mid-air with a “what-the-hell-do-I-do-with-that-information?” kind of look. And I just shrug my shoulders.

Or at the hairdresser when she tells her about the 40 platinum coils in her brain that stopped the brain bleed after her TBI, not that it affects getting her haircut or anything. To which the hairdresser looks at me with scissors poised in mid-air and I just shrug my shoulders.

That day I realized perhaps my advice had been taken a bit too literally and said, “maybe you can STOP telling everyone you have a brain injury.”

To which Lisa replied, “huh.”

“You Just have to Laugh…………”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski