TBI and why it sucks….
As you can see from my profile, I suffer from PTSD, TBI and a GSW. I am only going to talk about the TBI right now. M graciously asked me to be apart of this awesome blog and I jumped at the chance, to try and get people to understand what we go through. This is a challenge that I’m more than happy to accept…even if i can’t remember what the hell I’m doing half the time.
Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI, sounds bad because it is. Here is the basic definition thrown out by doctors:
“Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a non degenerative, non congenital insult to the brain from an external mechanical force, possibly leading to permanent or temporary impairment of cognitive, physical, and psychosocial functions, with an associated diminished or altered state of consciousness.
The definition of TBI has not been consistent and tends to vary according to specialties and circumstances. Often, the term brain injury is used synonymously with head injury, which may not be associated with neurologic deficits. The definition also has been problematic with variations in inclusion criteria” http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/326510-overview
This is the basic nonsense that I have heard every time I have gone to see a doctor. Basically what it means is its not a disease, you don’t get it like a cold and supposedly it doesn’t worse (horses shit) and they can’t do really tell you have it until you die. If you have followed the NFL at all you will see the same basic functions, in the fact that you can not truly test for a Traumatic Brain Injury or the most common theme the “concussion” until you are dead. The most recent example of this in the NFL is Travis Henry and quite possibly Junior Seau, which they aren’t sure about yet.
But most Vets with multiple blast exposures exhibit the same symptoms NFL players with multiple concussions do. Horrible headaches, memory loss, motor function loss, sleep loss and several other symptoms. I can attest to all of those. The headaches I have are debilitating, memory loss is ridiculous; I walk into a room and forget why I’m there. I won’t tell you how many times that i have left my keys in the ignition and the truck running at work, only to come out at lunch and realize what I did.
The worst part of TBI at least for me is the headaches and the memory loss. The headaches hurt like hell, and when i get them, if i do not catch them in time i have to waste half a day in the ER waiting on a shot to make it go away. The memory loss does not physically hurt, but its extremely unnerving (which doesn’t help with PTSD) and very frustrating. I have forgotten numerous “special” things I have done for my wife over the years, i.e. when i have given her a piece of jewelry or something like that and obviously that sucks. Most people would say I do that all the time…but most have some sort of memory of the event, a snippet here or there, for me, its gone. All of it, nothing there. I will pose this scenario to you, and let you dwell on it. This is my life and what i have had to deal with for the last 8 years, and its only gotten worse, after each successive blast exposure. Walk into a bathroom in gas station, or any where for that matter, or go somewhere where you can not see the outside, walk out and have no idea where you are or how you got there….tell me how you would feel. That’s half the reason I stay in basement, or carried a gun for so long. Being scared out of your mind or thinking about being scared out of your mind, because you don’t know the next time its going to happen is….debilitating. Think about that…till next time.
Fighting PTSD 
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