Camp ...Week Three

This is week three, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping myself busy enough not to go crazy from withdrawal. However, I have been regularly checking the camp’s web site for clues to my daughter’s well being. Melissa and I have found about 20 pictures that we’ve marked for purchase at the end of camp. I guess everything’s a business.

I wrote about working my butt off with Dad, and that kept me pretty busy. Melissa and I spent last week in Santa Fe at a Bed & Breakfast called Adobe Abode. Adobe Abode is a great Bed & Breakfast that we discovered a couple of years ago and have been back several times. Andy and Bonnie, the owners, moved to Santa Fe from Dallas a few years ago to escape the rat race…what a great idea!!!

Adobe Abode is very comfortable, with wonderful breakfasts, and an easy walk to the plaza. You can walk to Canyon Road, but it’s a bit of a hike. If you’re ever going to be in Santa Fe and you need somewhere to stay, give Andy a call at Adobe Abode. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

For us this wasn’t really a “tourist” kind of trip. With the exception of the Santa Fe Opera, which we had already bought tickets for, we didn’t have anything that we just had to do. The Opera was The Barber of Seville, which turned out to be much more fun than I would have ever expected.

I don’t mind telling you that I was not very excited about going to the opera. I mean sitting for three hours listening to people sing in Italian is not my idea of fun. I was pleasantly surprised! Not only did each person have a little 3-inch by 6-inch monitor that translated everything into English, but there was also quite a bit of comedy…who would have guessed?

While we were busy doing and seeing all kinds of great sights, we found ourselves thinking a lot about what our little one was doing. We even went to the Santa Fe public library and signed up for some Internet time. Just to check in and see what, if anything, we had missed. (We’re goofy I know!)

Time alone with Melissa really fun, and much needed. But now we’re back and Melissa’s at work. I’ve got things to do too. Errands, house cleaning, a couple of small things to fix…that kind crap, but I’m afraid it isn’t going to be enough. Already I’ve seen the hints. Hints that daughter withdrawal is taking over.

If you pray, say one for me. I’ll be here in Dallas trying not to lose what’s left of my sanity.

It’s going to be a long 10 days.


Note:
Adobe Abode
Owner - Andy Duettra
505-983-3133

"I worked my butt off!"

“I worked my butt off!” is how the saying goes. But where did it come from? I’ve heard the phrase hundreds of times. Hell, I’ve even used it on occasion, but I’ve never really understood how it could have originated.

In my mind I can see this big guy and he’s out working hard. (I’m not being sexist here; I just think you have to agree that a member of the fairer sex couldn’t have come up with something like this) He’s not very literate, probably can’t even read, but he needs some kind of manly, blue collar explanation of just exactly how hard he’s been working. So why choose his butt? I mean, if you’re going to work something off wouldn’t something like “Damn, I worked my arms off,” be much more to the point?

Thanks to my Dad I now understand what was going through that big guy’s head.

My parents recently moved into a new house. They’ve been retired for a few years and decided it was time to move somewhere that would be a little more centrally located between their three children and five grandchildren. So, they built a house right outside of Austin and moved in a few weeks ago.

My dad had several projects that he needed some help with, not the least of which was flooring part of the attic. He’s got two sons, but I’m the one he calls when he needs this kind of help, and to tell the truth I enjoy doing that kind of thing. Especially with Dad.

Last Tuesday, after a host of traveling mishaps, I flew into Austin for a week of work. Dad’s idea was to, “Work my butt off!” and he did!

We built a workbench and two six-foot storage cabinets, floored a HUGE section of the attic, got three truckloads of stuff out of storage and organized the garage. We also problem solved some innovative solutions to some difficult storage issues, came up with some interesting future project ideas and laughed a lot!

After throwing several trips to Home Depot into the mix, you get a really successful, really fun “Work your butt off” kind of week.

Dad, thanks for helping me to understand what working your butt off really means…I had a lot of fun.

You know Dad, I've got some attic that needs flooring...how's your butt feeling?

The Living Stones

The other night I went to hear the Living Stones, a band some of my friends are in. This was their first paying gig! They played here in Dallas at the Lone Star Café, a little out of the way bar that specializes in cold beer and even colder food.

I really enjoyed the music, although I never did hear the Pink Floyd, Doors, or Frank Zappa that I requested. These are friends of mine from church, so I was expecting some preferential treatment, but they just kept whining about no keyboard, or something like that.

All in all, the evening was fun, if for no other reason than good music and fun people watching. I don’t frequent bars, so I’m not regularly exposed to some of the more colorful elements of our society. But this place was a full-blown color wheel!

You name’em, and they were there. I’m about talking everything from a girl in a sequined dress, (She was a bit out of place here) all the way down to folks in shorts and tank tops. At 40, I fully expected to be about the oldest person at this shindig, but I was surprised to find many senior citizens out drinking and dancing the night away. They even had a potluck dinner for some lady’s 60th birthday!

This band has five people and with the exception of the bass player, I know them all. These guys aren’t in this band at hopes of making a living. We’re talking about two lawyers and two guys with at least Masters degrees. I’m quite positive that playing in a band isn’t any of these guys’ main source of income, but that’s possibly just what makes it work.

The Living Stones are five guys with two things in common: a love for music and the desire to play. And I guess there’s some talent rolled-up in the mix somewhere.

So, if you’re ever in Dallas and you ever get a chance to hear the Living Stones play, treat yourself to cold beer and a few songs.

They may not be the best you’ve ever heard, but baby, they’ve got heart!

Shopping for Camp...still!!!

Yesterday, was our first official day as a childless couple, my wife and I spent most of they day (10:00am to 4:45pm) with my mother-in-law, shopping for purple stuff to send to our daughter at camp.

This camp has three groups, or Tribes as they call them, that each has its own color. Now, even though the girls do everything all mixed up, there are some good-spirited competitions between these three tribes. Not the least of which is an end of term war canoe race that the girls try out for and then train for the entire camp session.

Anyway, my daughter’s tribe color is purple. I didn’t think we were going to find all that much purple stuff, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Stores like Bed Bath and Beyond, among others, have everything your little heart can imagine in purple. I actually found myself considering the purchase of a purple surge protector, but was talked out of it by my wife. I knew she didn’t have any use for a purple surge protector…but what a cool thing to have!

I must say that I was a bit shocked at how much FedEx charges to mail one 20x20x12 package to south Texas. I could understand spending over $50 if it was going to some place in China, but a six hour drive shouldn’t cost that much. At least I don’t have to take it myself.

I’m learning about this whole girl’s camp thing one day at a time.

The Big Bus Adventure

We got to the bus at about 8:00am, and we weren’t the first ones there. Some of these parents wanted to make sure their girls got first pick of seats.

I’m happy to report that I did a good job maintaining my composure. However, I nearly lost it when my daughter walked up and gave me that last hug. Melissa didn’t start to tear up until the bus was pulling out. She was quite strong up until that point.

Standing there, I watched the bus pull out of the parking lot and disappear over the horizon. For me, it was a very strange and solemn kind of happiness. A kind of happiness that I’ve not experienced before. I don’t know exactly what this means. Even as I’m writing this, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel.

Melissa and I left, got some breakfast and went home.

As she left for work she asked, “So, what are you going to do today?”

Confused, I paused and said, “I don’t know.”

Having nothing to do can be kind of scary.

Off to Camp...

Today begins a bold new mission into the unknown.

In about forty-five minutes, my wife and I will head to Inwood Village, a strip-shopping village here in Dallas, and put our little girl on a bus headed for camp in south Texas.

I say a new mission, because while I’ve sent her to camp for the last three summers, this is a whole new adventure for all of us. In the past she’s gone to Sky Ranch and only been gone for a week. Combine that with the fact that at Sky Ranch you take your child to camp and this becomes a whole new adventure.

I got up this morning excited, but a little apprehensive.

I mentioned that I cry easily…I wonder how well I’m going to hold up?

Frog Memories

I was born in El Paso Texas, and with the exception of a short move to Fort Worth, I lived in El Paso until the end of the second grade.

We lived in a house with a park right across the street. This park was the site of endless adventures for my brother and me. There were many times we’d be in the park, lost in play for hours. I have fond memories of my time spent in that park.

Now I don’t know how much you know about El Paso, but it’s hot and it doesn’t rain very much. I was pretty young, but I seem to remember something about the rain clouds not being able to make it over the mountains. Something like that, I think. However, the times it did rain were usually a downpour.

Rain only enhanced the fascination that this park had for my brother and me. On one end of the park there was a low area that became a pretty good-sized pond. In our imaginations, this pond became an ocean with endless possibilities for exploration.

I don’t remember what magical adventure we were in the middle of, or even exactly how we first discovered the frogs, but once we found them, they were all we could think about.

Seems El Paso was the host/breeding ground for some breed of tiny frog. These little frogs ranged anywhere from a dime to a quarter in size, and this park was a haven for millions of these tiny creatures. They would escape the west Texas heat by burrowing underground and somehow survive in the moisture that was captured deep underground after the city watered.

Anytime it rained the pond appeared in the park, and so did the frogs. You couldn’t take a step in any direction without crunching down on some poor unsuspecting little critter. My brother and I, intent on saving these amphibians from a life of “foot-traffic genocide”, decided to catch as many of them as we could and relocate them to our mother’s flower garden in the backyard. (A plan we failed to discuss with our Mom, but I’ll talk more about that later)

Using a small bucket, we headed to the park and spent the whole afternoon catching dozens of little frogs. Then we’d go back home, dump them into the flowerbed and head back to the pond for more.

I don’t know how many of these humanitarian trips we made back and forth between the pond and the garden, but there were several. You see, we weren’t just splashing around and playing in the water like all the other kids. Oh no, we were on a mission, a rescue mission and in our minds it was for real.

Now this was over 30 years ago, so thinking back, our bucket probably wasn’t really all that big, although it seemed huge at the time. I’m guessing it wouldn’t have held more than 150 to 200 little frogs. Seeing as we probably made five or six of these frog rescue trips back to the house, there were actually only somewhere between 750 to 1,200 little refugees in our garden/frog relocation camp. We went to bed, secure in the knowledge that our amphibitarian relief efforts had been a huge success.

Then things started to go wrong…

As it turns out, there were many aspects of our frog relocation project that we hadn’t actually thought about.

First: The size and capacity of our camp. While Mom’s garden seemed quite large to a first grader, it was in fact quite small. Combine that with the fact that we have five to six times the number of these small frogs in our garden as we actually have room for, and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

Turns out, as is so often the case in many refugee camps, overcrowding was a major problem. During the daytime and the sweltering heat, we didn’t see many of our new neighbors. However, at night in the desert things tend to cool off. This is when our new little friends would venture out in search of food, and possibly less crowded living conditions. Whatever the reason, during the night and early morning these little guys would be all over the yard and the porch.

It wasn’t long before Mom, walking outside in bare feet, discovered our new neighbors. I don’t remember much more than the loud, ear piercing shrieks as she hopped from foot to foot, squishing dozens of our little refugees. It’s been a long time, but I remember it being quite funny for the whole family. Well, I guess not for Mom.

Next, we also failed to think about, or possibly ignored the presence of the backyard’s primary resident, Tip. Tip, our dog, was all too happy to share his yard with these little guys. Turns out they made great playmates, toys and sometimes snacks for our fun-loving puppy. On more than one occasion, I ventured outside just in time to catch Tip, tail wagging, in mid-crunch as he happily played with a new little friend.

All the trials and tribulation associated with opening your own low-rent, frog apartments aside, having a backyard full of frogs turned out to be quite fun.

However, our fascination with our new little friends soon faded and we were forced to search for new forms of entertainment with our frog friends.

Possibly our best idea, or at least the one that has stuck in my head, began with us flooding the garden, digging up as many of these unsuspecting frogs as we could, and loading them into my Dad’s water filled wheelbarrow.

Our house had a flat roof that, as well as I can remember, was covered with small stones. We’d toss a few of the now terrified frogs up on the roof and make bets on which ones would jump off first, then laugh as we tried to catch them in the wheelbarrow full of water. We’d spend the day throwing frogs and racing back and forth with the wheelbarrow. All the while having the time of our lives.

I’m not sure how many frogs we lost all together, but the body count had to be high. I don’t think it ever occurred to us that, assuming the frog survived the throw up onto a hot rock covered roof, that they might have a concussion, or be so stunned that they would either jump the wrong direction or simply sit there and cook. All the same, we threw LOTS of the poor little guys up on the roof.

If they did happen to survive the throw, and jump the right directions, and actually land in the wheelbarrow filled with water…we would cheer and throw them right back up on the roof. A fact that I’m quite sure seemed like loads of fun to us, but had to be very disheartening for the poor frogs.

I don’t remember how many different rainy days we took our bucket and went across the street to “save” these little frogs, but seeing as it didn’t rain all that often in El Paso, I don’t believe our mission ever lost its charm. There’s also no way of knowing how many frogs were dug out of their home, tossed up on a hot roof and never heard from again, but there were many.

As fondly as I remember these events, I can’t help but wonder. What were these poor frogs thinking? I mean, here you are, happy in your world when suddenly you’re ripped from the only existence you’ve ever know, transplanted to a strange place and then viciously mistreated…all in the name of charity.

I wonder…did these little frogs ever really need, or want to be helped?




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Closed Head Injury and Anger - 2nd Draft

As the title suggests, this is the revised edition of Closed Head Injury and Anger. However, I didn’t change very much. I think most of what I needed to change had to do with word choice and voice. If you happen to have read the first draft, I would appreciate knowing if this version sounds or reads different than the first draft.



I’ve been a closed head injury survivor for almost 15 year. I wrote some about it in I Lost Part of my Life.

Technically, I’m disabled. I say technically, because I’m not physically disabled and with the exception of my speech, which isn’t really all that bad, but is eternally a thorn in my side, most days I don’t have any reason to ever even think about my head injury. Maybe I’m in denial, but who isn’t?

However, there are days that are filled to the brim with reminders. The things I’m forced to deal with, combined with the sometimes idiotic ways I deal with them, are not only reminders that I do I have a head injury, but they’re reminders that force me to face the fact that I am dealing with a lot.

I guess in many ways I’m lucky. Some survivors deal not only with the mental struggles of a head injury, but with a huge range of physical deficits as well. This is something I try to remind myself of on the hard days…but trying to convince myself that I’m lucky to only have a closed head injury is usually not all that helpful.

When you break part of your body, it heals and life goes on. When you damage part of your brain either other parts of your brain take over and learn to compensate for the skill or ability you lost, or you learn to function without that particular skill.

My head injury took all my emotions, tossed them into a blender, hit puree and poured the emotional smoothie back into my brain.

Before my head injury I had strict control over any and all of my emotions. If I didn’t want to laugh, I didn’t laugh. If I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t cry. And I decided where and when I got angry. I liked having that kind of control. It made coping with an ever-changing world child’s play.

(In “I Lost Part of my Life,” I talk about me comparing
“New Hugh” to “Old Hugh”…it looks and sounds a lot like this)

These days my emotions have me at their mercy. I can’t watch TV without uncontrollably breaking into tears over the stupidest things. (I’m talking about Tide commercials!) It’s actually become kind of a family joke to look over and see what see what new household product commercial has caused Hugh to fall to pieces.

I also find myself laughing uncontrollably at the stupidest things. Seeing as laughing sends extra air through your windpipe and, thanks to a tracheotomy, I only have one functioning vocal cord to regulate the amount of oxygen that’s coming out, suddenly laughing makes it nearly impossible for me to talk and be understood.

These two problems are a minor inconvenience at best and while I would rather not have to go through life dealing with them, I’m the only one who is truly bothered and I can deal with that.

Not so for the anger.

Difficulty with anger management is an all too common problem experienced by closed head injury survivors. I know from the countless hours I spent in Occupational and Cognitive Remediation therapy that learning to deal with anger is a huge part of living with a closed head injury.

For the past 15 years I’ve been living with a kind of time bomb inside my head and I don’t have much, if any, control over when and where it goes off.

In a nutshell, this is what happens: Something happens that doesn’t go quite the way it should. Maybe it’s something that just isn’t working like it is supposed to, or maybe it’s simply not working the way Hugh thinks it should be working. Either way, my feeling overly frustrated is the first step. Over the years I’ve learned to identify this “overly frustrated feeling” and can now usually back away from the situation and avoid anything else.

If the situation involves other people, or something I can’t easily back away from that’s when I start to feel the wave. This wave of anger starts somewhere deep down. I don’t know exactly where, but I can feel it bubbling up and it sometimes scares me. There are times I can feel the wave coming and rational thought is able to block the wave. Other times, however, the wave is either so huge, or I’m already so tired, that rational thoughts don’t even register.

I can usually feel myself losing control. I know that I’m not being rational and that the situation, whatever it may be, doesn’t need my being angry. However, simply understanding that things are moving in the wrong direction isn’t always enough to turn things around.

I feel a lot like one of those cartoon characters has an angel on one shoulder and devil on the other. Early on, in my closed head injury survivor world, the angel rarely spoke. On the few occasions in which the angel did have something to say, it was all too easy for the devil to convince me to see things his way.

Melissa and I had only been married for a year and a half when we were in the car accident that pureed my emotions. For the first few years after the accident, Melissa lovingly dealt with a husband whose mood and temper were fragile at best. On more than one occasion, her easygoing spirit helped to calm me down long before anger was able to take over.

My daughter, on the other hand, has only known life with a head injured dad.

If you’re 10 and you get hurt, you go to the doctor and you get better. For this reason, I’m not sure she truly understands the kind of injury we’re talking about, but I can see in her eyes that she loves me and just wants everything to be okay.

Having a condition that never goes away is hard for me to wrap my mind around, and I’ve been on this planet 30 years longer than she has. How can I expect her to fully understand?

Let me just say that the times I’ve “blown-up” have, in the big scheme of things, been relatively minor. There’s never any physical violence, just me being angry and ranting and raving. The only thing I’ve ever broken was a Cross pen of mine that I happen to be holding, and I was very sad. It didn’t make a mess, but it was my favorite pen.

After 15 years, several hard life lessons, the support of my family and friends combined with me turning 40, I can finally say that these days the inner me doesn’t get angry all that quick. Even though the feelings are still there, more often than not I’m able take control of my anger before it takes control of me.

However, for reasons I don’t understand, although fatigue plays a big role, there are times my head injury pops out of the closet, takes control, and my anger gets the best of me.

These days it usually only happens with my immediate family, another fact that I don’t quite understand. Maybe home is the only place I’m able to completely let my guard down…I don’t know.

My anger management, thanks to Melissa’s continued love and support, has improved significantly. After 15 years, there are times she sees the potential for trouble long before it’s an issue, and is able to help me avoid the whole situation, or at least address it calmly.

I don’t know what I’d do without my wife and daughter, they are truly a blessing in my life, head injury or not. Their love, understanding and support make my life, which can seem hard at times, all worth it.

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So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about the anger issues of a closed head injury survivor. My head injury life is an uphill battle, and as much as I hate to admit it, it always will be. I guess I’ll just keep trudging through life and learning from my mistakes as best I can.


Note:
I’ve talked about this a lot with my family, but this is the first time I’ve written about it…at least the anger part. Writing it down has caused me to think through and see things much more carefully and clearly - thanks for listening.