Gary Wayne Booth: Love After A Brain Injury

My name is Gary W. Booth and I have a brain injury. Let me take you back to the year of June the 24th of 2002. It was a warm day I had just gotten up to get ready to check out of the hotel from the best honeymoon of my life. My ex and me, I will explain later, packed the car and were headed home from Gatlinburg Tenn. I was driving and had just gotten onto the interstate for the long drive home to relax and enjoy the rest of my life together. 

Then I awoke about 3 weeks to a month later in a hospital bed tied down to it and had a neck collar on. My mother was with me and called for the nurse. I tried to get up but they told me that I had been in a terrible accident, I thought to myself surely not me. Everyone thinks that at one point in life.

They had told me that a tractor-trailer truck had ran me off the road and never stopped. My brain had been hurt badly and that my parents should expect the worse. I was confused and angry where was my wife she had been hurt as well but not as badly as me. I was then transferred to Quillen Rehabilitation Hospital. I was there to hopefully recover from my injuries. I met a really wonderful and caring person Fredda Roberts. She is the brain injury services coordinator for east Tennessee. She talked to me and tried to help me understand what I was going to be going through, but my brain was causing all kinds of havoc I was mad and did not want to listen I was still very confused. 

Fredda then mentioned that she worked for the Crumley house brain injury rehabilitation center for east Tenn. She also stated that I could come to the day program and try to recover better. My ex at the time wanted me home but she was not able or capable to take care of me properly. So home I went and I started the day program at the Crumley House. Well a few days went by and I was getting more tired and mad and angry all the time. So I did not go to the day program for a few days then the trouble at home started. My ex had started being impatient with me and then she lost all hope and gave up. She called Fredda and told her she was on her way to the Crumley house with me and that if they did not take me in she was dropping me off at the Salvation Army. 

So Fredda along with Guynn Edwards talked it over and found a way for me to stay there. I was very upset that my ex gave up I wanted so much to be happy and live a normal life, But what is normal? My ex wife had decided to file for divorce, I was very upset torn and depressed I did not want to eat or leave my room. It took several people at the Crumley house to get me out of my very depressive mood and eat again. I needed to learn to open up and let people help me. I was very strong willed and stubborn at times but I did learn to trust and become better. I was always told there is no band-aid for a brain injury but there is always light at the end of the tunnel. I was still upset that my ex gave up and abandoned me but I was making friends and learning how to control my anger and emotions. I really started to participate in the program and start helping others there. I was learning to live life again. 

Now, about the year of 2003, I started doing work at Vocational rehab to earn money and learn to do jobs again. I became good at every job I did for them. I left the program to see about working on my own and then my brain had trouble being out in public. My fears of crowds and new places got the better of me. I was afraid of being alone I started to miss the one thing I wanted to be a loving husband. So while at the Crumley house I used the computer to and got on a dating site. This was in 2004; I started to talk with this wonderful lady. Never saw her but talked online for a few weeks then on the phone we would talk for hours. Her name Sherry Blankenship at the time. She worked in the medical field. Then we agreed to meet for a date and I chose to have it here at the Crumley house so I would not be to nervous, but I was anyways. 

So on that March day I saw her for the first time and it was love at first site. We sat in the family room and talked and laughed and watched a movie. Then as time went by I was able to go meet her parents. Brenda, her mother, and Jerry, her father, they were very nice and understanding of my injuries and enjoyed that their daughter had met someone as nice and wonderful as her. I was soon allowed to go a trip with sherry to Gatlinburg for the weekend. We had a great time our love for each other was growing everyday. I talked about sherry all the time to the staff and my friends and they could tell a change in me for the good that I had found what I had been missing in life a steady relationship. I started to discuss with Fredda and Guynn and Wayne of the possibilities of me leaving the Crumley house and spending my life with Sherry. Fredda was happy, Guynn as well, and so for Wayne, Jessica, and April, my closest friends on 2nd shift were happy all the same, but more important I was happy. Even though I still have trouble with my brain injury I have still overcome lots of things. I have survived a wreck that should have killed me. I lost my wife due to her not being able to understand or want to try to help. 

So in 2004 in April I moved in with Sherry. A few months later I asked her to marry me and she said yes. That was the greatest day of my life, besides still being alive. But we had more tragic things to happen before our wedding. Her father had gotten very ill and passed away before he could walk her down the isle. I became very upset and thought that my life was going to crash again. But before he passed away he called for me to look after the family and Sherry and I have done so to this day. Months had passed and then in November we were planning on tying the knot. My family and Sherry’s mother and brother were all getting ready for the big day. We chose November 20th for a holy day of lifetime love and devotion to each other. I still had one only fear the honeymoon; I had almost died during 1 honeymoon what about this one. We even went to Gatlinburg Tenn. again. I am very fearful of the interstate and have not been on it since 2002. I do not think I can function if I was to get on the interstate again. So we took the back way to Gatlinburg. But it was the way back that would give me trouble sherry decided to drive home and she did take the interstate I freaked out every big truck I saw scared me to death I thought that if I did not get out of the car I was going to die. I will always have that fear with me forever. 

I cannot say that we have been all smiles but we do have our ups and downs and most of it does revolve around my brain injury causing trouble for me. But I am glad to say that it was 5 years ago me and Sherry have been together for 6 years we just celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary together. My wife now has kept me together with her understanding and love. She always told me that if marriage was perfect it would not be a marriage. Nothing is ever perfect. Even with a brain injury it is still a wonderful feeling to find love and friendship. This is my story and I hope that it has touched you in some meaningful way.