Bobbie G. Transcript
When we ask what my life was like before the concussion, I would say very busy. I worked, depending on what time of the year it was, when I helped my aging father at the farm growing produce. I worked three days a week; otherwise, I worked four days a week, and took care of my own home and, you know, did everything. I was the shoveler, the mower, the everything. But then I had my accident, and apparently God told me, “You better slow down.” Didn’t have a choice.
So I presently only work two days a week. I still help my dad as much as I can on the farm because, I don’t know if you know this, but horticulture therapy is a true scientifically and medically put benefit for people with brain injuries. So here I was helping myself, unbeknownst to me, even though it took me a long time to get to that point again, that I could leave the house and go to the farm. But yeah, free therapy and free food. Hey, can’t go wrong with that, right?
And how I learned of horticulture therapy is I was actually seeing the occupational therapist, speech therapist, and physical therapist down in Madison, Wisconsin. We pulled in the parking lot one day for my therapy sessions, and there was raised garden beds in between the sidewalk and the building, almost downtown Madison. And I thought, well, this is really odd. So I had to ask about it, and I was told that that is for their patients that wanted to incorporate horticulture therapy.
And for those of us that have had a brain injury, if you like to grow things at all, it is extremely calming to the mind. Any of us know that when we have that racing, that racing mind where it feels like there’s a hundred pinball machines going off in your brain and you need to slow it down, horticulture therapy was really helpful. Still is on bad days.
I went to work one day, and the office had had a flooring remodel job, and there was an extra pile of the flooring stored in the break room around the corner. And I went around the corner and tripped on the pile. Unfortunately, the flooring in the break room was ceramic tile. I never even hit my head. It was the way I landed. I landed on small pressure points of our body. I landed first on my knee and then on my elbow, and, of course, the impact of your whole body taking that on ceramic tile.
So I never even hit my head. It was the way my neck went flying upon impact. Sadly, I even met a PCP who did not even know that you could sustain a concussion without hitting your head.
I was hardly functioning at all. I had aphasia and I didn’t even know it, and neither did these doctors. There’s different levels of aphasia. There’s literally not being able to talk, but nobody understood how difficult it was for me to process what I was hearing and try to answer them.
So while I was being misdiagnosed and in the ER five times and eight clinical visits, that whole time I could talk, but I was very delayed because what they were saying wasn’t making sense to me in my head. And even the replies that I would give in my head, sometimes I’d be like, well, that’s not right. But I also didn’t have the energy and the ability to correct my own answer. Does that make sense?
So they could have asked me, well, are you having difficulty swallowing? And I said, no. But I really was having difficulty swallowing, and I couldn’t even change my answer or have the cognitive ability to change it. So yeah, it was scary. It’s the strangest thing because you’re having all of the thoughts that you would in your mind, or at least a lot of the thoughts. You’re thinking, you know, you’re there, you’re inside. You just don’t even understand what’s happening to you.
And in my own case, because it took six weeks, and even after being correctly diagnosed, not given much further treatment or suggestions or anything, many of the symptoms I was having at the time, well, it was just another day of, like, what’s gonna happen today? I don’t, you know, am I gonna wake up and have to crawl to the bathroom because I’m dizzy?
I was literally being sent home from clinical visits and ER visits, whether it was not correctly diagnosed or even after, just saying, “Take Tylenol or ibuprofen as needed. Some people never heal from a concussion. Give it more time.” I said to my neurologist, I said, “I feel like I’ve lost IQ points.” And he said, “You did.”
Then he went on to explain the medical reason. I don’t know if it was the depletion of mitochondria. Again, what I’ve learned on my own. But never any medical help, therapy suggestions for me to increase my IQ or my, yeah. As far as the healthcare system goes, I certainly have a pretty low regard for that anymore.
There’s a lot of women, I’m in one woman’s support group, a lot of women and a lot of female athletes will report that sustaining a concussion will make you lose your menses. And unfortunately for me, I was 50 when I sustained my concussion, and I did lose my menses which is—a concussion is a hormonal assault on our body and our brain. And I hate to say it, but obviously menopause is also a hormonal disturbance. So simultaneously, that’s what my body went through. Yes. So it was a nightmare.
As I said to one provider, I’ve no more went through a concussion and whiplash or menopause at any point in my life, so I don’t know what I should be expecting and experiencing, and I don’t know what to put in what basket.
For a long time I had a weakness in my legs where there were days where I couldn’t even stand up to get out of bed. I couldn’t stand at my kitchen counter. So back to bed you go. I was going to appointments on the wrong day, the wrong time. I just couldn’t do it. But I also, because I was not permanently disabled, did not qualify for an advocate, and I wasn’t old enough, so I didn’t qualify for an advocate.
They are completely ignorant of the whole-body effect of a concussion, like, say, your gut biome changing. Well, I ran again, and I shared that I had incontinence for a while. I was sent to a GI doctor. I was sent to a urologist. I was told I could have cancer two different times within a three-month period following the concussion. It was the summer after. The concussion was sustained in September. By the springtime, the digestive pain and abdominal pain that I was having was excruciating.
But I will honestly say what saved my life was an online program called the Concussion Fix Program. So there’s three professionals, and they have this program called the Concussion Fix Program, and I pay for it. I’m a member still. I found this program about 15 months post-injury, and they are mainly what taught me about how a concussion affects the whole body.
They assured me that I was not going crazy like the healthcare system made me believe, and they gave me hope and confidence because they educate you as to how you can help yourself. They gave you at home, if you’re having a panic attack, try this, you know, do this. If you’re having anxiety, the sleep issues, all of those things, they give you hands-on material to do. It’s almost like a little program, a little class. They saved my life. They are the ones that—it was the epiphany to me that the digestive issues and problems I was having was because of the concussion, which I already knew that and believed that, but again, healthcare system gaslighting me. They were not putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
My coworker, my former coworker, her sister was saying, “Well, my sister’s calling me up, and she’s just crying, and she’s just outta control, and she doesn’t know what’s going on.” And I’m like, she’s got a brain injury. She’s more emotional. That’s what’s going on.
At one point I was more emotional too, and I was historically not a crier. But again, when you have a health issue and you’re in pain and you’re going to seek medical attention and you are not getting answers, you get more and more scared. So a healthcare professional would’ve possibly said, “Oh yeah, she’s more emotional.” I was terrified. I didn’t know what was going on with me, you know?
I would not have said I was more emotional. I would’ve said, I’m fricking scared, you know, gimme some answers. But yeah, I was more emotional for a while. And then I went from more emotional to dead. You’re dead inside. You have no emotion. And then when emotion came back, all I had was rage, anger.
But anyway, I feel pretty fortunate because I only work blocks from home. Mm-hmm. And I have tried to take a different position further away, but the commuting—I’ve had poor night vision since I was in my late thirties. I have light sensitivity. Well, now that night vision, poor night vision, with the way the headlights—now your brain’s gonna freak out.
So commuting to work in the morning when it’s dark out, by the time I would get to work, I would have this excruciating headache. I was walking into walls, literally. But that was before I even started seeing the Mind Eye Institute.
So I work really close to home, blocks away. I am still a dental hygienist, only two days a week. The doctor I work for is 79 years old, so I don’t know how much longer I’ll have a job. I mean, literally. And an adult hygienist typically would see eight to 10 patients a day in a full schedule. I seldom see eight, and I come home at lunchtime and always, or for years literally, would always have to lay down and put ice on the back of my neck.
Even seeing fewer patients, I would say that’s not as often, meaning I still come home. I need the quiet. Not that the office is—it’s not a big office, it’s only one dentist. It’s actually very quiet. But it’s just a calmer environment even than the office, to let my brain calm down. Sometimes I have to lay down still, and sometimes if my neck hurt, I still have to put an ice pack on the back of my head. So yeah.
The doctor’s ex-wife had a concussion, and he said so he’s pretty understanding about it. Although when I first started, he did not understand the capacity of my deficits. Mm-hmm. Neither did my coworkers, and I was really treated pretty poorly by my coworkers. I was treated pretty—how would I say this? Stupid, for lack of better words.
I was even by a much younger coworker, really had no experience in dentistry other than working at one other office for a couple of months. She’s an assistant. Yeah, she would talk down to me a lot until I was able to find my voice. And I finally said to her one day, I said, “You know, I’m not stupid, and I know how I’ve been treated. I said, I graduated my program with a 3.57 as a single mom who worked and commuted. I’m not stupid, so please quit treating me like I am.”
So I had to, you know—I had, you shouldn’t have to throw out your grade point average, right? So yeah, I was thrown under the bus a lot until, like I said, I was able to find my voice and stand up for myself. And so that would definitely be one of the things that—and a lot of people, again, in these support groups will say the same exact thing. It’s not that we can’t work or do our job. We just might need more time, a quieter environment. Yeah, again, it’s pretty degrading.
I mean, my cousin’s son is autistic. Love him to death, kindest person in the world. I have a new understanding of how the brain can work differently for everybody.
Well, I’ll tell you what. I was a dental hygienist. I’m gonna be an advocate on this one too, not just brain injuries, but workman’s compensation and how corrupt and backwards those laws are. I’ve met people that were first responders and EMTs and had their workman’s comp claims denied after an injury at work.
So here I am with a brain injury in Wisconsin, and I will be defending my self in my workman’s comp claim because I could not find a workman’s comp attorney to take this to court. My work fired me before I was even correctly diagnosed for missing work. All I could tell them was my symptoms. “Well, I woke up dizzy this morning. I can’t drive a car. I can’t come to work. My head’s feeling like it’s gonna explode. I’m sorry. I can’t.”
So yeah, there’s something wrong with our system, right? So they just call me a liar, that I’m exaggerating the symptoms. That goes back to those IME doctors that I don’t even know how they have a license to practice, to be quite honest with you.
And again, I know a paramedic that had to fight for workman’s compensation. And, you know, again, our veterans, no one should have to fight for care. And yeah, again, it becomes a financial burden beyond belief.
You know, first thing is listen, right? And I say even as a dental hygienist, the number one rule of diagnosing is ask yourself what has changed in the patient’s life.