I have virtually nothing to post about today. Background info, anyone? H’s poop stories? I gotta tell ya’ the poop stories wear a little thin with me pretty quick, depending on what’s been going on in that department. Sometimes I feel like I am bursting at the seams with valuable information about all things BM. And, hey, deep down inside I just KNOW I must share and keep you, my dear reader informed. But, really. After a while, isn’t it just a crutch? Yes? That’s what I thought, too.

Thankfully, (for you), H is a bit constipated right now. Too much info? Oh well.

How ’bout my situation. You may or may not remember when I first started posting me mentioning that I don’t drive. The reason for this is that I’m partially blind. Actually, half blind. Literally. Now you are thinking that I am blind in one eye because that is the obvious thing to think. But I’m not. I am exactly half blind in each eye. Weird, huh? It is due to a brain injury I had when I was two weeks shy of 15 years old. I was in a car accident while a friend of my cousin’s was driving my little boyfriend and me to a nearby town to go to Sonic. At least that might be the story, as is typical with brain injuries I don’t remember anything about what was happening that night or anytime around there, before or after, for a good while. Apparently he was going very fast and neglected to turn with the road, when he ran up in someones yard and hit a tree. I was reportedly turned around backwards talking to my boyfriend who I had stuck in the backseat. I hit my head against the window, windshield… something and had neurosurgery to remove an “acute subdural hematoma” in Lafayette-stinking-Louisiana. Now, I don’t want anyone living in Louisiana to be offended because of my feelings toward it. The fact is that in the body of the state of Louisiana we lived pretty much in the armpit. Or maybe somewhere between the asshole and balls, take your pick. It was an incredibly tiny little town called Vidrine, just outside of Ville Platte. There were a few very nice people there, but the majority of the population made hillbillies look cosmopolitan.

Anyway, putting aside all my feelings for the Neanderthals that lived there….Oops. I digress. Again.

OK, back on track. I got shipped to Lafayette via ambulance and a super smart guy dressed as a neurosurgeon saved my life in short order.(Yes, brain surgeon. Think Jethro Bodine‘s wannabe occupation.) There are all kinds of dramatic things to say about the whole affair. My heart stopped a few times on the way there in the ambulance. Yes, paddles, “CLEAR!”. All that . I was paralyzed on my right side for a while afterwards and had to learn to walk, feed myself, brush teeth, write, control the weird muscle spasms that seemed to be working my body for me. Oh! and control my bladder. I wet the bed a few times after I got home before I regained the use of my right side, which was a long, painstaking process.

The emotional problems that just almost go hand in hand with head trauma were particularly hard for me to handle. I’m not saying harder than they were for anyone else who’s ever had a head injury, but it was, the hardest part of my experience. Well, that and being a bald 15 year old girl was particularly hard. Ya know they shave your head when they do that crap. Not a good look when your extremely skinny anyway. Can you say, “concentration camp prisoner”? That’s what I looked like.

My memory has never fully recovered, although I am able to get by without anyone noticing too much with the aid of lists, lists, lists of the things I need to remember.

But, without a doubt, the single hardest remaining thing that hangs over my head and will never let me forget about that part of my life is my vision loss. The injury wasn’t to my eyes, it was to my optic nerves so you can’t look at me and see that I’m partially blind.

And here is where my report, thesis, docudrama, long-ass boring…post was left after WordPress deleted at least 2/3 of it.

Now. As I was saying… AGAIN. There is an optic nerve going from the right side of both your eyes to the left side of your brain and one going from the left side of both your eyes to the right side of your brain. Well, the swelling on the right side of my brain, (where they went in and removed the hematoma), caused damage to that optic nerve. And, as we all learned in biology class, nerves don’t regenerate. So, the really bizarre outcome is that from the middle of both eyes to the left, all the way, I have no vision. So in order to see something on my left I have to look directly at it. Well, actually, I have to look at the left side of it to get the entire thing in my view. It is a very precise thing. If I focus on the head of a pin I only see half of it. There is no leeway.

This whole fiasco happened in April of 1978. 30 years ago. That is so incredibly hard for me to believe. And after 30 years you would think that I would have stopped running into things and stumping my toes on door facings. Yeah, well you’d be wrong. God knows that I would certainly think that I should have by now. All the toes on my left foot have been broken, usually one at a time. Several of them more than once. My left shin is all dented up and has a good many scars. Yes. Dented. I mean not huge dents, but, in good light, in the summer, (when I’ve shaved), you can see little dents up and down that shin under the skin. I must have incredibility strong bones, cause I’ve never broken anything but my toes. (Knocking on wood right now…)

I had my license for years before I gave up driving. I was a fairly unsuccessful driver and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. I haven’t had it for about 20 years now and I DO miss it tremendously. Cabin fever can run high around here. There are times that I would just love to be able to get up and walk out and go somewhere. Just me. By myself. And take all the time I want and do what I want. I so took that for granted.

I think the very hardest part of all this was raising two little girls and not being able to do the regular mommy stuff with them that all moms do without getting somebody else to haul us around. I could never just pick up and take us to the park or shopping or anywhere unless we were asked to go by someone else. I have cried many, many tears about that. Wrangling rides for them to go to…things, was an occupation in itself.

It’s amazing to me that there is no peripheral vision test at the DMV. Apparently they don’t think it’s important. HA! Shows what they know.

I love shopping with John cause I just put him on my left and we hold hands. I don’t have to be super aware of my surroundings, watching out for displays and people. My friends never want to hold my hand when we go shopping. *sigh*. I gotta get a better group of friends.

I just clicked “save” and it did! It didn’t erase! It doesn’t hate me today! YES! WordPress now validates my existence. This can’t be a good thing.