Putting Back the Pieces: My Journey Through Traumatic Brain Injury

By Ruth Armstrong

“Putting Back the Pieces” by this New Zealand author is two books in one. Book One, “Who Am I?” was started in 2007 and published in hardcover in 2009. It covers the first two and a half years after a motor vehicle accident which left the author with multiple broken bones and the complications of a severe traumatic brain injury.

It is the story of a life dramatically changed in many, many ways. It is a story of struggle and triumph, of frustration and wonder, of confusion and uncertainty, and a story of hope.

Book Two, “Seeing the Glass as Half Full” began to filter through before the first one was finished. The author's life took twists and turns that she could never have foreseen. However, all that has come out of it has been invaluable learning, which the author hopes, when shared with others ,may help them understand the complexities of brain injury.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruth Armstrong
• Release date: Jul 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780473486495

Ruth Armstrong

I am a grateful wife, mother and grandmother. I enjoy cooking, gardening and time with family and friends. I live in Gisborne City on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. At the time of publication of this book I am almost 72 years of age. Sometimes I feel much younger and other times I feel very much older!! No matter what, I am grateful to be alive and functioning as well as I am. My Christian faith is very important to me and that is what I credit for getting me through the hard times.

Book preview

Putting Back the Pieces

by Ruth Armstrong.

ISBN: 978-0-473-48649-5

Copyright © 2019 Ruth Armstrong.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

eBook conversion by PublishMe:www.publishme.co.nz

Acknowledgements  Hearts

Thank you from the bottom of my heart is due to SO many that I just can’t acknowledge them all. Firstly – thank you God for saving my life. Thank you to all those who attended the scene of the accident – my gratitude is immense.

Thank you to my husband Phil, who has been at my side through the whole thing – and still loves me and who also did the cover design for Who Am I?

Thank you to my family – to my sons Rob and Alan, their wives Kelly and Melinda and to my precious, precious grandchildren, Kayley and Jarred. You all really got me through – gave me something to fight for.

Thank you to the staff at ICU and Orthopaedics and at A.T.&R the rehab ward at Hawkes Bay Hospital. Thank you to all the physios over time. Thank you to my most understanding and supportive GP at the time, Dr. Brett Starck, who was a treasure. Thank you to the Occupational Therapists who worked with me and taught me so much. Thank you to ACC who funded SO much assistance. I am very grateful and humbled.

Thank you to Mary Miller, who was the Liason Officer for Brain Injury Hawkes Bay. Mary was an angel who was the brains for so many people. She was a wonderful advocate for brain injured people and their families and we were truly blessed to have her, and the drop-in centre.

Thank you to those friends who have stuck by us all the way through and new ones made along the way. Thank you to my church families in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne.

A special big thank you goes to my very talented nephew Nick Corbett, who designed the cover page for Putting Back the Pieces. I so appreciate his willingness to do that for me!

A big thank you also to Lel Scott from PublishMe who thought my story needed to be out there and encouraged me to get the second book finished. I don’t think it would have happened without her. Thanks too, to her husband Giles of PublishMe who patiently answered lots of my questions, and there will be more before this is published, and for their suggestion of an E-book. I will put a disclaimer here, too. I had Lel check the titles and chapter headings for glaring mistakes, but asked that she not proof read and correct the main text. I want to show what I have done despite my brain injury.

Lastly, thank you to all who read these books. Without readers there would be no purpose to writing one. God bless all who read this, and may the love of Jesus Christ touch you.

Introduction

Putting Back the Pieces is two books in one. Book One, Who Am I? was started in 2007 and published in hardcover in 2009. It covers the first two and a half years after a motor vehicle accident which left me with multiple broken bones and the complications of a severe traumatic brain injury.

It is the story of a life dramatically changed in many, many ways. It is a story of struggle and triumph, of frustration and wonder, of confusion and uncertainty, and a story of hope.

Book Two, Seeing the Glass as Half Full began to filter through before the first one was finished. My life took twists and turns that I could never have forseen. However, all that has come out of it has been invaluable learning, which can maybe be shared with others to help them understand, so I praise God for that. Through it all, I have been comforted and uplifted by my God. I have been loved and supported by my husband and my sons and their wives, and my grandchildren. I have come to know amazing people. I am blessed beyond measure.

So much has happened since the second book was started and it has taken until 2019 to finally get to this stage. 13 years on from the accident I still have some brain issues. These become apparent when I am under stress, overtired or in pain. I still have Gran moments. I still get things frack to brunt and get my words muddled. There are times when I am aware that my cognitive function is not doing so well and I can have memory issues. Mind you, some of those are probably Teflon moments due to my being a bit older now!

However I have come a long, long, way. The journey is a tough one. At times it has felt too hard, as though no progress has been made. That’s when the perspective of others can help. They see what we don’t. When we can learn to let of the need to get back to how we were, we can begin the process of building a new life on what is NOW. That, I have learned, is the way to acceptance and healing and putting back the pieces, but in a different way.

There are grammatical and typing errors in both books; lots in the early parts. As time went by, I became better at realizing mistakes and correcting them. I have purposely left things as they are so that the reader can track the progress and understand more.

WAI_cvr

Chapter One

I Had It All Worked Out (Yeah Right!)

I’m not who I was. I don’t know who I am becoming. What I do know is that life can change in an instant and with that, who one is. For me, one moment I was driving home from buying cat food and the next, I was in hospital being told there had been an accident. Wow! That was December 2005. It is now March 2007 as I begin to write this.

I guess we’ve all heard the expression man proposes, God disposes. Mine was, Ruth makes plans and God laughs. I had certainly made plans! The Christmas shopping was all done, the pressies wrapped, the Christmas dinner that my husband Phil, myself, and a friend who shared the house, were having that night, was all organised. The next day, Thursday 22nd December, Phil and I planned to be driving up to Gisborne for Christmas with family. Cool! Sorted!

There was a complex writing project that I had been involved in and I spent the morning of Wednesday 21st December finalising the layout of a booklet. I was determined to get it sorted out. It took the whole morning to do. At that time we lived in the country, a good half hour from town. There was not enough cat food to last the time we would be away so a trip to a supermarket was needed. I figured Havelock North would be the best bet, so off I went.

As usual, there were one or two other things that found their way into the basket but it was a quick visit and off home I headed. I clearly remember slowing down to 50k to go through Bridge Pa settlement, then getting back out into the 100k zone. And that is all.

It was really weird. There was Phil, and two other friends standing looking at me, with very strange expressions on their faces. They were all smiling, but they looked ….. well, odd, strained, shocked. Somebody said I was in hospital – there had been an accident.

On asking if it was my fault and being told ‘no’, I then wanted to know if the other person was ok. She was not badly hurt. It turned out that both my legs and my right arm were broken, and I had a skull fracture. I had been cut out of the car and had a helicopter ride. Fancy not knowing about that! So much for plans of going to Gisborne! So much for who I was!

Needless to say, we did not spend Christmas in Gisborne with family. Instead, my poor, shocked, adult sons, their wives and our grandchildren, came to Hawkes Bay. In those early times, I was so upset at seeing their upset, and the upset of others, that I was simply grateful to be alive.

In the orthopaedic ward the staff were absolutely incredible, having looked and me when I arrived up there from ICU (apparently) and going #***#! They were just great, as were the doctors who looked after me through quite a few panicy situations.

While there, I was visited by an occupational therapist whose special area was head injury. He gave me lots of information which I really didn’t understand at the time and said he would be working with me down the track.

When I could master the art of sliding on a yellow curving banana board to make the transition from bed to chair – be it wheelchair or commode chair, I was deemed ready to be discharged from hospital. That was the 18th January 2006.

I went home with three limbs in plaster and pretty darn scared! Little miss independent was certainly not that any more. For the first couple of weeks at home I couldn’t even pull my own knickers up! I pretty much had to be wheeled everywhere, until I learned to drive and manouver the wheelchair around the house. I never did manage to get the commode chair into the toilet, so always needed help there. Sometimes I could get it into the bathroom.

Eight weeks after the accident, the plaster was removed from my legs. Unfortunately, my right arm had not healed properly, and was re-plastered for another few weeks. It sure felt strange to have two skinny naked legs exposed. Still couldn’t walk of course. Rob and Kelly came down and Kelly was the one who cleaned my legs up and also helped me to begin to get a bit of movement going. No physio came out even though I kept getting asked when one was coming.

The OT did come out to see me again and asked heaps of questions. It seemed I was showing all the normal signs of brain injury….. ok!!!! At least it helped me to understand a bit of what was going on. I felt pretty weird. Didn’t feel like me. Wasn’t really connecting things very well and the more I became able to do a few things, the more obvious this became. I got myself walking, kind of, it was very robotic and as I excitedly showed people, they got ready to catch me as I was very