12 September 2014 Update Specific Issue: how brain injury impacts my husband Pat who is continuing to recover (almost 21 months) from sudden death cardiac arrest & anoxic brain injury. Pat had an Honor Guard memorial to stand for today & needed to launder & iron his uniform (including removing & then replacing all the pins, medals, ribbons, & other brass) & polish his shoes. But heres where the lasting effects of brain injury can be very obvious. (Everybody & every injury is unique, but are often commonalities.) Pat & I hope this helps others understand what brain injury survivors have to cope with & that it helps encourage others with challenges. Pats 3 biggest issues are retention & recall of new memories (Did I feed the dog this morning?), balance (without the brains contribution to balance, how do I keep upright?), & executive decision making & follow through (how do I receive, sort, prioritize, integrate, & execute multiple sensory input & complex situations?). He had 2 days to get his uniform together. I removed all the stuff from his uniform shirt & laundered it & his trousers. He had to iron them, put all the stuff back on, & polish his shoes. Usually I organize the tasks, set times for them, & coach him through the process. We are continually working to improve his independence & abilities, so this time we agreed for me to completely cut him loose & let him work through it on his own. He was confident he knew what to do & could complete his task in time. We left 15 minutes late for todays ceremony, with Pat tying his shoes in the truck. Why did it take so long? (1) Looking for his DD214 (honorable discharge papers) last night to double check he had all the ribbons he is entitled to wear, he found some old pictures from his Marine Corps service & his old USMC boot camp commemorative book (year book). Looking at the pictures sent overwhelming memories rushing back that mentally exhausted him so much he couldnt continue working on his uniform. (Never did find the DD214. Hope we dont have to order another one -- 90 days or more for our prompt govt!) (2) After a restless night of dreams full of ghosts from the past, he was slow getting up & slow eating breakfast. But it was OK -- he still had 2 hours to iron, re-decorate, polish, & dress. (3) He spent an hour polishing his shoes. He was frustrated he only had regular shoe polish, no super-shine, no toothpicks to get between the stitches, no brush -- he couldnt spit-shine his shoes. He tried to make do. He had no idea how much time he was taking, how impossible the job would be, or that the Honor Guard expectations are not the same as active duty dress inspection. It was only when I came to check that he could re-set. It was a huge relief to know his shoes were good to go (& had been for probably 50 minutes). (4) He did a super job ironing the perfect creases in his shirt (2 front, 3 back) & his trousers (razor edge front & back), but when I returned at the end of the next hour (a few minutes before we needed to leave), he was struggling with the placement of the ribbons, medals, & buttons, couldnt remember how the gold shoulder braid needed to be attached, & couldnt figure out how to fold & velcro his little yellow dicky (thats what I call the pleated ascot). (5) And I wont even mention trying to find 2 same design white dress gloves (1 right thumb & 1 left thumb) among the bag full he had. Dont laugh! My husband is very intelligent & very discriminating! But something that used to take him 30 minutes took about 3 hours all together. His memory difficulties meant when he focused on one thing (like shining his shoes), everything else, including ironing, reattaching, meeting a deadline, just disappeared from his mind. His balance difficulties meant he had to be very careful not to set the hot iron in the wrong place (where it could fall over or off the ironing board) or to bump the board over while he was ironing. And his executive decision making & follow through difficulties made it very confusing & nearly impossible to prioritize & execute multiple tasks in an integrated way to produce a complex product (a fully ironed, decorated, & accessorized uniform). So the next time he has to clean & redo his uniform, were going to compromise between me as close-up coach & him as independent executor. Well talk through & write down the process & well tape the task list up where hes working. And Ill check in every once in a while. Did you get tired reading this? Does it seem hard to believe? Welcome to the world of brain injury & recovery! Here are some important principles we learned today, thanks to Gods patience & grace. (1) If we dont make conscious decisions to break from our past, we will naturally be bound by it (trying to inspection grade spit-shine our American Legion Eccos). (2) Two of us working in tandem multiply our talents & abilities & cover for our weaknesses. (3) (To borrow the sniper slogan) Slow is smooth & smooth is fast -- especially when it comes to hot irons & tippy ironing boards. (4) Actual inability (brain injury), ought to provoke patience & assistance, not frustration & rejection. And that is why my husband, Sgt. Patrick Ben Coburn USMC (Ret.) (2 time combat Vietnam veteran), American Legion Honor Rifle Squad, today was the handsomest Guard there, & obviously heading the line because he was the best squared away! (Yes, thats him this morning at the head of the line, end of the military honors.) Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9).
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 23:31:06 +0000
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