Brad Christensen
I’m not a very good writer so bare with me here.
I don’t remember about an hour before the accident but this is what my friend told me. When i was 17 years old on January 1, 2010 around 10:00 at night, I was getting into the back seat of a car of someone I thought was my friend. I was about half way in the car when they started driving off and I couldn’t do anything but hold on. I eventually fell out of the car and hit my head really hard. My friend who was in the passenger seat had called 911. The ambulance had gotten there and I was knocked out but when I woke I was angry and fighting everyone off of me. They were able to settle me down and get me into the ambulance, which just drove me down the road to a field where a helicopter was waiting to take me to Maryland Shock Trauma.
The first two weeks I was in the hospital I stayed in Maryland Shock Trauma and they kept me in a medically induced coma for those two weeks. Within the first two weeks the doctors were paying close attention to the pressure inside my head and it got high enough that the doctors decided that they would have to remove part of my forehead so that my brain could swell.
After the first two weeks in Maryland Shock Trauma I was transfered over to Kennedy Krieger Institute which is a rehabilitation center in Baltimore Maryland. This is where I “woke up” from the medically induced coma and I was very confused and frightened. I did not know what had happened or why I was in the hospital. My mom explained to me what had happened and I was still pretty confused. Since I had part of my scull removed I had to wear a helmet when ever I got up. Next came all the therapy. I had occupational, physical, speech and language and a few other therapies. These therapies helped me tremendously, I couldn’t walk in a straight line to save my life and my mind was all sorts of messed up. While at Kennedy Kreiger I have to take a swallow test due to the fact that i had a tracheotomy. Even though I passed it it still didn’t like eating because when I hit the ground I apparently broke about 10 bones in my face which caused my top teeth to be shifted over so biting down felt really weird. Since I wouldn’t chew anything I was just fed through a feeding tube into my stomach.
After two and a half months of being in the hospital I was about to get my last two surgeries and able to go back home. When we were in the waiting room before surgery the doctor came over and told me that he wouldn’t be able replace the part of my scull that was removed because the original surgery wasn’t fully healed. So we went on with the surgery to fix the broken bones in my face and to straighten up my bite. This unfortunately left me with my jaw wired shut for another month. After that surgery I was able to go home but I didn’t want to do anything at home because where ever I went I had to wear a helmet and my jaw was wired shut. This was probably the worst part about the whole accident, I was finally home but i felt like I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything and worst of all I still couldn’t eat anything.
Finally the month was over and my original surgery was healed so I went back to the hospital so that I could get my last surgery and get the wires off of my teeth. I was never really afraid of going into surgery just because I knew that things would only be better when I woke up. I had to go back to both Maryland Shock Trauma and Kennedy Krieger for follow up exams and they both agreed that I didn’t need anymore treatment.
Today I am going to WyoTech studying automotive and it is very tough because I now have a horrible memory and it is difficult for me to concentrate. I just make to sure to take a lot of notes and go over everything before tests. Thank god this school is mostly hands on. Another side effect from my brain injury is sometimes I get really depressed at random times. A couple other effects are I no longer have a sense of smell and I am basically deaf in my right ear. I joke about not being able to smell or hear very good all the time because there is nothing I can do about it now so im going to make some lemonade out of the situation.