Today: my 30th Anniversary

Today marks the 30th anniversary of my accident with a bull moose in Alaska. Many people don’t realize that I am a survivor of a brain injury that happened 30 years ago today. I was driving home from a dance class in my car when a legal bull moose was standing in the road and I hit him going probably 55 mph.

When you hit a full size moose with 6 foot antlers with a car, you hit them in the shins and the body comes through the windshield and crushes the entire car. The moose’s body broke out the windshield, cutting up my hands, but the fur hit my face so my face didn’t get any major cuts- it just shattered my entire face with the impact of over 1500 pounds.
My jaw was broken in a few places, my maxilla was broken to the point I could move my top teeth away from my head; between my eyes was shattered including two more cracks into the orbital zone on my right side. (I’m so fortunate to not have lost my sight in my camera eye, which is common with those kind of fractures!) The car’s frame above the windshield hit my forhead and my skin was fused to my scull for a few years but not anymore- I just have one little scar up in my hairline and no scars on my face, thankfully. All the bones in my face were cracked but not dislodged, so the doctors wired my jaw to keep it all in place until it healed. I had multiple surgeries to reconstruct my nose and bridge between my eyes along with braces (again) to bring up a few teeth that were broken off. Later on, I had lots of dental work to make my teeth look like the originals.

But honestly, as horrible as that sounds, it was all minor in light of the real damage: a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Unfortunately 30 years ago (and in Alaska) not much was known about brain injuries and I was not diagnosed for over two years, while my life spiraled downward in a horrible spin, ending very badly. Not having disability insurance as the wage earner meant we suffered the loss of our two businesses, our home, everything we owned, and sadly, because of my instability and emotional state of a two-year-old (damage to my frontal lobe emotional centers) my husband of 10 years took me home to my parents in California and divorced me.
Keep in mind, my memory was almost non existent, I slept 16ish hours a day, cried many of the waking ones, was irrational, delusional, cognitively impaired to a huge degree and my life was a total train wreck. I was mortally depressed (for good reason, actually) and by then, I just wanted my life over, but didn’t have the guts to take my own life. It was such a dark, sad season. I felt hopeless. I had no idea what had happened to my former self and my life was destroyed … I was broken and my husband had dumped me, I couldn’t function in life, much less hold down a job, and I couldn’t stop crying…. I had no hope that I would ever be normal again. Wow, it’s hard to even imagine how dark those days were. So sad.

I was angry at God for a few years, wondering why or how something like this happened, but He never abandoned me; little by Little, my hope was restored. First, my mom, who worked for an insurance company, ran across a Head Injury Support Group, and suggested we go. None of us knew anything about head injuries, but she thought perhaps some of my issues might possibly be related to the accident two years prior… oh wow! It was EXACTLY what was happening. I was tested by the doctor who was the group’s leader, and found to be a victim of TBI but ALSO found be a good candidate for a CA State grant for head injury rehabilitation. I applied for and received a grant for $40,000 from the state to help demonstrate that “ a person with a mild head injury CAN be rehabilitated and put back into the workforce”. Incidentally, the fines from seat belt violations funded this grant.

So to make the story a little shorter, I attended the Center for Neuroretraining for many months. I don’t actually know how long it was because my memory was impaired. But in that process I managed to re-train new pathways in my brain to overcome the impairments I had. When I started, I could not sort a deck of cards by black and red cards without getting confused. After months of practice I could sort them even by suit with music playing, people coming into the room and distracting and perform other concurrent tasks. I had to relearn to screen out distractions and deal with variables, which is something I could not manage at all! I have to say it is a gift from God and a true miracle that I can do Photoshop (and especially teach it!) because it is variables on steroids!

Over the next 8 years I continued to push myself in every area I had struggles with (balance, coordination, emotional control, cognitive acuity, etc.) and even went back to college for a business degree to prove to myself I no longer was “dain bramaged” as we jokingly called it! I can honestly say that today, I have no impairments whatsoever from my head injury. I DID miss out on most of a decade of my life, starting over from scratch, but I’m thriving today with a message of Hope that miracles still happen, and anything is possible!

We usually want instant healing, but I can tell you, the ten year journey of my healing and recovery changed me and developed a compassion and persistence and hope in me that has changed my heart and life forever! Having a near death experience also has a way of clarifying one’s conviction of purpose and value.

So today, I KNOW there is always HOPE and also that persistence is omnipotent. My Why in life is to Inspire and Encourage- something my Mom consistently did to help me keep trying to do the things I literally could not do. The brain is capable of so much more than we realize, if we just believe and persist.

I hope this story sparks faith in You to believe for your impossibilities… to hope for more and continue to press in…

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier. The nature of the task doesn’t change but our abilities increase.”

“All things are possible to him who believes.” Mark 9:23

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Phil 4:13

Suzette Allen