Living with Traumatic Brain Injury

When I was 8 years old and then again 14 years old, I had died. There was no oxygen flowing through my brain. Later as my schooling years went on, I had a speech impediment. During my elementary and high school years, I was a student. It wasn’t very proud of having my father constantly doing battle with my teachers in order to get me to the next grade level. When it was time to graduate high school, they called me in to my school counselor and told me that I didn’t have enough credits to graduate. As you could probably well figure, I had enough with school. So, on to bigger and better things. I had a few skills in baking and cooking. So, I got this job inside this new restaurant chain and became the number two baker. Number one was some old guy about 40 years old who was baking pies forever!

We became good friends and he invited me to this horse farm with the purpose of buying a horse for himself. So, this farmer took out this 2 1/2 year old horse. It was used for racing. He saddled her up. The farmer rode the horse for a short distance. Then, it was my friend’s turn. I saw that the horse didn’t like strangers on his back. However, Ron got back safely in one piece with a little trouble. Then, it was my turn. When I got up on that horse, she took off as I had never seen a horse run before in my life! The power and strength of that animal was amazing. I pulled so hard on that bit, I thought it might have made her bleed, but she wouldn’t stop. We were heading towards a tree with an old tractor nearby it. The horse bucked and I literally flew into the tractor head first.

I was unconscious and when I awoke, I saw Ron and the old farmer running towards me. They took me to a nearby hospital where they stitched up a hole in my head. After that day, the world had changed on me. A few years later, I went to college. For the first time in my entire life I had a 4.0 GPA and my name on the honor roll. I wrote a book in Chinese and the other half was in English. I had it published in Taiwan. It was on Taoist reflections. I suddenly became an expert in this as well. The book was called The Root of the Lotus. I went on a book tour and started to teach people.

I thought I was unstoppable until I found myself working for a company that made computers and network equipment. I was testing network boards when a young woman asked for my help. She needed a box to put her computers boards in to ship. A shipment of boxes had come in the warehouse. Each box weighed about 5 to 8 pounds a piece. There were about 180 to 200 boxes on each pallet that were all shrink wrapped. When I reluctantly agreed to help her, I saw that there were pallets double stacked on top of one another. There was no one there to help me and she was stressed in getting a box. So, I dragged a top pallet off the bottom. I saw that there wasn’t any room for me to drop this pallet. So, I thought I could drop on the small space of the floor without causing any damage to anything in the way.

Suddenly, I lost control of the pallet. It was falling. My first concern was to the girl. I told her to back off. She did. Then, the pallet went on my head. I felt the weight of the entire pallet. I put it on my shoulder and placed in that empty space on the floor. After that day, the people who I held dear to me left me. So, I came out surviving with a clear understanding that my life was never going to be the same.