How Humour Conquers Brain Injury

By Clint Scollon

This a guide for surviving a brain injury, which are so prevalent today, by someone who has actually survived one. Brain injuries can be obtained by the simplest of means, such as driving, playing sports and even tripping while walking. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, it simply shows that a brain injury can happen to anyone, anytime.

It really depends on you and your attitude, as to how seriously you are going to let it affect you. The one thing that I have found to work is possessing a cheery disposition. I have also found this helps you with two aspects of your health: if you are cheery your brain adapts to anything thrown at it and it will (sung with a British accent) "Only look on the bright side of life, ta-do, ta-do...". As you can probably tell, I treat everything that I can – and only when it's proper – with a little frivolity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: May 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228826781

Clint Scollon

Now, I am 57 (and I am starting to feel it) but I have lived a full life. My life was so much better when I was nineteen, like it was for most people. Except for the second half of the year, for I spent the next the year in hospitals. Just to make things lively, I spent the first five weeks in a coma. Oh yeah, I was comatose while in my coma, that is the opposite of lively, DUH! This book shows that humour can help with every facet of life, especially when bad things unexpectedly happen to good people.

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Copyright © 2021 by Clint Scollon

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-2680-4 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-2679-8 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-2678-1 (eBook)

Clint Scollon

Table of Contents

Introduction: Some of the Reasons I Wrote This Book

Chapter 1. How It All Began

Chapter 2. I was just having fun, all the way to the hospital—in a coma?

Chapter 3. Memory and coma function symbiotically,

even through BI

Chapter 4. Recovery: You have to be on a schedule for everything!

Chapter 5. Rabbits: It was more than a secluded stretch of road to the three of us

Chapter 6. UBC: I learned a lot of stuff

Chapter 7. The Brain: The telephone system at work

Chapter 8. I buy my first house

Chapter 9. Europe: I went there for love and found love with someone else

Chapter 10. Sleep: Got to have it, even if it’s on an abnormal schedule

Chapter 11. Langley: We were with the parents once again but only for a short while

Chapter 12. Langley: By myself again, except this time my good wife was alongside

Chapter 13. I used to like reading much more—

I use the past tense of the verb

Chapter 14. Environmental Dave: I could piss even him off!

Chapter 15. Work

Chapter 16. Support Groups: Who were they supporting?

Chapter 17. Therapy: It takes a while, because I need to improve certain aspects of my persona to reach the same goal: the improvement of myself, both physically and mentally

Chapter 18. Statistics: They will not help you in your recovery, but are interesting

Chapter 19. Prevention is the solution

Chapter 20. Driving: Convenient, yes, but it should not define you as a person!

Chapter 21. Doctor Theo: A nice guy and also a doctor!

Chapter 22. My real job pays real pocket money (if one has very shallow pockets)

Chapter 23. New job sucks

Chapter 24. Rubik’s Cube: help!

Chapter 25. Son

Chapter 26. Father

Chapter 27. Friends

Chapter 28. Brother

Chapter 29. Husband

Chapter 30. Harrison

Chapter 31. My Adventures

Chapter 32. Weight Training: The best way of re-developing coordination

Chapter 33. Anger: A new issue

Chapter 34. Epilepsy: Another new issue

Chapter 35. Me having trouble with simple electronics

Chapter 36. Me having trouble with complex electronics

Chapter 37. Volunteering: Fun and rewarding, but the pay

was atrocious

Chapter 38. Some more reasons I am writing

Chapter 39. Anger, A condition which can be managed

Chapter 40. A case of true understanding

Chapter 41. Examples of oddities that make my life . . . my life

Chapter 42. Religious experience

Chapter 43. Diabetes: Is any life-altering disease fair to anyone?

Chapter 44. My daughter finally comes for her first visit by herself

Chapter 45. My father’s close calls

Chapter 46. Aunt Natalie’s wake

Chapter 47. True: Marriages are difficult work, but well worth it! (Provided you find the right partner)

Chapter 48. Misconceptions

Chapter 49. Dreams and normal life

Chapter 50. My fifteen—no, five minutes of fame?

Chapter 51. Goals can be found in all types of levels, some in book chapters and some in actual life

Chapter 52. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Could anything else go wrong, I mean, really?

Chapter 53. I finally blow!

Chapter 54. I finally blow, again

Chapter 55. I had to tempt fate, for I injured my good left knee!

Chapter 56. Some more reasons I am writing

Chapter 57. Facts that made my recovery possible

Chapter 58. Great Aunt Lorraine’s new place of residence is quite close to us via car

Chapter 59. Rick Hanson: Need I say more?

Chapter 60. HandiDART: A service begun by a humane government

Chapter 61. Will I ever stop being affected by this accident?

Chapter 62. We BIs keep on meeting . . . coincidence, or . . .

Chapter 63. Five More Thoughts

Chapter 64. Quickie reunion: The best kind?

Chapter 65. Exact evidence of me being tired

Chapter 66. Dog: Not only man’s best friend

Chapter 67. Food for Thought: My Qualifications as a writer

Chapter 68. What relevance the book title has to the author

Chapter 69. Help with the completion of this book

Chapter 70. Try to come to some conclusion, or just wrap it up

Clint’s definitions of the Psychological terms that were

used in this book

Clint’s Disclaimer

Bibliography

Note: The term BI is pronounced as two words or B. I., but it still means Brain Injured.

Introduction: Some of the Reasons I Wrote This Book

The doctors had told my parents that I was labeled as lucky to have awoken from my coma; however, that was about all the function I was about to regain in all of my body and limbs, which was not a lot at that time. The moment this little bit of doctor news was relayed to me, I started my physical comeback, useless limbs and all. I had to show what I was capable of, because there was no way someone who had attended university for only a few more years than me was about to determine how much I could or could not recover. There was no way this was happening without him having known me at any time beforehand, to realize I was a pretty determined S.O.B.

I originally began this book in order to meet an unfulfilled need, that of a severely traumatized survivor’s story written by the survivor, and it is in no way a script for your life. This was my life and nobody else’s, my own life filled with my own mistakes, and hopefully other survivors can learn lessons from whatever aspect of life I was dealing with at the time, lessons found in my resolutions of said mistakes.

I have also written this book to ultimately provide some direction, if I could, to those who have recently sustained a Brain Injury (BI). Having had this tragedy befall them would have meant they had already looked for some direction, because they have been left with a brain that functions differently and at a different level. This also means this book is for those who have been afflicted with a BI for a number of years and have simply lost their direction.

Finally, this book is for those readers who can appreciate when humour (well, my interpretation of that concept, anyway) is used to conquer a struggle, and except for the odd occasion, I have always adopted a humorous slant on all circumstances I became involved in. Therefore, this book is riddled with tongue-in-cheek humour, and humour of a sarcastic nature. This book was written to help people deal with matters with humour, and it was not written to offend anyone. If some part of this book offends you, may I suggest you take whatever offends you with a grain of salt and have a laugh, even if the laugh is at yourself.

I have attempted to provide this direction by showing the different routes I have taken in my life when dealing with problems (hopefully, some of which have been similar to your own problems, so you can relate, as one would not wish this calamity upon anyone else). Some worked and some did not. I have not assumed the role of deity and told you or even gently suggested which route you should have chosen. I did this because life is a journey that you must adapt your unique life circumstances to and therefore must consist of your own choices. I just wanted to provide you with some information to allow the best possible choices to be made. I have done this to reassure you that you will get better, regardless of how you felt in your recovery (provided you follow the medical procedures advised by the hospital staff, involved in your recovery).

Although my book pertains to every Brain Injury case out there, any timeline inferences have to do with my hospital recovery, because they were the only times I knew that worked. As each Brain Injury is different, I only have general recovery information about a BI case brought about when you have experienced an accident trauma; therefore, BI cases which occurred during childbirth, a drug overdose, or by anything other than my car accident are known by me as a horse of a different colour, in that I can only relate to anything I have experienced directly. Of course, I can relate a little to everyone who has suffered any head trauma; after all, it usually ends up being a Brain Injury. I received mine on June 11, 1982 at the corner of Scott Road and #10 Highway (at the border of Surrey and North Delta), after flying from a speeding convertible after it had run a red light and collided with a huge truck (going at least the speed limit), and finally coming to rest on the very hard road after striking my head (predominantly on the left side, leaving my right side of my body paralyzed for a while), my right shoulder and my right knee. I fractured my head and shoulder, and destroyed my knee well enough to receive a full right-leg cast.

I have not been able to find any other resources that could be used to provide you with some more of the information needed for the type of choices that you have already been forced to make in your recovery life. Therefore, I have written this book to help you in your recovery. It will probably only help you a little; however, a little help is better than no help.

The main reason I wrote this book was to have given the BIs (Brain-Injured) a book where they can read about how their recovery is going to be a long, arduous struggle, yet their recovery is still attainable. In addition, they should hear this good news from someone who has already gone the whole nine yards to tell them their recovery is within their reach. Usually, you have had to live a majority of your life in recovery to be in a place where you have access to this book (or e-book, or whatever!). If you are like me and have spent most of your life recovering, you want to spend the rest living! This word, living, means different things to different people. It could mean living your life taking chances or just being content with what you have. You and only you will have to decide where you reside on this scale of life, but you have to choose sooner or later.

Well, I have convalesced for thirty-eight-plus years. Therefore, I have spent most of life recovering. I just got frustrated with hearing how another survivor got fed up with their doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and various therapists, etc. theorizing about their recovery. They made promises about their future that were a bit unrealistic, or even worse, they made predictions about the BI’s future that painted a dark, ominous path for the rest of their lives. Sometimes the survivor would be so severely influenced by these dark life predictions that they just gave up on life. All these predictions were forecast using theories and charts, etc., making them all fallible.

Again, I got so tired of it all that I decided to write a book proposing another alternative, or rather, an entirely new outlook. Throughout my book I have lain heavy praise on doctors, therapists, etc. about the work they have done (I have been a living example of their work for some thirty-eight-plus years). In fact, I have worked alongside the health professionals (albeit in a volunteer capacity) who continually professed, "Things will get better!" That was if they, the BIs listened and followed their doctors’ instructions.

Oh yeah, these doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and various therapists were not to be blamed for these dark life forecasts. It was just a negative portion of their job (besides the paperwork, ha-ha), yet an extremely vital part nonetheless. An important bit of information that sometimes does not get the emphasis it should (with each case being different) when shared with the patient was that these life predictions were worst-case scenarios. These were shared with the patient because they have to provide them by law with the worst possible outcome. This was always done to prepare the patient and their family for the worst possible outcome, so it actually made it somewhat easier on the families as they prepared for the future (whatever that meant) and, if for no other reason, so the patient could not sue them.

Not every patient made a full recovery, but not every patient became a vegetable (did not recover at all) either. It was nobody’s fault; therefore, it makes it really hard to assign blame. With this said, I just won’t go there right now, with the obvious God implications. His role in my life is interpreted (by me) in chapter 42.

True, there was the occasional poor soul who will not measurably recover, but just about every other survivor will recover (even if it is just a little), if they do not give up. It sometimes just may take a while longer than the average case, with every case being different.

I have not been prescribing anything, and I do not pretend to have given any medical advice. Rather, I declare: It has been my experience that once the doctors say you are recovering, you will recover (although at the time it may not seem like it) and a cheerful disposition only helps! That being said, a big factor in the actual recovery is the person’s state of mind. You can either be a Gloomy Gus (sad to have survived, with a why me attitude) or a Grateful Gus (glad to have lived!). Which persona you adopt could actually reduce your recovery time, sometimes rather dramatically.

If you listen to all the news reports from around the world, occasionally you will hear of some people who were lost and did not have anything to live for. True, not all these people have sustained a Brain Injury but if only one has a Brain Injury and this book affects them positively, then that makes this book a necessity for everyone’s library. There is no way to predict whether you would have a brain injury or not (I think of a Brain Injury as possessing a human soul—yes, I have just personified the damage referred to as a Brain Injury).

Chapter 1

How It All Began

I figured I should tell you how I received my Brain Injury before I introduce a bunch of numbers relating to such injuries. So here goes . . .

My life had been interesting thus far. I went to UBC (University of British Columbia) for two years after graduation from Seaquam High School (North Delta, BC), where I earned the Senior Athlete of the Year Award. I had a good, physically demanding summer job as a grunt at an oil refinery out in Burnaby, BC (quite the commute at the time, from North Delta, BC). Pat Merrigan and I (I saw little of him when I was at UBC, as he went to Washington State University with a tennis scholarship) were starting our summer that year by attending a soirée at the Panorama Ridge of Surrey, BC on June 11, 1982, (synopsis: we were getting pissed and then going to a bash on the Ridge). We were stopped by the police two blocks from the party and told we had to continue on foot because we had been drinking. We were given this break because of Pat’s charisma, and at least one of the officers knew me from having watched me play basketball. My school’s basketball team had played charity games against the police as part of their outreach to the community, or at least one of the officers had simply seen me play at one of our home games.

We then got a ride with a car we both liked; a convertible Fiat Spider driven by Melanie. Pat and I were known by everyone in the school, so securing a ride was not a problem. We could have—no, we should have—walked, because the party was so close, about two blocks. Of course, the last light at 120 St. (also known as Scott Road) & No. 10 Highway (also known as BC 10) was red (at least that’s what I was told when I awoke from my coma), and Melanie thought her car was fast enough to beat all the oncoming traffic through the light. She thought this even though she had four average-sized people and one big guy crammed in her tiny car. Of course we hit the oncoming traffic: a half-ton truck travelling perpendicular to our direction, who had the green light.

My good friend, Patrick Merrigan, was thrown one hundred and fifty feet from the car, and upon impact snapped his neck. He died instantly, thus no pain (we assume this because it was the current medical train of thought, but who knows). He flew some twenty feet farther because he was smaller than me, therefore he weighed less. I remember hearing about this when I came out of my coma and was bewildered. This bewilderment was brought about by the fact that, although Pat and Greg weighed roughly the same, they were in the same speeding vehicle—why had Pat died and Greg lived? Although I asked this question (purely scientifically minded, so please do not take any offense, Greg’s family, for none is intended) of many a doctor, I could not get a definitive answer. The consensus was I do not know, although there was a surprising amount of Maybe it was God’s will?

I also wondered (because I had time to rethink just about everything) why my two friends flew farther from the car when it was abruptly stopped in a collision with a bigger truck. I could see how much of my schooling I recognized (for at the time I recalled nothing), when someone (I think it was my dad) reminded me of the formula: Force = Mass x (change in Velocity/Time) or F = M x (△V/△T), because this formula explains everything. By then I was not so mentally incapacitated that I couldn’t realize that the main difference between the three of us free-flyers was our weight. Therefore, when you figure that we had the same initial force (same speeding vehicle) applied to each of us and you solved the equation, you will have found that because of my large weight (in comparison), my velocity must not have been as great as my fellow flyers. This explains why they flew farther, because they had greater velocity through the air. This is the simplest way I can explain it (all of my UBC roommates just let out quite the expansive DUUH!), but not everyone went to the best damn university (for no matter how long) in the world.

I was thrown a hundred and thirty feet from my sitting position on top of the roof, which was in its mounts, just like every other convertible during the summer. We had sat like this on numerous occasions in many a car, with our buttocks on the neatly concealed roof and with our feet resting on the car’s back seat. We sat like this on the night because it was adventurous and we were as drunk as two skunks; besides, we were only traveling two friggin’ blocks to the party. As it turns out, there was never any excuse for a car accident, especially an accident in which a life was taken.

I had heard a statistic on the radio that went something like this: Most car accidents happen within one mile of the home. That news report left me feeling a bit remorseful, being that my accident was only a mile from my home. I had become a his accident site was only a mile from home statistic. Also, because I survived the accident, I became a he survived his accident statistic. My accident had turned me into a statistic and I hated the fact that I was now a number. After landing on the left side of my head and severely bruising the left hemisphere of my brain, I had also slightly damaged (in comparison to all the damage that had befallen me that night) the right side of my brain, because of two things: inertia (things continue in their motion) and rigidity of the skull (the bone matter of the skull is very dense, which makes it very rigid), which also led me to becoming yet another statistic. The brain is quite malleable, so after it receives severe bruising from an initial collision with the skull (when my skull struck the road), the brain continues in motion and strikes the other (my right) side of the skull.

It caused a little further bruising on the right side of my brain on the rebound collision (well, enough damage to cause a severe memory deficit at first), after it struck the skull for a second time, albeit at a reduced speed.¹ I also damaged my right shoulder and knee when they both collided with the road. My shoulder was wrapped to prevent movement and I had a full-leg cast on for four months.

My year of hospital recovery went like this: I spent the first five weeks in a coma, five months in Royal Columbian Hospital (RCH) in New Westminster, BC (where I received excellent immediate post-accident care), and another seven months in the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver, BC (where I received excellent post-accident recuperation in the form of excellent physical therapy for my injured leg and arm, and how to exist in my new body care). Then I proudly joined the ranks of the walking wounded.

I know I hit the left side of my brain because my doctors told me it was severely bruised, which meant a loss of coordination of the right side of my body. This was due to the crisscross wiring of the brain, or brain asymmetry.² The lateralization of brain function was also involved, because it refers to how some neural functions or cognitive processes tend to be more dominant in one hemisphere than the other, in that one side of the brain controls one side of the body.³ However, I had a cast on my right leg and subsequent right knee surgeries, as well as sustaining a broken right clavicle (shoulder), as proof of landing on my right side. However, our bodies are run by the brain, and mine dictated that because the left side of my brain was injured more severely than the right, most of the loss manifested in my formerly dominant right side. Once again, because of the all of the external injuries incurred to my right side, the conclusion of a bruised right brain hemisphere made sense.

However, the crisscross wiring of the brain provided us with another explanation, which in terms of basic physics was actually backwards, and even though I had all my external injuries to the right side of my body, the injury in control was the one to the left side of my brain, which left me in a coma for five weeks. This last statement was proven by the fact that I could not use any of my right limbs smoothly with any power.

It must have been quite a vision of me landing on the road like a rag doll, for my the left side of my head must have struck the road (as I have reasoned above) almost simultaneously with my right knee (the use of physics helps to explain this, otherwise it would be very hard to have inflicted that much damage to those points on my body). Yet I had a number of problems with the function of my memory (difficulty recalling previously learned information and new information). That could be attributed to right hemisphere bruising, due mostly to the ricochet effect of my brain upon the hard surface of my head. Even to this day, thirty-eight-plus years since the accident, my memory does not have anywhere near the same recall accuracy as it once had. While I have learned to deal with this loss (I can’t enter any TV quiz shows—big loss!) but I had a lot of old memories (perhaps not as many as I should have had, but I had enough!) and I make new memories every day.

Even though all of my injuries proved that I landed on the right side of my body, I had to go with what the command centre of my body told me actually happened. I rationalized this because brain asymmetry (the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body) is essential for proper brain function. It just made sense that I injured the left side of my brain when you observed the right side of my body. Therefore, I must have made initial contact with the road with the left side of my head. This meant I must have landed quite awkwardly. I also concluded this because of the simple fact that I had lost a great amount of my right-side body coordination and movement—for how long, who knows, but it has been thirty-eight-plus years so far. Many years later, I found out that because of all of the financial cuts made to our medicare system by the BC government in 1982, GF Strong no longer had the funds to continue my rehabilitation. Therefore, even though no one wanted to see me go, I was unceremoniously kicked out of GF Strong. I felt so violated, in the sense of unrealized goals, because my right-side limbs did not function properly. This meant I could have used more rehabilitation (sorry, but I made it very obvious so it could be understood by our former premier, thus making the connection).

Yet I digress. Greg, who sat in the car beside Pat and me, where there were no seat belts to be worn, maybe because we were sitting illegally. Interesting point: ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia) took 25 percent of the monies awarded to me by the courts of British Columbia for sitting illegally—I pleaded guilty to that charge because I was guilty—but ICBC took another 25 percent for not wearing a seat belt. My point was there were no seat belts there, so how could ICBC—or for that matter, the law courts of BC—expect us to wear something that, quite simply, was not there. It was not right; they fined me for not doing the impossible. In layman’s terms, they penalized me once (which was just) and persecuted me once for my belief in the laws of science (which was very unjust, simply because it was persecution against the laws of physics). That is to say, it was impossible to wear something that was not there, thus it did not prevent me, as a seat belt is intended to do, from flying one hundred and thirty feet and landing on my right knee, my right shoulder and the left side of my head.

At the same time, our friend Greg flew one hundred and fifty feet and landed on his hips. He could walk sooner than me after the accident, but he did have a slight limp for a while. I never did find out the full extent of his recovery, because we went our separate ways in life. Being that there were two years difference in our ages, we had different sets of friends; therefore, we lost contact rather easily. Although Pat, Rosscoe (I will talk more about him later) and I were friends with just about everyone in the subdivision of Sunshine Hills, North Delta, BC, Canada, there were some really good people (even a politician or two) who I did not know very well. These politicians I had only seen at the odd athletic game, therefore I had only seen them from afar, came all the way to the hospital and gave me their good wishes. There were so many people that my mother started a guest book. These have become very popular today, but they were not so commonplace in 1982.

Pat and I had these six basic sets of friends in common at that stage of our lives:

1.)family

2.)high school friends

3.)people we partied with

4.)people we knew from our different sports endeavours

5.)people who went to our respective post-secondary institutions

6.)people we knew from life and would say hi to on the street

Greg fell into the second set of friends, while the fifth set was our biggest set of friends at that stage of our lives.

Pat had flown about one hundred and fifty feet and landed on his neck. It cracked and he died instantly. This was very lamentable news, but I was in a coma and could not perceive much of anything. However, even when I awoke and found out the ghastly news concerning Pat, I was in a trancelike state, and my emotions did not fully register. Therefore, I did not fully understand what had transpired for the next few years. Then I was exceedingly sad—well, as sad as I could have been without having a fully functioning brain yet—until I had the thought that no matter how sad I felt, it would not bring my friend Patrick back. Eventually my emotions did return. I felt the best way to honour Pat’s memory was to live my life to its fullest. He would have appreciated that.

Another aspect of a Brain Injury is learning to live with loss. This includes loss of organizational skills, which I have mitigated by writing using a computer, for obvious reasons (spoiler alert: machine memory). Unfortunately, I still wasn’t satisfied with my style of writing (if you could call it that) until I received some feedback from my writer’s guild, based in Langley, BC. I had provided them with an excerpt of my book for a reading to the group. The overwhelming response was to keep my style, for when I wrote the book, that was my style, and I was Brain Injured.

I have used a number of memory recovery methods. One of those methods is repetition, and so any repetition found in this book was done on purpose. This repetition flows out of me naturally, and it left me a-figuring that if it helped me to organize, it could help somebody else. However, this was my life to organize, and although there are numbers of other ways you could choose to organize, this is mine. I sincerely tried to keep all the repetition I speak of in the book; however, I did have to do a first edit of my book using a friend as the editor. Although she tried to sympathize with my cause, in the end she had to obey the grammar rules of writing. Therefore, I obeyed those darn rules all of the time—or did I? You be the judge, remembering there was quite a