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Introduction
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Imagine waking up not knowing where you are or even what day, date or time it is even though there's a big clock on the wall but no matter how hard I try I can't get any of it to focus as one clock. I couldn't shake my head left to right because I was still wearing my neckbrace and my eyes weren't yet easily moving from left to right from being "asleep" for so long. I guess tunnel vision is the best way to explain what my scope of vision was able to see. My hands weren't mobile and full of dexterity to the point that if I had to scratch my head someone else would have to do it for me. In other words I was "living" in the confinements of my injured body as my prison. I couldn't run, hide or imagine that none of what I was experiencing was not real. I had no gross motor skills or fine motor skills. A "general" idea of my physical status was a "sweet" combination of disuse atrophy along with other complications that came with fractured and dislocated C5, C6, C7, T1 vertebrae, closed head TBI, Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI), and about 1 month of a coma measured at the Glascow level of 3 (the lowest possible level) to name the most "major" injuries. Needless to say, that aside from Life Star almost placing me in a body bag at injury site and being already in a coma upon arrival at the hospital ER the surgeon didn't perform any surgery on me for 5 days... Ultimately, the surgeon gave my family two possibilities: dead or at best a vegetable...This "gift" (my injury) occurred Feb 11th 2007. I'm in my 3rd year now and the number one question that many asked isn't who, what, when, where, or how but it is actually "Why?" Why do I do the things I do? My response to the question is fairly simple. I don't do it to please a particular person. I don't do it to prove the "nay-sayers" wrong. I don't do it for fame and fortune. I simply do it for the love in "hope." The fact that i was breathing on my own accord was enough of a reason to be thankful and have utmost gratitude. I don't deserve the opportunity to be here sharing my life with you, but I was fortunate enough to be allowed to enjoy the "gift" of a new day, hour, minute, and second. That's what I mean when I "say" how many of us want to be at the top? How many of us want to be at the bottom? However, I've been fortunate enough to experience both. To me all my injury entails is that of the natural pattern/occurrence of life. Physically our body naturally depreciates with age but our mind and soul appreciate to become our best managed life asset. There is a beginning/start and logically the finish/end is the outcome/result, but in the part that truly matters with value is the "Getting There..." Our "Getting There..." is our effort and that is "The story within the life becoming the life within the story."
www.getting-therebook.com
Getting There...
I'm M.D. Birmingham and to be honest I haven't been able to do much leisure reading since Feb 11th, 2007. The year of 2007 after awakening (emerging & merging) from my 63 day non-responsive coma reading wasn't an ability that I was easily capable to do. It's not because I couldn't read and comprehend (as with illiteracy), or my earlier stages of hand dexterity deficits (no gross motor skills). It wasn't because of shortened attention span due to stimuli overload; it was my double vision (best generally explained as a side effect from my coma and injury nature of DAI). Whether it was a large magazine page or typically sized book, whenever I looked at the words on the page it was like staring at a “wordsearch.” All the letters were jumbled on the page and it took much consistent effort to retrain my vision to follow the page line by line; along with my mind. Aside from books and pages with writing, typical exit signs and labels with writing (on doors, etc) that I encountered in my "world" (inpatient hospitalized stay) were seen either as a “wordsearch” or double. The double vision caused the same object to appear as you would see if you were to cross your eyes while reading this. One set of the writing is slightly off to the other side (left or right) and a bit lower than its "twin." I did overcome this challenge through the help of time and creating my own strategies to no longer see double but only one object (like 1year olds or younger, vision tests were obviously not possible). Needless to say, that was only one challenge I overcame to write my own autobiography titled Getting There... and yes I did type it entirely prior to submitting as a galley; along with this whole message.
During the final days to my book’s “being” before becoming "live" to the public I made the website www.getting-therebook.com which contains links to the web address (photos, etc) mentioned in the book. You are welcome to follow my trail of "crumbs" that will lead you to both desire more and satiation.
Needles to say monetary gain obviously isn't my motive for I have enough physical challenges to still defeat.
"Your" day begins when you have humility for time and acceptance of other humans!”
M.D. Birmingham