My story

THE SOUND OF ICE AND IMPACT: TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY AS I KNOW IT

A Survivor’s Collective Memoir Written by Jeffrey William Jones


It is said that art imitates life, and perhaps sometimes vise-versa. If I look at the wisdom

of the ages found in Vitruvius’s De Architectura, on the theater, 27 B.C. I find just this.

Vitruvius said: There are three kinds of scenes, one called the tragic, second the comic,

third the satiric. Their decorations are different and unalike each other in scheme. Tragic scenes

are delineated with columns, pediments, statues, and other objects suited to kings; in my life such

scenes are found in the hospitals, the royalty being the medical staff, especially the doctors.

Comic scenes exhibit private dwellings with balconies and views representing rows of windows,

after the manner of ordinary dwellings; such as those of life at home and with family. Satiric

scenes are decorated with trees, caverns, mountains, and other rustic objects delineated in

landscape style. This scene is exhibited in the trip to Visit my grandparents and other family

members leading up to and including the car accident that revealed my destined path in life.

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they

were.(Dwight D. Eisenhower) What does one understand about that event, that event which was

the descent? The ghosts of our future are unpredictable. Never are they ours to control. Hope

takes faith holding out its hand in the dark because even silence has an end; while on the other

side there is only darkness complete. At the start of my journey I came to myself in a quagmire

where all passages were consumed in that murky stuff of life. There is a great deal of evidence to

show that a sense of hope and purpose influence the immune system of the body, and that people

who have them are less likely to get ill than those with hopeless feelings about themselves such

as those who feel powerless and not in control of their lives. This story cannot begin at the end

simply because the end has not yet begun; although love and hope rendered are the inevitable

beginnings of their opposites. Abraham Lincoln once said something like:


“It’s not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years that do so.”

Given all that I have seen in my years, this is on point because it is what we do in life,

how we act; that speaks to our character. Furthermore, it is not how we handle the pleasantries

and happy times but rather the sorrows and tragedies of life that define our character as those

years go by. To pass in stagnancy is never to become, but to recognize God’s gift of life adds

wisdom to those years. There also must be passionate judgment behind our actions when faced

with life’s turning points because to blindly follow the dispensations of those who are educated

in the matters of life and death, those whom shall first do no harm, discounts that hope and

purpose with self-serving detriment.

Have you ever heard the phrase “Getting your bell rung.”? Well then, I got mine rung by

the windshield of my family’s car on Christmas Day, 1974 when I was six years old. To this day,

thirty nine years later I can still hear it evermore echoing the high pitched ringing whine of

“white noise”. I hear it in my head nonstop 24/7.

Townsend- Jeff Jones is a loveable little six year old boy making a remarkable comeback

to health at the Nashoba Community Hospital with the help of many, many wonderful people.

This story of Jeff’s began Christmas day, eight weeks ago. He and his father Bill, mother

Gini, brother James, sister Jill, and cat Sylvester had traveled up by car from their home in

Madison, Connecticut, to spend Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa May’s in West Townsend,

(Massachusetts). It was slippery traveling when the car skidded and hit a tree near the Groton

Ridges resulting in a near fatal accident.

This happened near the residence of Ed Kopec and his wife who fortunately were home

for the holiday. They acted swiftly calling the police who in turn started a long chain of people


who would play a part in saving Jeff’s life. A call went out and the wonderful local and Pepperell

EMTs responded and worked on the family until they were transported by Groton and Ayer

ambulances to the Nashoba Community Hospital. Here the emergency room crew took over, and

then came weeks of intensive care involving more unsung heroes, and heroines.

James and Jill, the younger children, were soon released to the care of their grandparents,

but Jeff was seriously injured and lay in a coma for 21 days. From the time he opened his eyes

on the 22nd day there were day to day discoveries; that he could indeed see his parents, hear his

Grandpa’s voice, and lastly could speak again! Jeff’s wonderful parents, themselves hospitalized

for ten days, have delightedly watched their determined son slowly regain use of his left side.

They aren’t the only people interested in his progress. Every single member of the hospital

family has lovingly watched first with hope, then wonder, and finally with pride at the amazing

comeback of Jeffrey Jones.

Our Jeff is quite outgoing and has made friends with many of the hospital people,

including several of the children in the pediatric ward. Meanwhile, back home in Madison, the

Kindergarten class he is missing sends him letters and pictures. His door is beautifully decorated

with thoughtful cards from many friends. This youngster has a particular love for policeman and

proudly wears a badge given to him by his uncle, Sergeant Bill May of the Townsend police

force. Therapy is now in progress to restore the use of Jeff’s left side, speech, and vision and will

continue when he and his family return to Connecticut. It will be a happy day when the Joneses

can again go home. It will be sad too for all the cheerful, helpful people who have watched such

progress to say goodbye to the miracle named Jeffrey Jones. – This was written by Sandy

Farnsworth as a story that appeared in the Thursday- February 20, 1975- edition of THE

PUBLIC SPIRIT, appearing on page 7.


Life is as meant to be. We have all heard the sayings “Life is what you make of it”, “Shit

happens” as each and every action begets its equal and opposite reaction. It is a process that is

void of emotion until experienced. Each occasion in the time-space continuum is cold and void;

as cold and void as cadaver bones implanted to enliven and add texture, as cold as a Christmas

morning in New England, and as cold & slick as that icy road taking you from the warm

experience of being to the void of existing. My Traumatic Brain Injury, I don’t really know how

to explain my experience with it because my Traumatic Brain Injury did not affect my life, rather

Traumatic Brain Injury has been my life. There are recollections of friendship and love, pain,

emptiness, sorrow and voids that are yet still unexplained. People think of cognitive deficit and

memory loss when they think of brain damage. On the contrary; I have two college degrees, a

B.A. in Politics, History and Philosophy, & an A.S. in Paralegal Studies, both acquired with high

honors at graduation. I do however have no idea what it is to live without the deafness that is a

vibrio-tactile ear the constant fuzzy, ringing, whine in it, the limp and bad equilibrium, the leg

pain and contorting, cramping muscle spasms, and the phantom-like lack of feelings that I

experience in my left arm, hand, leg, and foot caused by neurologic neglect syndrome I am told

that my TBI affected my left side’s fine and gross motor function. Once again, I couldn’t tell you

because the past tense illustrated by such terms has been my present tense since age 6.The C.A.T

scan shows my right hemisphere as mostly dead, black brain matter, and my Neurologist is

astounded at how my left hemisphere has taken over its functions for me. It has been 39 years

getting to this point, and God knows what the future holds. There is however hope, always there

is hope; and if you are in need of hope just search it out with honest effort. It is there somewhere

along the journey.


To be or not to be, our actions are the shadow of our existence. The thought of

conscientious, and not just random “shit happens” reasoning behind my action at that moment is

an inspirable, although far reaching possibility because, after all, my younger brother was in the

back seat of our yellow Ford Country Squire station wagon with me. My dad drove, and my

mom was in the front passenger side with my younger sister between them on the bench seat.

The accident report recorded by the police does not physically exist anymore. It was long ago

purged from existence. My memories and those of my family are what embody my recollections

herein.

White noise, that is the sound of ice and impact; it is my constant memory, what I am left

with regarding my family’s automobile accident that happened on December 25, 1974 in Groton,

Massachusetts. The scars on my head, signs of strength, signs of a survivor, pattern my journey.

Two shunt scars on my left side, one resembling a bullet wound above my temple, the other a

telephone pole above my ear; once provided drainage ways. The surgical scar on my right side

was cut to fold down upon my ear to grant Dr. Robert Cantu, my neuro-surgeon, access to the

mess that the windshield had left in the wake of collision are all that subsist. The subsequent

scars my head came to know, those of a boy’s childhood rough and tumble play have all faded

with time away, but not out of mind. Fore they are a part of my being, but not the most

significant; those that remain survived for a reason. The two foot scar that decorates the mid-

section of my right side is the result of an operation performed by doctors Venice and Shaywitz

which salvaged a piece of rib section that was used to recreate the right side of my skull. My

right ear, ne’er the sound of silence and missing the stapes and malleus, is vibrio-tactile, feeling

the weight of the high decibel ringing whine that inhabits it.


I often wonder if the reason that I stood up in the back seat to watch our car hit that tree

was more an action meant to keep my brother from standing up, and not just a reaction to

curiosity, but I must admit that the curiosity factor is set in my memory as the reason. Such

curiosity came from television news coverage of auto accidents in the months prior to, and into

early December of 1974. I wondered what it was like to experience the shattered, crumpled mess

that illustrated the news coverage. I suppose though, what else would a six year old little boy be

wondering?

I remember those Christmas Eves lying in bed trying to fall asleep while listening to

WELI radio tracking the worldly whereabouts of Santa Clause as he and his reindeer made their

way around the world zipping first down, then, after milk and cookies, up folks’ chimneys

bringing carrots to Rudolph and his pals and delivering the giddy Christmas spirit that every

child anticipates.

“Daddy, I just heard Santa.” I’d whisper to my dad because the insomnia caused by such

anticipation put my ears on high alert, my hearing likening to that of one of Colonel Klink’s

Stalag 13guard dogs on Hogan’s Heroes.

“Oh Jeff, it’s too early yet.” Would be my dad’s yawned, sleepy reply, so I’d clamber

into bed with my mom and dad as the clock strode to 2:30am.

“Pssst, Daddy, you know what? I heard noises on the roof, so it has to be Santa and his

reindeer. He must be here now.” (3:00am)

“Ssshhh, let’s try not to wake mom. Let’s close our eyes again and listen quietly, try to go

back to sleep.” As my brother and sister, 4 and not quite 3 years old, enter quietly; “Mommy, has

Santa come yet?” (4:00am)


“No kids, Santa has lots of houses to stop at and we must be almost last on his list

because we live in Connecticut. Come and get into bed with dad and me. Close your eyes and try

to go back to sleep. Time goes by faster that way and maybe you can imagine where Santa is

now.”

“Daddy, is it time yet? Mommy is still asleep. I’m sure Santa came already, it’s light out.

I bet he’s home eating his breakfast by now.” (6:00am)

Word up! As my brother and sister and I bound out of my parents’ now cramped king

size bed down the stairs, through the hall, and into the living room my parents wandered sleepily

behind. The tree was brightly aglow with lights and gleaming with tufts of tinsel. Soon the living

room was filled with anxious exuberance, and cheery chatter. A late breakfast and an attempted

11:00am departure for Grandma and Grandpa’s house to spend Christmas there with family was

the holiday plan. So into the station wagon went suitcases, skiing necessities, and toys, in a

strictly adhered to number for each sibling, for the three hour trip north to Massachusetts. The

Driving was slow and most likely not so very pleasant for my parents having three kids ages 6, 4,

and 3 lumped into the back seat. After a while my sister Jill, age 3, was called to the front seat to

sit between my parents in order to escape her brothers’ torments. An hour and a half or so into

the trip the rain turned to freezing rain making the driving more hazardous, but my dad calmly,

and confidently guided us in the car at 25mph. Continuance northward brought about rapid,

worsening changes in the road conditions, but we steadily continued to our destination. Exiting

the highway in Littleton, Massachusetts which is about 30 minutes east of my grandparent’s

house in good weather we followed route 119, a two-lane road, into the next town west, Groton.

The snow became heavier and there were icy patches on the road. Route 119 was rural and

winding. My brother Jim and I were asleep in the back seat and my sister Jill slept up front in my


mom’s lap as my father slowly and cautiously drove on to the family that was patiently awaiting

our arrival.

“We probably won’t make it by two o’clock.” exclaimed my mother thinking of having

Christmas Eve dinner with the family, and knowing that Grandma would keep our dinner warm

for us. Mom’s brother, my Uncle Billy, was on duty as a Townsend policeman at three o’clock

that afternoon.

Suddenly the car’s rear end went into a crazy, swerving, slide and my dad yelled out to

my mom about hitting a tree. My mom leaned down to shield my sister who was in her lap

asleep, and I awakened at the sound of my dad’s loud excited utterance to stand up in the back

seat and watch us hit the tree. Upon impact I was thrown at an angle into the windshield at the

passenger side of the car. My mom was knocked unconscious after hitting her head on the

dashboard. My dad, still conscious, had broken his right leg, and was bleeding from his forehead.

My brother and sister were comparatively alright, Jim was cut on the chin by toppling luggage,

and Jill received cuts and abrasions on her cheeks. My mom and I fell out the car’s passenger

door I on top with blood trickling from my right ear had gotten my left ankle entangled in the

steering wheel. It was broken. A couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ed Kopec came out of their house, as the

car had hit one of their front yard trees, and told my dad that the fire department had been called

and was en route. As it turned out, Mrs. Kopec was a nurse. My brother and sister, both

conscious, were crying because our black cat, Sylvester, had high-tailed it under the car and

neither could find him. Mr. Kopec found Sylvester much to my sibling’s comfort, and took them,

and the cat, into their house.


The first ambulance arrived, and my dad asked the EMTs to take me first because of my

injuries. I was resuscitated five times that morning and given last rights twice that day. The

second ambulance arrived and took my mom to the hospital, and then two men in a pickup truck

arrived to extract my dad and load him into the truck’s bed for the ride to the hospital. The first

responding police officer to arrive was Sergeant James Downes of the Groton, Ma. police

department. My Uncle Billy also a Sergeant, but with the Townsend, Ma. police department was

at my grandparent’s house with other family members awaiting our arrival when Sgt. Downes’

radio transmission regarding our accident went out. Uncle Billy asked for victim identification,

and the name Jones was the response he received. My Uncle Billy then took my grandparents to

the hospital to wait, and responded as backup. The police took Jim and Jill to the hospital after

my dad was taken. This is a time when the tally-keepers of purgatory, its clerks and jailers, listen

to the living who are praying.

The old ways are still the wise ones. However, Shakespeare was wrong. It is not the worms but rather the

flies and beetles which feast upon our flesh after we are laid to rest. Following a death, you eat and drink and

remember the good things and try to laugh again. Grief profits no one, least of all the departed, who are quit of it

forever. You are hurting, eh? It is said that the hardest part of the sentence is when they shove you out onto the

street again. Your loved one has been released; you have still to accept the manumission. You will make a new life

with a new day; not tomorrow, or next week perhaps, but you shall begin soon, when you are ready.

In the hospitals, it wasn’t the festivities that made for such delightful times. There existed

such affection between everybody. You loved your friends and wanted to see them every day,

and usually this was an everyday occurrence. It was like a grand midway, and everybody was so

fresh.

My family and I were taken to Nashoba Valley Hospital in Ayer, Massachusetts. I was

operated on by Dr. Cantu, the neuro-surgeon; who removed large blood clots from my brain. I

was unconscious, in the care of God, Dr. Cantu, and Dr. Staub, the Pediatrician. I was hurt badly,


felled, dazed, silent, knocked full length. Coma is a vacant possession, a place of greater safety

giving up the ghost. Dr. Cantu had seen similar injuries that had been overcome and this bit of

information made my dad feel a little more at ease. Bruins player “Terrible Ted” Green suffered

a head injury after being slashed in the head by Wayne Maki of the Saint Louis Blues in an

Ottawa exhibition game in 1969. Teddy returned to the Bruins for the ’70-’71 season, and

savored the Bruins ’72 Stanley Cup victory.

Although Dr. Staub gave my parents very little hope for my life, he was very pessimistic

about my recovery, telling my mom and dad that he expected me to die but also that he would do

anything that he could for me. However, if I did live I would suffer lifelong with seizures and be

taking seizure medications for the rest of my life. Dr. Staub felt uncomfortable with my parent’s

current situation, and was a believer that if I did survive my parents should institutionalize me.

Monson State Hospital, The Belchertown State School For The Feeble-Minded, The Templeton

Farm Colony, (Currently...The Templeton Developmental Center) These places were all

possibilities, Belchertown and Monson being the most likely because the Templeton Farm

Colony was for those more able bodied. Such places were nothing but asylums with

diplomatically conceived, beaurocratic names which purposely were bestowed to hide their

truths. These abysses of humanity harbored abuse, wanton neglect, and horrid living conditions

that were sadly ignored by society. An asylum is an asylum, is an asylum, and Federal District

Judge Joseph L. Tauro, on surprise visit to the school cited it as being nothing more than a

warehouse for humans. It is an awkward feeling how when you can tell that people are lying to

you. Not really lying, that's not what I mean I guess; but rather planting that notion of hope so

that possibly you can lie to yourself. Doctors are particularly adept at that because it is hope they

dismiss as an odd probability. Perhaps it is this aspect of their demeanor itself that gives


Survivors and their families that nudge of determination that says the odds of probability are

worth chancing simply just because; because a doctor's medically insightful opinion is not the

gospel word in the matter of life and death.. I was in intensive care under constant watch in a

quiet comatose state. The first four days were critical because with the type of injury I had the

swelling on the brain was at its worst on the fourth day. What remains longest discerned? The

panic of engaging the tremendous need to dress the wounds inflicted or the knowledge that the

dressings may become empty voidable errands of the psyche?

On the twenty second day of my coma I woke up. The nurses transpired to give me a

much needed bath, and it was during that bath that I spoke my first words… “Get me outta

here!!!!!” I must say that my family’s ties are close and run deep, and I’ll bet it all amazed Dr.

Staub at that.

Family, mine is special. Holding on to the notion that life should be more than what had

happened to us that ill-fated day because there could be more. Definition is not an event that

becomes stagnant. It is rather a developing process that is driven by love. My dad oversaw my

physical therapy, now I can function. My mom was my mom, and who could ask for more.

Together they kept me as a functional member of society. My younger brother and sister, what

they must have endured because of my ugly reputation as an “untouchable” in our town; never

did they share one ugly word with me. What Dr. Staub was mistaken about is that nobody had to

do anything. It is just the way that my parents see things that he did not understand. Hope was

for him an outside oddity easily folded upon because it is in the outer limits of medical science

instead of an inside straight to be trusted in the way that love allows strength to hold together

those ties that bind.


Nashoba was a special place for me, still is. I have lots of fond memories from my time

there. The only bad memories are of the taste of phenobarbital. BLUCH! I can still taste it to this

day because I couldn’t swallow pills at that time, I had to chew them. Nothing masked the bitter

taste. Also were those big syringed needles that the phlebotomists used to draw your blood in the

early morning after they tied the big rubber band around your arm. When I came out of coma I

weighed only 40 pounds. I needed to gain some weight so my grandparents started bringing me

Kit Kat bars when they came to visit, which was daily. Molly Breen was the woman who

volunteered at the information desk, at the hospital’s front entrance. She was a sweet lady with

snow white curly hair, and also one who knew about me and my needing to gain weight. Molly

brought me powdered sugar jelly donuts, two each morning, and after I had enjoyed those messy

delights the nurses would have to come in and change my sheets because of the powdered sugar

& jelly mess the donuts left behind. Molly also gave me a teddy bear she had gotten from the gift

shop. This teddy bear though was outfitted in a blue hand knit stocking cap and sweater each

bearing my name, “JEFF” in pink yarn. I still have this teddy bear. He sits in my room with good

thoughts. Ah the nurses, loving caring angels, one and all. Barbara May, (no relation), was a

candy striper, the 70’s equivalent of a student nurse-CNA, I later would attend her wedding. She

was the person who made my bed daily after I finished Molly’s treats. The ward nurses were

Joanne, Nancy Angus, and Patty, whom I lovingly called “Patty Pancake”. Years later, I learned

that Nancy Angus had named her first born son Jeffrey William (Angus) after me; this made me

feel proud and honored. My Uncle Billy, a Townsend police Sargent, would visit and lots of

times bring neat stuff for me, a policeman’s badge, uniform patches, and always his bright

smiling face. Once he brought a friend of his, Earl Hinkle who was a U.S. Army Sergeant

stationed at Fort Devens also located in Ayer, Massachusetts. Uncle Billy and Sergeant Hinkle


came into my room. Sergeant Hinkle was in his dress uniform and had brought me army patches,

an army Sergeant’s stripes, an armored division insignia, and a 101st Airborne Division

“Screaming Eagles” insignia. My Uncle Billy was wearing his blue police issue winter jacket

with his badge sparkling in the light. That visit was a real surprise treat for me.

Lastly I remember another little boy who was quite a bit younger than I, about two or

three years old, also named Jeffrey. I would see him in the arms of a woman who I thought to be

his mother sitting in the hall outside of his hospital room. His name was Jeffrey, and he also had

sutures in his head, not as many as I had, but still sutures none the less. I asked the woman what

had happened to this little boy, Jeffrey, and she told me that he had fallen out of his high chair.

This is how I understood him to be until one day years later my grandma had told me that this

little boy, Jeffrey, lived a short distance away and was severely beaten by his parents. My

meeting him in the hospital not being the first time Jeffrey had encountered harm to his person;

that was the reason he was hospitalized. What do kids know about domestic violence? Innocence

is enrapt in trust, it knows no hatred.

We all went home as a family to Connecticut in March of 1975. Soon thereafter though,

less than a week’s time, I was to be taken to another hospital for another surgery. This hospital

was in Newington, Connecticut which by car was about an hour and fifteen minutes northwest of

Madison. I remember arriving home in March of ‘75 and walking with my mom dad and my

grandparents through the kitchen and into the living room. After entering the living room, off to

the left, there are sliding paned glass doors that lead into what my parents called the sun room

because of the amount of sun it received during the day. Well, here stood the Christmas tree,

needles upon the floor, and under it was an awesome present for me. The present was a Guns of

Naverone battle set for my toy soldiers!


The hospital was named Newington Children’s Hospital, and I was a patient there for

some five weeks; after which I remained an out-patient for the purposes of physical and

occupational therapy. Even though the car ride was only 75 minutes, it seemed like it was a

forever trip each and every time. The operation that I was going to have was to remove the plate

that Dr. Cantu had put in my head to replace the skull bone section that was removed because of

fracture. The plate had to be removed because of staff infection. It had protruded from my head a

bit and if I plucked it I could feel and hear a sound in my. Thus it became my favorite instrument

and became infected. The doctor who was to perform the operation was an Iraqi neuro-surgeon

named Gham. Newington, Newington Children’s Hospital was a place of many experiences as

far as hospitals go. I broke rules and raised a lot of hairs on the back of hospital staff’s necks. Oh

yeah, I met a lot of other people too.

Newington Children’s Hospital had a lobby that was chock full of stuffed animals, two of

which stand out in my mind. First and foremost there was a giant, grey eight foot stuffed mouse

who towered in and dwarfed the lobby and all that was in it. This mouse made “Big Mousey”, a

stuffed mouse my younger brother had, seem in stature to be an action figure. “Big Mousey” was

a mere two feet or so from the tip of his ears to the bottoms of his feet. Second in mind and

stature was a six foot Snoopy dog. That mouse though was a fascination of mine. Little did I

know that I would encounter each of these prehistoric sized wonders during my interlude. After

my operation to remove the infected plate I was left with a missing section of my skull, a stitched

up opening so for about a year or so afterwards I wore a blue Buffalo Sabre’s hockey helmet to

protect my brain. It is at this time that I remember the PTA, (Pain, Torture, & Agony) of physical

therapy. The in house therapy sessions were comparatively tame, frustrating but tame.

Newington allowed me to go home on weekends where my dad was head physical therapist.


Evenings were spent on left side awareness, finger-thumb dexterity exercises, calf-raises, and

weighted hip stretching. At the hospital physical therapy consisted of parallel bars for walking,

exercise balls for mobility and stretching, and a bio-feedback for left foot awareness. The at

home physical therapy would become a nightly activity. Nightly because my dad worked as a

Patent Attorney, and after speaking to my kindergarten teacher and the Cops Road School

Principal, I was able to return to school via some placement testing.

Newington is a place for which I remember more my fellow patients than my doctors and

nurses, with the exception of one single nurse; Mrs. Sommers. She bore a resemblance, quite

closely I might add, to the character of Ms. Gulch from The Wizzard of Oz. Mrs. Sommers was

to me what Aunt Esther was to Fred G. Sanford. The Devil in a blue dress come to pain my day!

She really wore a blue dress too!!! In those days nurses wore dresses not scrubs like they do

nowadays. Mrs. Sommers must have been near retirement because she appeared to be as old as

the Crypt Keeper, and she had the manner to match. Beside an enchanted lobby the hospital

included a swimming pool and classrooms for the in-patient children being treated there.

When I first came to Newington I shared a big room with two other boys, and once in a

while, a fourth person who was a passerby. My two constant roommates were named Gary Hyde,

and Gregory Van Horne. Both boys were at Newington previous to my arrival, and remained at

Newington after my departure. Gregory was in a car accident with a head injury similar to mine.

Similar only in that Gregory hit his head on the windshield during his accident. Dis-similar in

that Gregory hit his head on the left side, I on my right. The left brain is in charge of the right

side of the body as well as logical, contemplative, analytical, practical, rational, strategically

controlling, scientific, and realistic cognitive functions. The right side of the brain, on the other

hand, is in charge of the left side of the body as well as intuition, love, creativity, predilection,


expression, passivity, and aesthetic emotional functions. Gregory was bed ridden, nonverbal, and

like me, physically compromised on one side of the body. My other compadre was a boy named

Gary Hyde. Gary was bed bound because he was in a chin to feet body cast because he was hit

by a big-rig trailer truck. Gary was verbal, and had use of his hands. The layout of our room was

as such: Gary and I were directly across from one another, and Gregory was next to Gary and

kitty-corner to the left of the foot of my bed. The entranceway to the room was kitty-corner to

the right of the foot of my bed, and the bathroom was kitty-corner to the left of the entranceway

if one was leaving the room; kitty-corner to the right if one was entering. The fourth bed, that

which was sometimes occupied by a passerby was directly to the left of my bed; and there were

windows at the far end of the room opposite the entranceway. Hanging from the ceiling was a

color television. Problem was it was one color television with a double screen. Usually there was

no programming dispute between Gary and me, but lan-sakes; come Sunday night at 7:00pm

after Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom hosted by Marlin Perkins, the clickers got busy. I

wanted to watch The Wonderful World of Disney, while Mr. Hyde ‘cross the way was dead set

on watching The Sonny and Cher Show! If I could have put our clicker wars to music I would

have appropriately chosen Flat & Skrugs’ “Dueling Banjos”. Hell, I mean the outhouse was just

‘cross the way! It was a good thing that Mrs. Sommers did not work nights or we’d of had a

Granny Clampet giving us what for.

Sometimes, just to break up the monotony, Gregory, Gary, and I would play a game

called “Who Likes”. The game was simple, and went as follows…. Either Gary or I would ask

the question who likes, usually we would pick on veggies or cruel looking medical devices,

followed by “raise your hand/foot”. Then Gregory and I would raise the good respective

appendage, and Gary would yell out “Raised!” One time when we were deciding the fates of the


odd and curious, I asked “Who does not like peas?” followed by “Raise your hand.” Well, I

raised my right hand and Gary yelled out “Raised!” Gregory then gets a comedic streak in him,

and raises his left foot! Well I mean to tell you, Gregory started to laugh like Arnold Horschak

from Welcome Back Kotter. Gary had never heard this noise before, and asked me what was

going on. I told him that Gregory had raised his left foot to peas and started laughing. It turned

out that this was the first recognizable, audibly vocal noise Gregory had made since his arrival at

Newington Children’s Hospital and it showed an intended attempt to be humorous on top of it

all. This was awesome indeed! Six months after I was discharged from Newington Children’s

Hospital my dad took me back to visit, heck it might have even been a follow up neurology

appointment with Dr. Gahm. Whether or not that was the case, I went to drop in on the pediatric

unit to visit. When I came around the corner from the elevator the nurses were both surprised and

happy to see me. I asked about Gregory and Gary, and was told that Gary had been discharged

sometime between the time I had gone home and this visit. The nurses also told me that they had

a hush-hush secret for Gregory. He was going home that day! That news made me weep deep

down within when I heard it.

Before my operation to remove the infected plate in my head took place, and I was still in

the big room with Gregory and Gary I had committed my first B&E, and thefts. From the

entranceway of our room and to the right down the hall, then turning left and venturing to the

third room on the right was the private room of Christopher. Christopher was a boy of about my

age, 7, who had been hit by a car while riding his bike. Well, Christopher had a huge fish tank in

his room on the window sill next to his bed. One afternoon when it was really quiet, and

Christopher was out of his room, as were Gregory and Gary too; I slipped into my wheelchair

and wheeled to Christopher’s room to look at his fish. Well as I sat and stared the idea of having


a fish of my own evolved itself in my thoughts, and I reached into the fish tank snatching a fish

for myself. Having my fish I returned to my room as quick as I could and filled the bathroom

sink with warm water for the fish. After putting the fish in the sink water I decided that this fish

needed to have food, so I ventured back out into the hall that was a straight shot from my room’s

entranceway to the nurse’s station. About a hundred feet down that hall from my room, on the

right hand side was a utility room where the nurses kept the snack cart. It was stocked with Juice

and Saltine crackers, or in my mind; fish food! I snuck to the cart and quickly grabbed some

Saltines for my fish. When I got back to my room I went about crumbling the Saltines into fish

food. All of a sudden “Jeffrey” a woman’s voice called out. Yikes! I thought, that was the voice

of the nurse of whom I was one of her charges today. Before I could even answer I pulled the

drain plug in the sink releasing the water down the drain, while saying goodbye to my newly

acquired friend. Later on I found out that Christopher had counted all of his fish because my

nurse had found the fish in my bathroom sink as it had not made the drain run successfully.

Busted big time! I lost my wheelchair privileges for a week, as was the usual penalty I received

whenever I broke some such rule or another. Such were the times as when, after practicing

wheelies in my wheel chair post neuro-surgery, I flipped backwards smacking the back of my

head on the hard tile floor with a loud, echoing WHALLOP!!! Gosh, did those nurses come a

running to investigate the noise. I also was penalized that week when I did my no walker,

freestyle, hall walking with the nurses. While under such house arrest the nurses walked me up

and down the halls using a body harness instead of a regular gait belt. The body harness was also

used in place of a regular gait belt when I used my walker, but it was particularly restraining and

uncomfortable walking freestyle.


Shortly after my fishing fiasco I was scheduled for the neuro-surgery to remove the

infected plate in my head, the same surgery that preceded my wheelie debacle. For the first

twenty four hours after my surgery my bed was brought out in front of the nurses’ station so that

a close eye could be kept on me. While I was posted there my dad came to visit me. My best

friend’s dad, George Rollinson had driven him up. He was on crutches because he had had the

meniscus cartilage in his left knee repaired. I was quite bored so before he left to go home he

gave me the rubber arm-pit pads from one of his crutches to occupy my time with. I must say

that one could not imagine the stuff that could be done with a rubber crutch pad. Like say using it

to play dodge ball, (pad), with; and that is exactly what happened. After my dad left with George

Rollinson and I was left to my own amusements, a boy who was ambulatory, and who’s name I

cannot recall, but whom I knew from the pediatric ward, happened along for a visit with me.

Well, visiting became bopping each other with the pad, which then became a game of catch, and

then ultimately turned into a rather sporting game of dodge pad, (ball). Here I am sitting up in

my bed in front of the nurses’ station, head post surgically bandaged in gauze throwing and

being thrown at, hit with this crutch pad. Something had to happen right? It did. By this point in

time with our shenanigans my cohort was using the nurse’s station as cover as the nurses were

making rounds or answering call buttons. Sitting there in my bed I wound up for a bull’s eye

throw, and released. Whoops, a misdirected direct hit!!! The glass narcotics cabinet to the back

of the station desk shattered with that sound of breaking glass, but that was not the only sound to

startle a soul. The cabinet was rigged with an alarm, and upon impact that alarm screamed of an

intrusion upon narcotic drugs. What exactly happened after that is a blur, and most likely for

good reason. I do however know that I was not returned to the room I shared with Gregory and

Gary. I was put in a room, private as I recall, near the nurses’ station.


The morning after came about with a colossal surprise, pleasant indeed! It seems that

during the night some of the nursing staff went to the lobby and brought up that gargantuan

mouse so that when I awoke that next morning I found that I had a delightfully strange

bedfellow. Somehow the nurses had propped that mouse in my bed with me! I also remember

snoopy ending up in my room as if he’d been a wander-lust, and using a doctor’s rubber reflex

hammer on his legs when rounds were made. Those stuffed animal experiences were a part of the

good, and unfortunately where there is good there is also bad.

My vampire-like nemeses, the phlebotomists managed to faithfully bring the bad into my

life in the form of a needle during the wee-wee hours of each morning with the exception of one

particular morning when the needle did not stay in my vein for an extended amount of time. Heh!

Not much to be had today! Little did I know that a following of nurses and other medical staff

would return later that morning with their wrath of vengeance bent on extricating more of my

body’s vital fluid. Upon the entourage’s leader it was explained to me that the powers to be were

not satisfied with the amount of blood taken from me earlier, and that there was to be another

attempt made to make a satisfactory withdrawal. Hearing this I voiced my displeasure in their

request by flat out refusing to surrender myself to their whim. At that point one would have

thought that the S.W.A.T team had breached my room because I was swept up onto a gurney and

whisked down the hall into a triage room where I was promptly put onto another gurney

complete with wrist and ankle restraints. While being strapped down, my heart was in my throat

and my thoughts were racing with confusion. When I saw the big elastic bands being brought out

and then being tied around my wrists, panic furiously set into my being. Even though I was

restrained at the wrists and ankles by leather straps, I began to resist with whatever flail I could

muster. My resistance only brought on greater restraint in the form of more staff to pin my


hands, elbows, feet, and knees down to the gurney; and as I cried in fearful pain the needles went

into my wrists to make their withdrawals. It was times like this when even though surrounded by

people, I felt excruciatingly alone. The moment of having no control over a situation and lacking

explanation digs a pit in your stomach way down deep where your mind goes to hide from the

blind free-fall feeling that spirals into a dizzy, sick experience whipping your heart up into your

throat while panicked angst with the pure fear of fear itself. The first time I went into surgery had

not such cower and helpless uncertainty.

After that hospital noir experience life at Newington returned to a nonchalant status quo;

going to the school room, going to therapy, home on the weekend, etc. Being in the room by the

nurses’ station for a while presented a different experience, a quieter time. Mom and dad would

come to visit, sometimes with my grandma and grandpa; and I would see Jimmy and Jill on the

weekends when my dad would come to pick me up. This was also the point in my life when I

started to realize just how much I hated to see Sunday end and Monday being advanced upon the

morrow. I went from fresh air and the comforts of home back to the drab, stale, antiseptic

atmosphere of the Pediatric Unit.; back to the business of my childhood. The laughs and the fun

with seasons in the sun remained a memory for the future, on hold indefinitely. Anyway, back to

those quieter times. One of the people I met was a boy named Angelo. Angelo came to visit me

from his room down the hall quite often. Always dressed in loose fitting, green scrubs from head

to toe to protect his burned body, Angelo was greatly appreciated company. He would come to

watch television, or to play a board game. Often he was with me when my parents would visit,

hospitals are lonesome places and Angelo was unto himself the lone survivor of his family

whose members were taken by a house fire. Most of his body was badly burned, thus the green

scrubs and masked face, an I.V. pole on wheels showed a line to his arm through which bagged


liquid ran; his staff of life sometimes ridden up and down the hall like a scooter. Angelo was

speechless because of what the smoke and fire had done to his lungs and vocal cords, and his

eyes were shaded in by the mask that he wore. We did not have to speak because just spending

time together spoke volumes, and to peer into the shaded opening of his mask one could feel

what his eyes could not reveal. The lonesomeness had lifted. There was also a boy named Peter

who came to visit, although less often than Angelo, from his room down the hall. Peter was in

the hospital because he had kidney problems and I remember when he would visit he would

often briskly leave the room and return. I did not know at the time but he did so because he had

to urinate quite often due to his kidney problem. It was also at the hands, or rather the mouth of

Peter that the “Stretch Armstrong” my parents had brought me met his demise. I never

understood why he bit it. Texture I suppose.

My final adventure at Newington Hospital was a real cake taker. It was born of boredom

as most all accidental odysseys are, and created the hub-bub of worry as I was AWOL purposely

coincidental by design of course. As it happened I was bored, and I decided to go out and about.

Anywhere that was not the pediatric ward was fine with me, so finding the opportunity; off I

went to the elevator. The day being one of the weekends, not much was going on so when I

entered the elevator I went down a few floors simply because I did not know what lied above. I

did however know that on the fifth floor was where the school rooms were located. The patient

transporters were a wealth of knowledge. They would bring my on excursions en route, and

show me things; like how to do wheelies in my wheelchair and make sure I knew where I was in

the hospital after transit. I decided to see what it was like in the schoolrooms on the weekend.

Abracadabra! Here I was on the fifth floor, having descended three floors, being pokey in the

halls. I checked out the classroom where I attended school and it was empty as a bank on


Sunday. Leaving my schoolroom I wheeled further down the hall and started to hear things,

voices, so I advanced myself to investigate and came upon a dark room where a film was

playing. The room was dark except for the light of the projector, and as I peered into it I could

see only shadowy forms. The room was filled with bed bound patients. I could make out pigtails

and raised heads with propped pillows, the projector and staff. So many beds with heads

silhouetted in the projector’s light. After a bit I decided that I had better scoot out of there before

I got caught so turning to retreat back to the elevators, I wheeled back. At the end of the hall and

rounding the corner hospital security busted me. I was read the riot act in a very angry, loud

voice and returned to the pediatric ward directly. I hated the next week’s ambulation exercises!

When I left Newington I had no skull bone on my right side above my ear and expanding

fore and aft. A blue Buffalo Sabre’s cageless, hockey helmet protected my brain as I re-entered

kindergarten. When I re-entered the public school system I became an untouchable in the peer

caste system and to many folks in the community. What was this going to do to me? Because I

have been rejected by it, let me consider it coldly and watch as it contemplates my being further.

We, queer as folk, should let our hearts feel the afflictions of others so that we would better be

able to comprehend our own stake in life. Riding the school bus was not a pleasant experience, I

was taunted and teased. I was viewed as a damaged, unwanted oddity. I even hated venturing to

my bus stop, down my street and across the road. My mom would watch every morning feeling

helpless from our living room window as I departed the house after watching David Hartman and

Joan Lunden co-host Good Morning America with Spencer Christian. All bets were off once I

left the house for the bus stop. My mom used to hesitantly watch my daily trek from the living

room window hoping for my arrival to be a neutral dynamic. Kindergarten wore on into first

grade and I was admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital for skull reconstructive surgery. After


Doctors Venice and Shaywitz Harvested and implanted the rib from my right side into my skull

my recovery time at Yale New Haven Hospital was quiet and uneventful. The real work started

at home with my dad and his nightly physical therapy boot camp. Those evenings were a painful

time. The hip stretching, lying on the poker table with weights around my ankles one knee drawn

up to my chest while the other leg hung off the table; thirty minutes each leg. Toe raises and

random movements with my hands arms and feet to work the muscles and stimulate the nerve

passages that lead to my brain. My dad even hired an aqua therapist to work with me in a single

depth Olympic size pool. To practice my walking in the pool meant that I would experience the

weightless effect of water making it easier for me to move my legs. I also practiced some

swimming for muscle movement. This routine continued through my first grade year. By this

time I was seeing Dr. Eji Yanakasawa, an ear nose and throat specialist, for my hearing loss and

middle ear damage. I recall lots of time spent in sound proof hearing test booths listening for

beeps set at different frequencies alone and mixed with white noise, and repeating words much

the same way. It was also at this time that my dad and Doctor Yanakasawa decided that it would

be best to attempt to restore my hearing and my sense of equilibrium by using cadaver bones to

replace my smashed stapes and malleus bones in my right middle ear. There were three failed

attempts by Dr. Yanakasawa to reconstruct my middle ear with the cadaver bones between

second grade and my junior year in high school. The operation called for micro surgical

procedures to be used, and entailed an incision being made behind my right ear so that the

cadaver bones could be properly placed. The procedure was always done at Yale New Haven

Hospital, and it was not so bad. The irritating and annoyingly itchy aspect was the recuperation

after the procedure. After the back of the ear is sewn up it was packed with cotton gauze and

bandaged. It itched something fierce!!!! I was not supposed to scratch because scratching could


rip out the sutures. I was a freak of nature until I left the public school system in search of better

grades and anonymity in 1986. It had been ten years since I left Newington Children’s Hospital.

Within those ten years all I really had was my family. I was a spectacle more than a friend to

most of those whom I went to school with. I wandered looking for acceptance. Sports, clubs,

friends, family was all I had. Was I not a boy like other boys? Was I not? Was I not? Life was a

cause of frustration. Creeping Christ, we shut down our senses or rather God shuts down our

senses for us. I know that my brother and sister were being harassed too because they both

became less and less about family distancing themselves from me. The last failed attempt to

reconstruct my right middle ear was spring of 1987, and after this I reluctantly wore a hearing

aide which also failed to help my hearing because it amplified everything and could not cut out

the background noise. This particular hearing aide came in a set, one as a transmitter and one a

receiver. I did discover that with the proper hand placement the squealing squelch of feedback

could be produced.

In 1986 I left the public school system to attend a private preparatory school in the

mountains of northwest Connecticut, The Marvelwood School then located in Cornwall,

Connecticut. The Dean of the school, Joe Neary was a tough no nonsense former member of the

82nd Airborne Division that jumped into Normandy June 6, 1944. Our Headmaster, Peter Tacey

was also my English teacher during my senior year and fittingly resembled Henry David

Thoreau. It was here in the mountains of northwestern Connecticut that I was able to reset my

social identity. The novelty of change graced an inventiveness that eased anticipation. We, the

student body of Marvelwood came from all over, and ports of call international. The United

States of course, and France, England, South Africa, Shanghai, etc. Quite a traveled lot as well.

Marvelwood belonged to an elite grouping of private preparatory schools called “The Round


Table” which met at different campuses of the membership every seven years for a gathering of

staff and students for the purposes of reviewing and revising the standards of membership and

the mission behind such a select group. My second and junior year at Marvelwood I found out

about The Round Table Group and that their meeting was to be held in Cornwall at our campus,

it was 1987. This event started with the landing of a double rotor helicopter, much like a civilian

version of a Chinook, in front of my dorm. After landing about 30 yards from our front door, off

steps the exiled King of Greece, King Constantine. The international flair of Marvelwood grew

immensely as students and teachers from places like Scotland, Nigeria, Sweden, and Germany

were our guests for a week. Students were the guests of Marvelwood students and Staff, of

Marvelwood staff. In ways this meeting was like a great fair with all the events of each day.

In May of 1988 I graduated from Marvelwood planning on entering Curry College as a

freshman in the fall. Although at the time Marvelwood was thought of as a dull and droll

existence by its students, I must say it brings back nice memories with fond thoughts of my

classmates through those years. A lot happened to and for us before we gave our final adieux as

the class of 1988. Curry College is a small private college in Milton, MA abutting the towns of

Stoughton and Hyde Parke. Milton was a dry town according to old blue book laws, but

fortunately for Curry’s students neither of its neighbors were dry towns. I started out as an

elementary education major, but soon changed, out of boredom, to a double major in politics &

history and philosophy. Curry was really a gated community boasting dorms, a post office and

cafeteria with bookstore, a library, academic building, advisor offices, and a pub. Through the

blurry haze of college life and many trips into Boston I graduated with a combined GPA of 3.56

in May of 1992, and the wondering excitement of anticipation that I was getting married that

June. In 1989 I had met Linda Shapiro, a blue eyed girl from Gardner, ME. Graduating in 1991


from Curry, we were engaged at a distance for that year. I had purposed while we were still

students at Curry. June 14, Flag Day 1992 was the day Linda and I were married in Lewiston,

ME. A day that was almost broadsided by the occurrence of the death of Rabbi Gellar a week

prior, and which put haste upon finding a replacement so as not to alter all the other

arrangements which had gone into the makings of that day. We were married and lived for two

years in Glen Burnie, MD before moving back to Massachusetts. From 1994- 2001 I worked at

jobs that included Burger King, gas station attendant, bill collections, Machine shop labor,

furniture sanding, steel fabrication, whatever I could do including a stint as a certified Nurse

Assistant at a retirement community called Carleton-Willard Village in Bedford, MA from 1995-

1998. I worked on the acute care unit caring for people with ailments which ranged from strokes

to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. I have a lot of good memories about the folks I cared for

there. This was the longest period of employment I had had since graduating from Curry. On

August 26, 2000 my wife and I moved to West Townsend, MA after selling our first home in

Lowell, MA. My maternal grandmother, Virginia May, died from complications of a stroke that

summer so Linda and I bought the house from my mom and my Uncle Billy. Funny how I now

own the house that was at that time my family’s Christmas destination some 26 years ago. My

grandma May, along with her sisters Mae, Marjorie, and Kay, and her brothers Tom and Bernard

were raised here in this house by my great grandfather Thomas Morrilly and his wife, my great

grandmother, Irma Morrilly. An aunt and two uncles also lived in this house as extended family

often did back when. My mother and my Uncle Billy grew up in Townsend in the center of town.

My two children were born here. My daughter Mikayla Raizel Jones on September 5,

2001; which also happens to have been the 100th birthday of my paternal grandfather, William

Jones, and my son, Jakob Isaak Jones was born a bit more than 4 years later on January 24, 2005.


I just ask that in the lives of my children there is peace because in my day there was trouble,

trouble enough for my life and theirs. Trouble enough that such events shall not be forgotten by

my children even though they did not bear witness to the tragedy. In June of 2001 I started

working for a non-profit called ARC which is a day program and piece workshop where adults

with disabilities can go to and be active members of the community on a work and/or social

basis. I started working in the Supportive Community Options Program that June of 2001 and I

worked in the residential program after Mikayla was born for the benefits of full time

employment. After a year had passed I left residential work to return to work at the ARC

workshop, which by this time was known as ARC-Matson, representing the vocational and

residential aspects of the agency. I worked until July 19, 2010 as the Janitorial Supervisor, and

job coach Over-seeing the in-house custodial aspects of the agency, and eventually supplying the

cleaning needs for the residential and vocational/day programs, supervising the occasional off

site enclave, and supervising my crew of two.

July 19, 2010 was my first day at work after returning from my vacation, I was

summoned upstairs and laid-off. Nine years and laid-off because of the state’s budget mess, the

country’s economy. For the first time though I felt something that I had not felt since I was re-

enrolled into the school system after the accident; I am brain damaged. This was not a blatantly

apparent aspect of working at the ARC, but it was a subtlety that I felt not realizing it until I

thought about it. Working at the ARC I was neither seen as a staff member nor an employee. The

individuals we served there, “the guys” to me, saw me more as a friend than a staff member

because they knew I had a TBI and was more like them. The other employees at the ARC saw

me as less a staff member/employee because they knew I had TBI, so I was not like them. This

gave me a very odd feeling of being different, one which I had felt but not to so much of a degree


when I was younger and re-entering school. A feeling I prefer not to experience, but yet a feeling

that may be very much unavoidable.

After being laid off I weighed my options, and decided to return to school to retrain

because the economy was such a mess. In September 2010 I enrolled at Mount Wachusett

community College as an Associate of Science in paralegal services degree candidate. Here too

the fact that I had a TBI set me apart. Every semester I went to get a paper from the disabilities

councilor which spelled out those accommodations granted me to supposedly level the learning

curve. My how times have changed, I started out the bastard of the education system and ended

up a privileged pronoun in the education system. I was the token “old guy” in many of my

classes. I took accelerated six week semesters, and went to classes that 2011 summer to graduate

May 2012 with my A.S. in paralegal services with a GPA of 3.53 and in need of a job as my

unemployment had run out earlier in March.

I am working with Simone, a councilor from the Massachusetts Rehabilitation

Commission to find employment that is suitable to my capabilities. Social Security Disability has

determined that my condition is not severe enough to keep me from working, and therefore I am

not eligible to receive disability benefits because I must be “unable to perform any substantial

gainful work” due to my disability. I applied when I started to notice significant changes in my

physical function in November of 2011. Back in 1997 was the first time I noticed a change in the

form of pain in my left ankle, so these changes are progressive. I know everyone changes with

age, but these changes of mine seem accelerated a further reminder of TBI. “Substantial gainful

work” is such vague language. The worsening equilibrium and dizziness, the changes in

activities of daily living like dressing, and the need to use pull/grab bars, the trouble with stairs

and walking, the pain from cramping body parts and my dystonic like left leg, constant pain.


Even at rest. Just another hurdle to get around, improvisation has gotten me this far, time to keep

being crafty in my ways. In my experience with my TBI I have found that ingenuity advances

hope. Use that which you have to replace or enhance that which you have no more, and look to

continue to become, not to regain what you use to be because that which was can never be as we

remember it. Simply put, become the change that you want to see in life because not to attempt

such an endeavor is to quit. Never ever, no matter what, give up because one can’t win for

loosing and TBI is a change, not a loss. Death is a loss complete because there is no coming back

from it.

Friday February 6, 2013 the morning of a Nor’easter, and the beginning of a weekend

that I was to spend in the hospital back at Nashoba. Luckily the ambulance ride happened before

the snow started to fly, and I spent the better part of that Friday in the emergency room being

poked, and prodded, x-rayed, and cat scanned. I even had the pleasure of explaining to the

emergency room doctor that TBI stood for Traumatic Brain Injury and not Total Body Injury as

he had assumed. What had earned me my stay at Chez Nashoba was a neuro-cardial, veso-vegal

episode that had me losing consciousness after running out of breath while heatedly telling my

son that he was apt to break his sister’s fingers if he kept slamming the doors in the house. He

had already caught her fingers in a door that morning. It seems that after having my say with my

son not eager to listen, I had completely emptied my lungs of air. As things happened I became

light headed and decided to sit in my chair until the lightness passed. Then upon rising to a

stance to pivot a turn to go sit down with my morning coffee and the morning news, I went

unconscious in mid pivot. I remember falling and hitting my head hard on the kitchen floor. I

also heard my leg snap as I felt it twist in the pivot motion. I ended up with a spiral fracture of

my left fibula where it meets the knee joint. My wife and two kids were there in the kitchen to


witness me falling, and needless to say, it frightened them. When I opened my eyes after about

30 seconds I felt a throbbing pain in my left leg, I also felt the need to pee as well. I managed to

pry myself upright and hobble to the bathroom using the counter and kitchen chairs for support.

When I hobbled out and sat down my leg started to throb in a very painful manner, I then called

911. Being that I was in my pajamas, at the emergency room I changed into a hospital gown and

the nurse bagged my belongings; there I was then, all weekend, bare-assed in my tieback gown.

Talk about feeling like you stick out from the crowd! For the better part of the weekend I had a

knee Stabilizer strapped to my left leg. On Sunday morning Dr. Paul Harasimowicz, my

Orthopedist, came into my room to check my leg. He then removed the brace, thank god too

because it was starting to irritate the backs of my left thigh and achillies area.

That weekend hospital stay was a much different experience for me comparatively

speaking, and it was not fully because of the gown’s open flap-back fashion statement. Not only

was I older at this point but I was older than most of the nurses that were charged with my care,

and I was a sight older than the nurse’s aides that kept an eye on my needs and requests. Such an

awareness, I must admit, made me feel old. I did however meet some nurses who either had been

working at Nashoba long enough, or who had been born and raised in Groton, MA and who now

worked at Nashoba who knew Ed and Anna Kopec and Sgt. James Downes. A couple of people

even remembered when there was a pediatric unit at Nashoba, and knew a couple of the nurses

who took care of me way back when. The triage nurse working in the emergency room when I

came in had told me that her first day working as a nurse at Nashoba was December 26, 1974,

the day after my accident. This gave me a feeling of connectedness to the extended community

encompassing those towns from Fitchburg to Ayer, MA.


I was discharged on Monday February 9, 2013 after having an echo cardio gram which

came back normal, and being seen by physical therapy to be learned in the use of a cane and

walker for walking. The loss of consciousness meant that my driver’s license was suspended for

six months, until August, as per the medical law in Massachusetts that concerns driving. Once

home I had follow up doctor appointments and what turned out to be 6 weeks of service from the

Nashoba Valley Visiting Nurses’ Association for both nursing and physical therapy. Many

changes were to come upon me, not just because of the visits from Linda, my nurse and Liz, my

physical therapist; but because of the occurrence as a whole collective experience.

George Bernard Shaw once said “Life is not about finding yourself. It is about creating

yourself.” This could not be more truthful than for a survivor of traumatic brain injury. Finding

oneself becomes a past occupation, because after traumatic/acquired brain injury, self –identity

becomes a void. Suddenly you are aware of your own presence, and yet you are not you.

Confusion then begins with your attempts to get back to where you once belonged, and

depression comes out of those frustrating, flawed attempts. The outside world changes too, who

people thought you were, is who you know you are no longer. People turn away and that vague

sense of self gets lost in frustration; and yet it is a wonder that as survivors we have not shriveled

into insanity. There is a great sadness in loss of a loved one, in the case of brain injury it is a loss

of self. Those who have survived brain injury, ABI or TBI, with their loved ones are realizing

their own eulogies because of the nagging existence of questions like “What if?”’- “If only?”

Such places are dark and destructive, meaningless to self. Patience, understanding, and

encouragement are the needs of those with brain injury. People must understand that in no way is

a survivor less of a person, just a different person because of fate. The same saying still holds

true that in difference we are all alike, and like those of you who are living in our past


conceptions of self; we have those needs that are human. Remember too that those who are

caregivers, friends, and family have felt the effects of brain injury as well. Their lives have

undergone drastic change. Understand that sometimes it is what we do not set out to be that

shows us how to become. One day at a time, this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the

past, fore it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, fore it has not yet come. Live in the

present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering. Share this compassion with

yourselves and those in your lives, survivors of brain injury or nay a stitch in time. Share it often,

because one never knows for whom the bell tolls. The wisdom of knowing that we truly do not

know allows a great potential for understanding to exist because thoughts that anguish bring us

together.

If bad things happen to good people, then my family is good people and I am glad I bore

the brunt of the bad. I would not change what happened to me, because time is forevermore; and

why wonder what would have been if I were not to be the stone cast upon the serene pond of the

Jones’ life. Besides, no one ever said life was fair; only eventful.

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide to live by.”

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

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