Where did everybody go?

The day of the accident, we had people lining up out the door to come see him. He had visitors in and out of his hospital room every day for the first week.

When he moved to the rehab hospital,  it was the same way for a few days, but as the stay lengthened, we found ourselves spending more and more time alone.

I started this blog because I feel alone. I know that our situation is not unique. There are many others out there who are also loving a brain injured spouse, but I don't know many.

He's not the same person that I married, yet I love him more than the day I married him. We no longer communicate the same way. He's not the confident person he used to be. He doesn't think about me in the same way, therefore he treats me differently. He isn't abusive or violent, but he is not as caring toward me as he used to be, either.  He says that he loves us, and he does things to show it in his own way, but it is not the same as before and I am having to learn to understand him. I have to constantly retrain the way I think about things and I have to stop comparing life to what it was like before.

People who mean well tell me that it could be so much worse, but for me, this is the worst thing that has ever happened, and this is my reality. I am thankful that it was not worse, but that does not mean that it is not hard. Being thankful is one thing, and living in reality is another. They are two separate things. I know that God is here and He gives me the strength to do this that He has called me to do, but sometimes I wish I had a person who knows what it's like.

"I NEVER YELL!!!!"

Our nine year old son, Ty,  is very sensitive. If anyone ever raises his voice at him, Ty immediately shuts down. Whatever he was saying or doing he stops and immediately becomes quiet and his entire demeanor changes. I never knew this until he started preschool. One day his preschool teacher said that during lunch, Ty would not answer her when she asked him a question. She kept repeating the question and he kept mumbling the answer. Then he started crying and would not tell her what was wrong. Eventually I figured out the situation. She had asked him a question, and since he was not sure of the answer, he answered quietly and she didn't hear him. She asked him to repeat it, but she was a little irritated, and he could tell. Instead of speaking up, he was afraid of making her more angry, so he kept speaking quietly.  The more she tried to get him to answer, the more harshly she spoke, and the more quietly he spoke. She thought he was being disrespectful and he was afraid of getting in trouble. It was a bad cycle. Ever since that day, I have noticed that when he thinks he is going to be in trouble for something he says, he says it very quietly. We would usually  see it happen with babysitters or with his Dad. He doesn't do it with me, but if anyone else raises his voice to Ty, this is what happens.

Since the accident, Cecil raises his voice in frustration or anger daily. Sometimes it's toward Ty, sometimes it's toward me. It's rarely toward our oldest son who does not irritate Cecil as much as Ty and I do. We aren't trying to make him angry or frustrated, but he looses patience with us easily, especially when he is not feeling well or when he is tired. And I HATE being yelled at. It's a double standard, I know, because I am a "yeller" with firecrackers in my blood, and I have had to learn to control my temper and my tongue.  I never knew this about my husband, but apparently, he has firecrackers in his blood, too, but he has never had outbursts of anger as long as I've known him. Whenever we had arguments before the accident, I would be the one yelling and he would be the one giving the silent treatment. Since the accident, we have reversed those rolls.  In the past week or so, I've started stepping in when he begins to get angry at Ty for no reason, and it's working. Cecil now realizes what he's doing and how it's affecting Ty. He is learning to control himself again, and I am proud of him for it.

I have learned what it's like to be yelled at, and since I don't like it, I think I am going to withdraw my double standard. I am going to work on controlling my temper whenever I am angry and to find a different way to express is besides yelling. If Cecil can do it, I can do it.

Crazy Love

"Do you love God or just His stuff?"

That was a question that I read in Crazy Love by Francis Chan. 

So, do you love God, or just His stuff? When you talk to God, how do you speak to Him? How do I speak to Him? Well, it depends on the day. Sometimes I address Him like a spoiled child who thinks life is all about her. Sometimes I act like this is a movie about me and I am the main character and God is an extra. 

But this is not my movie. I am only a small extra in a crowd of billions of people on the set of God's movie that He is writing about Himself. 

Think about that for a little while, and then talk to God. 

Do I speak to Him as the Holy Creator of the universe? 

I had to stop and apologize to God for thinking that life is about me. I know it's not about me, but in my heart, sometimes I think it is about me. 

Then I read Psalm 103.

Let all that I am praise the Lord: with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things He does for me....

Wait....it sounds like David loves God's "stuff" just like I do....."all the good things he does for me." I really do love the stuff, but do I love Him because He gives me good things, or do I love Him for who He is? Let's keep reading ,...

He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle's! 

The Lord is compasstionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. 

Wow! He does a lot for me. This is not my movie, but for such a small part in God's movie, why does He do all these things, just for me? I am so sinful. I sin against this Holy powerful God every day. This is the God who can zap me at any time. He is perfect and because of His perfection, He does not look at sin. He can't. And since I sin every day, He should probably just zap me. That's what I would do if I were God. I would zap all the bad people. And then I would zap the people who think they are good. Because compared to God, none of us are good, but we sometimes think we are. And God loves us anyway! He is "filled with unfailing love."

He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins, He does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear Him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. 

"As far as the east is from the west." That means what? He doesn't remember my sins? I think He does. He knows everything. He didn't just "forget." "He has removed our sins" means He took them off of the record. He chooses to forgive me.

The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him. For He knows how weak we are; He remembers we are only dust. Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows and we are gone-as though we had never been here.

We are weak. We are dust. We are like grass. The grass that gets cut every week.  What would we think if a person loved a piece of grass and knew everything about that piece of grass, and cared about how long it lived, and watered it carefully every time it needed something.

This piece of grass certainly thinks a lot of herself. I ask God why He made it rain when I thought it should be sunny. I ask him why He let the bugs crawl on me. Doesn't He know how much I hate bugs? I ask him to help me be very green today and perfect so that He will be pleased with how I look. Then I start thinking what the other pieces of grass think about me. Did a bug take a bite out of me? Why did the He let that happen? Why didn't he keep that bug off of me?

I could go on and on about this grass. That's what we do isn't it? Make it all about us? Our short lives that are only like grass, we think that it's about us. 

The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who fear Him. For He knows how weak we are; He remembers we are only dust. Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows and we are gone-as though we had never been here.

But the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear Him. His salvation extends to the grandchildren of those who are faithful to His covenant.

Hold on! Back up! I thought we were just pieces of grass. David just said that the Lord "extends salvation to the grandchildren of those who are faithful to His covenant." 

That would be me. I am a grandchild of those who are faithful to His covenant. So the powerful Creator extended salvation to a grandchild who had never done anything to deserve it. He set things in motion before I was even born because my grandparents were faithful to His covenant. 

The Lord has made the heavens His throne; from there He rules over everything. 

Do you know how big the heavens are? The universe is so vast we cannot comprehend it's size, yet, they are God's throne. What a majestic throne He has. He is so huge and powerful! 

Praise the Lord, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out His plans, listening for each of His commands. Yes, praise the Lord, you armies of angels who serve Him and do His will! Praise the Lord, everything He has created, everything in all His kingdom. 

Let all that I am praise the Lord!

So this huge, powerful all-knowing, perfect Creator....do I love Him or just His stuff? How, after thinking about Him as He truly is, can I come to Him like a whiny child? Like a piece of grass asking why it has to rain today. 

I want to live a life that points to Him and gives Him praise because of who He is. Not because of all the times He watered this piece of grass or kept the bugs off of me. I want to be with the other grass that He looks at after cutting it and says, "Now that's a nice lawn of grass. I'm so glad I made that grass! That particular lawn I made [not necessarily one blade of grass, but the whole lawn] is especially green, and since I cut it, it smells nice, too!"

And He loves me as if I were His only piece of grass. That's crazy love, right there!

Psalm 103 taken from the New Living Translation.

If this blog post made you think, you should read Crazy Love. 

Seriously, go to the link and download it to your iPhone or Android phone. Did you do it yet? If you are reading this post on your phone, you should read this book on your phone.  You can order the real book with real pages and it says the same things as the one you can get on your phone but since you don't always have books with you, you might not read it and it will probably sit on your bookshelf for a long time and get dusty and then you will forget about it. That's what happens to good books with real pages that people buy for you and you mean to read them but you forget because when you want to read it, it's not with you, so you take out your phone and check facebook. Seriously. You know you already checked your facebook page today and you probably did it on your phone, didn't you? Because we can't go anywhere unless we know what Sally ate for breakfast or if someone liked the picture we posted last night. SERIOUSLY! BUY THE BOOK!

Are you seriously still reading this, and you have not bought the book yet?  

He still has music.

While doing some research for the post I wrote yesterday, I learned that "right side lesions [to the temporal lobe] result in decreased recognition of tonal sequences and many musical abilities."
(http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/temporal-lobes.php)

This is part of Cecil's brain that did have moderate damage, but not severe. I cannot begin to tell you how much of a blessing it is that his musical abilities were not detrimentally affected by his injuries. 

He is still able to play the piano and sing, and he has composed and arranged several pieces of music in the last few months. I know that God spared this part of him for a reason. 

Last night he decided to arrange a piece combining Wagner's "Tannhauser Overture" with Gaither's "The King is Coming." Maybe I will be able to post an audio clip after he has finished it.

Some of the things that have been affected in his music are his abilities to focus as far ahead in his music as he did before. Before his accident he was able to read several measures ahead of what he was playing or singing. He was an amazing sight reader. I don't know how much of that has diminished, but he says it is gone. Also, sometimes while he is playing or singing, his brain "freezes up" like your computer sometimes might. After a second or two, he can keep going in the music, but this is extremely frustrating to him whenever it happens while he's leading worship or accompanying on the piano. He still has the ability to play and sing at the same time, but it is much harder for him to do this and he stumbles over his words at times, no matter how well he knows the piece.

He has not completely lost his love for music, but he does not find as much satisfaction or enjoyment as he did before. This could be because of the injury he sustained in his left frontal lobe. "A person's personality can undergo significant changes after an injury to the frontal lobes...Left frontal damage usually manifests as pseudodepression." http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/frontal-lobes.php

It could also be a result of the injury to his hippocampus. "The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is involved in memory forming, organizing, and storing. It.... is particularly important in forming new memories and connecting emotions and senses, such as smell and sound, to memories."  http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/hippocampus.htm I still have a lot to learn about the brain, but from what I have seen in Cecil and what I can gather about the hippocampus, I wonder if his ability to enjoy music has been affected by the injury to the hippocampus. 

In any event, whether he does it perfectly or not, whether or not he enjoys it to the same degree as before his TBI, Cecil still is a musician in caliber far above the average church musician. 

A good resource

I found this website tonight while I was doing some research on the brain.

/http://www.neuroskills.com/

It's not what I expected

Whenever I first saw him in the ER, he was talking. I heard his voice before I saw him, and that relieved my initial fears. He was in a neck brace, but other than that (and a few scratches and cuts on his head), he looked ok.When he saw me he said that he was really thirsty and hot. Could I get him something to drink? The nurse told me I could not give him anything to eat or drink because his CT scan showed that he had bleeding on the brain and they didn't know whether or not he would need surgery.

Then he asked if I could take off his helmet.

He wasn't wearing a helmet.

Then he said, "I'm really hot! Can someone turn on a fan?"

Next he asked for a drink of water.

Three minutes later he asked if I could take off his helmet and turn on the fan.

It went like this the entire time we were in the ER.

They did some X-rays and found he had a fractured clavicle (collarbone) and a fracture scapula (shoulder blade). Neither of those were bad enough to operate. The initial diagnosis I got from the neurosurgeon was that he had a concussion and that they would do several CT scans until they were sure the bleeding had stopped.

Cecil kept asking us to turn on the fan and please could he have some water. After the doctor was sure that his neck was not injured in any way, the neck brace came off and he stopped asking us to take off his helmet.

Every 15-30 minutes during that first 24 hours, Cecil kept asking me why he was hurting, and I had to tell him that he had been in a motorcycle accident. His memory improved from every 3 minutes in the ER to every 10 minutes that first evening and every 15 minutes the next morning. Even with the progression, this really bothered me. I kept asking the nurses why this was happening and they all said it was probably just the medication.

In addition to the problems with his memory, we realized that he couldn't walk. When he stood up, it was like his feet were glued to the floor. A physical therapist came to help him move out of the bed and sit in a chair, but Cecil could not even walk two feet from the bed to the chair.

On the 24th, (Friday) the attending physician told me he thought Cecil would be discharged over the weekend. This unnerved me. He could not remember what day it was, where he was, why his shoulder and head hurt so badly, and he couldn't walk. He couldn't even walk to the bathroom.

And the doctor wanted to send him home in a few days?!

Over the weekend he started remembering longer periods of time. He went from remembering 30 minutes, to an hour. All the talk about sending him home never came to fruition. The physical therapist came again on Saturday, and I learned how to help him stand up and shuffle to the chair.

On Monday, the therapist was working with Cecil when the neurosurgeon came in to check on him.  When he saw the way Cecil was swaying while he stood, the neurosurgeon immediately ordered an MRI.

The MRI showed two areas of his brain that had been damaged. The neurologist told us Cecil had a sheer in his corpus callosum (I had no idea what that was) but that his prognosis was good. Since Cecil is such a highly intelligent person, the neurosurgeon thought he could most likely gain back 80 to 90 percent of what had been lost. He spoke with us for about 10 minutes, but most of it went over my head. After he left, Cecil started crying. He knew something was wrong but he didn't understand anything the doctor had just told us.

By Thursday, one week from the accident, he still couldn't consistently tell you what had happened to him, where he was, or what day it was. We coached him on these things every day, hoping that it would help him remember. I knew it was way more complicated than just short term memory loss, but I had hope that what the neurologist said was true. He remembered everything from before the accident, even the events from the morning of the accident. When people came to visit him, he talked to them like nothing was wrong. Everyone was amazed at how well he seemed to be doing. He just wasn't retaining anything from the days following the accident. He could not remember any of the nurses names, even when they were in and out of his room every hour for 12 hour shifts. He had the same CNA for 5 days in a row, and every day it was like meeting her for the first time. It reminded me of the movie with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, "Fifty First Dates." And he still couldn't walk without assistance.

On March 1st he was discharged to a rehabilitation hospital that had a special floor just for people with brain injuries. At this point, I still had not heard the term "brain injury" or "traumatic brain injury." I just knew he had a sheer in his corpus callosum...whatever that was. I was thankful that the neurosurgeon had referred us to the rehab hospital instead of just sending us home like the attending physician wanted to do.

The rehabilitation hospital did a lot to educate both of us about his injuries. It was there that I learned what a brain injury (BI) was, why he couldn't remember what had happened or why he couldn't walk. He had post traumatic amnesia, and he had injured the part of his brain that helped with balance. He had also injured the part of the brain that processes information, controls emotion and gives good judgement. We spent a lot of time in cognitive, physical and occupational therapy. By the end of his stay, he was walking normally and had his short term memory back for the most part, but he still lacked the ability to focus on a task or concentrate on even a 30 minute television program.

After being discharged on March 16th,  he started a special outpatient program that specialized in TBI. Here we learned even more about the extent of his BI. Because he is missing roughly 10 days in his memory, he is categorized as having a severe traumatic brain injury. He injured four different areas of his brain; the left frontal lobe (judgement, memory, problem solving and social part of the brain), and the hippocampus (the memory forming, organizing and storing part of the brain) and his left and right temporal lobes (memory, language, personality and certain inhibitions). He had severe damage to the frontal lobe and hippocampus, and moderate damage to his temporal lobes.

Most of the patients in therapy with him had been injured far worse than Cecil. They were so happy for him when his neurologist cleared him for driving only six weeks after his accident. Considering the amount of trauma to his brain, he was recovering much more quickly than most of the other patients in therapy with him. I was continually encouraged by his progress and kept holding on to hope that we could have our old life back in a few months.

Cecil doesn't remember anything that happened from February 23 until March 1, and only a few pieces here and there from March 1 to March 5. For the first eight weeks, every day his memory would improve noticeably, but since then, progress has slowed more and more. The doctors have told him that at the six month mark, statistically, he will have recovered about 80% of his new normal. Also, statistically, after about two years, he will probably not have much improvement.

Today, August 23, 2012, marks six months to the day from the accident.

"Can't he just go take a nap?"

Whenever I try to explain cognitive fatigue to people, the most common question I get is, "Can't he just take a nap?" Don't we wish! His brain knows the difference between a nap and a night's sleep. In a period of twenty four hours, with a night's rest, a normal person goes to work for about 8 hours a day, 5 days per week. If they were to skip sleep and just keep working, maybe that would work for a few days. I'm sure that it's possible and that people in military do it for training or in combat. Many college kids pull "all-nighters" so that they can study. Eventually, however, that catches up with a person! You can't train your body to need less sleep in a 24 hour period. Your brain shuts down after so long and no amount of "practice" changes that.

It's the same with Cecil, but he only has 3-4 hours that he can work in a 24 hour period with a good night's rest. No matter how many energy drinks, or other stimulants he takes, he can't keep his brain from shutting down. He can be awake, but not productive in his work. Asking him to "just go take a nap" is like asking you to pull an all-nighter, and then going back to work after taking a nap. You could probably do it, but you would not be very productive, and it would not be healthy. After his 3-4 hours of work, he is mentally done for the day, just like you are after working your 8 hour shift at work. You don't come home and go to bed immediately. You have dinner, spend time with the family, watch a little TV and wind down. The difference for Cecil is that his work day is shorter. He still can stay awake to do normal things that don't require much thought. He's been very helpful around the house the past several months. All the things he didn't have time to do before since he was working a lot, he does now! He cuts our grass, a 3/4 acre lot with a HUGE hill, all with a push mower. He's in the process of building a ganoe (which is like a canoe, but wider) with our kids. He repaired the dock, pressure washed the porch and sidewalks, built a shelf in our room, and several other projects that needed completion. When he isn't working here, he volunteers at our church to help our Worship Pastor. He is also able to do some of the computer repair and website development that he did before he got his job last summer. It's not like he lays around the house all day sleeping.

Yesterday morning we had a breakfast "date" at the local family restaurant after we took the children to school. After our fight the night before, I expected him to wake up grouchy, but the opposite was true. Then I remembered he had not taken his medication the day before. Whenever Cecil does not take this particular medication (the one that he had to quit because it caused his blood pressure to skyrocket) he is grouchy every night. No matter what has gone on during the day, no matter how good the day has been or how many good things he has accomplished, he is physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted by 3:00 in the afternoon. The medication he was taking boosted his energy level so that at least physically he could make it through the day without being worn out. Now that he's not on his medication for his energy level, I can expect him to be grouchy every night. If I just ignore it, usually by the next morning he feels better and we can at least get through the first part of the day pleasantly. Maybe a nap will help that! The doctor did tell him that he can have caffeine to perk him up a bit in the afternoon, so we will try that, too.

Where did "normal" go?

We took this picture about a month before the accident. We were very much in love, and very happy. Things were so good that day. It's strange to look at this picture now and remember how it was then, then realize how it is now.  

When Cecil wakes up every day, he is in pain. He injured his shoulder and back along with his head, but those bones have long since healed. He still has muscle and nerve pain every day. He also has daily headaches.

Today he went to therapy expecting it to be a quick hour. However, when he arrived, his therapist thought he looked strange and was concerned. When they checked his blood pressure it registered on the nurse's instruments as 190/110. They immediately sent him over to his neurologist for a full examination. The doctor's instruments read 160/90 three times consistently, so he didn't make  Cecil go to the ER. Cecil's blood pressure is normally not high, but he has been taking a medication that has raised it. The doctor immediately told him not to take it ever again and prescribed a blood pressure medication to get it back under control.

The medication that he's been taking is the only thing that has made his life a little more comfortable in the last 6 months. So today he came home depressed and frustrated. I knew it would happen and had been on pins and needles all afternoon anticipating it. We had a big fight before he went to bed. Great way to help lower the blood pressure, right?

Every day I learn or figure out something new about how his BI is affecting his life. His BI is dramatizing challenges that he already had, such as ADD. He lost his ability to "filter" what he says, and is learning again how to control his tongue. Also, new information is challenging for him to process. Whether it is a name of a person he just met, or a concept he is reading about on the evening news, new information does not always stick. He gleans bits and pieces, and somehow he connects them together in a way that may or may not be correct (confabulation). Projects that would once have taken him only a few minutes, may now take an hour to complete.

When we are around people we know,  Cecil always puts on his happy face. I call him "Big C," the funny, outgoing guy that everyone loves, but who I only see in public. Because he is able to portray himself to others this way, people think he's recovering miraculously and can't understand why he hasn't already gone back to work. He still spouts out techie lingo and helps people fix their computers. Why can't he go back to his company and do that?

The biggest reason he can't is because he is suffering from mental fatigue. In people who have had severe TBI, this is very common. Because he is young, his doctor thinks that over time it will improve. But he has been saying that for the last 4 months, and we have not seen much improvement in that time. He consistently is able to work 3-4 hours per day doing any kind of cognitive work. No matter how many breaks he takes, after he has worked for 3-4 hours, his brain shuts down on him. He can still do physical activities, but if he tries to focus on a problem or do any kind of mental work, he cannot complete the task. In the last month, twice he was able to work for 5 hours in one day. Both times, he slept for 2 days afterwards and did no work during those two days. Those 2 extra hours each day cost him two extra days per hour. I don't get it. But this is his reality.

Not being able to go back to work has depressed him more than anything else. He feels as if he is not providing for his family. I try to assure him that we are ok financially. His company had a disability insurance policy and we are able to live off that and my part time income. As I posted previously, we don't have debt outside of his student loans, and for now, we are not required to make payments on those. We are still able to afford the children's private school tuition, and we have some money in savings for emergencies. For the time being, I wish that he would forget about worrying for the future. Our needs are being met. When I try to explain these things to him, he fixates on the fact that he can't go back to work. I think it's his brain injury that won't let him move past this point. He has always been the kind to fixate on a problem until it is solved, and I think that he is doing that in a more dramatic way now. Just as his BI has exaggerated his ADD, I think it also has exaggerated his desire to fix problems. But now, these are problems that he is not able to fix.

My daily challenge is to realize that most of the things he says are his BI talking. When he is not listening to what I say, or arguing with everything I say, it's because he can't help it. At least that's what I think. I don't know what God is doing. I don't know why He's doing it. I trust Him, but I don't understand it. I want  Cecil to learn to enjoy life again. If he is happy, maybe we can have a new "normal." 

What is BI?

When we got to the BI floor of the rehabilitation Hospital, the first thing Cecil wanted to do was take a picture of the BI Gym. "My boss will love this!" he said.

Before February 23, 2012, BI to our family stood for Business Intelligence. Cecil was living his dream, working for a software development company in their support department. All we heard about morning, noon and night was BI this and BI that. He loved his job. He started working for this company in July of 2011 after having finished his MBA the previous year. He was under-employed for four years before he got this job, and though it was challenging, we made it through those four years. We had paid off all of our debt, except for his school loans and were so excited to finally be living a "normal" life. He had a nine to five job, I had a small part time job, and the children were going to a small private school in our town. We were involved in our local church, family lived close by, goals were being met, dreams were being achieved. And all of this was because Cecil had found his niche in BI.

The biggest problem we faced at that time was that gas was getting more and more expensive. Cecil hated driving my tiny economy car, and his truck only got 16 miles to the gallon. In January, he decided to buy a motorcycle to save on gas and make his hour long daily commute a little more fun. He bought the best insurance policy he could find because he knew how much I didn't like the idea of his driving a motorcycle to begin with. He also took the motorcycle safety training course and worked really hard to be sure he knew how to drive it safely.

Sometimes, our best laid plans are not the plans that God has in mind. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the LORD’s declaration. (Is. 55:11) 

February 23rd was an unusually busy morning. I had plans to have breakfast with a few friends, after which, I planned to drive into town to visit my grandmother. Everyone was rushing around the house getting ready for the day, making lunches, packing clothes to take to the gym, etc. As busy as the morning was, I am pretty sure I remember going outside with Cecil as he left for work that morning. I don't know if we kissed goodbye or not, which is our usual practice. I think that he already had his helmet on when I ran out there to tell him goodbye. He wanted to leave early so that he could get a few things done before he began to take calls on the support line.

Everyone rushed out the door, I rushed to get the boys to school and then rushed to my breakfast with friends. Breakfast was fun and NOT rushed. Leaving the restaurant, I headed up towards my grandmother's house, following the same route Cecil had taken a few hours before.

As I drove up the rode, I got a phone call from my brother-in-law who worked with  Cecil. Seeing his name pop up on the caller ID, I answered quickly, knowing that he was probably at work and wondering why he would call me at 9 AM on a weekday. Dustin casually asked if  Cecil was planning to come in to work that day. Immediately, I knew.  Cecil should have been to work at 8:15. I started to cry and told Dustin this. He assured me that  Cecil must have had some kind of challenge with his bike and was just running late. I quickly ended the call, asking him to contact the sheriff's office.

According to the police report, at 7:58 AM, Cecil flew over his handlebars and landed in the middle of the highway. No one stopped. No one reported what happened. The sheriff's office was located at the same intersection where his accident occurred, but they did not respond. Highway patrol took the report. From what we pieced together afterwards, we concluded that someone pulled out in front of him, and when he maneuvered to avoid the other vehicle, his bike malfunctioned, causing his steering to lock up and throwing him from his bike. Whoever caused the accident just kept driving.

It wasn't until March 2 that I learned the other meaning of BI. Brain injury.  Cecil suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. His helmet saved his life, but as he hit the ground, his brain was shaken like an egg inside of a shell. He sustained injury to four areas of his brain. He remembers nothing from February 23-March 1, and little from March 1- March 5. The doctors call it "post-traumatic amnesia."

Today is August 20, 2012.  Cecil has not gone back to work. We don't know if or when he will. He is still one of the most intelligent people I know, but according to him, he's an idiot now. Because of his high level of intellect before the accident,  the doctors say his prognosis is very good. This means that he will function much better than most people who had this same diagnosis. Their good prognosis means nothing to  Cecil. He knows what he lost. He remembers what he used to be able to do with his mind. He remembers the complicated problems he was able to solve with little difficulty. He knows that he will never have that back.

He describes it as someone who had 4 massive strokes. A stroke also causes BI, and because it is more familiar to people, most people can understand this. Would you expect someone who had 4 massive strokes in one day to go back to work soon afterwards? Would you expect that they could live as they did before and "move on"? Would you ask your grandfather who had a stroke to just try harder to get better? No. Whenever someone has a stroke, they lose brain cells. An MRI shows the area of the BI where the brain matter turns gray. Brain cells never grow back. Stroke victims can learn to do things differently, and they can learn to use different areas of their brains in order to perform some of the same tasks they were previously able to perform, but they never go back to the same way they were before the stroke. Not completely. Stroke victims require much therapy to relearn, to rewire their brains. It's the same with  Cecil's BI.
Cecil also describes it to me this way. I am a musician and give private music lessons. Music is not just a pastime for me, it is also my life work, my career, my calling. I use music every day of my life, whether or not I am at work, at home or at church. What  Cecil lost is comparable to my losing every one of my students and my ability to play or sing any type of music ever again. It would encompass every day of my life. There would be no area of my life that would not be affected if I were to no longer be able to make music. Yes, I could still wake up and live my life. I could get another job, and I could find new things to enjoy, but I would always have the memory of music with no longer the ability to make music. I would still be a musician in my heart, but physically could not do what I long to do every day of my life.
Cecil is devastated. Though he knows God is in control, he does not understand what he should do with his life. He is not able to work to provide for our family. On our current income, we are able to pay our bills, but  we must live paycheck to paycheck. We are not able to save for retirement. We cannot buy a new car if one of ours breaks down. We cannot afford the health insurance which our President insists we buy. Our children cannot have the braces their crooked teeth need. What happened to our future? It cracked on the road along with  Cecil's helmet.

Does this sound like a hopeless situation to you? Are you depressed reading this?

I AM NOT! I HAVE A HOPE! My hope is in JESUS!

My hope is not in  Cecil's ability to provide for our family. My hope is in Jehovah Jirah, my Provider. His grace is sufficient for me! My hope is not that we will have a nice house or car one day. One hundred years from now, no one will remember what kind of car I drove anyway. My hope is in things eternal. I hope that one day, my family will be joined in Heaven, all of us having perfect bodies and the mind of Christ!

I know that God causes all things to work together, like puzzle pieces, for good, for those who love Him and are called to His purposes. Those of us, He knew before He created the world. He called us to be made into the image of His Son......translation, God is going to use this to make me more like Jesus. I know this in the very core of my being. I don't know if  Cecil will ever have a full-time job again. I don't know if my kids will have braces. I don't know if we will eventually have to live in a trailer with no car and ride our bicycles everywhere (we have good bicycles if we ever have to do that, though). I have a feeling, just call it a hunch, that God will provide for these needs. I hope in Him not because of anything that I have done, or any good that I may be, but because HE is good. And if He sees fit not to give us these things we call needs, then I will trust Him in that, too. I am placing all my hope in that He knows what is best for me. He loves me. He wants to be glorified in my life, and I want that, too. It's not about me, really. It's about Him and His glory. I am nothing. I am a blip on the radar of eternity. It is HIS story. If He lets me be an extra in His movie, then I will be the best extra I know how to be. But in the end, it's about God, the creator of the universe.

God allowed this brain injury to affect our lives. He allowed it to devastate  Cecil for now. But I will not be devastated