My Head Injury

On September 1st (my 23rd birthday), 1997, I suffered a depressed skull fracture which happened during a car accident. We were leaving my grandparents house in Idaho and heading to Salt Lake City, Utah to drop my brother Ethan off at the airport so he could catch his flight back to Fairbanks, Alaska.

We made the local paper which was a bit inaccurate. It was Ethan Nelson (my brother), not Randy Nelson (my dad), who was also in the car. They also didn't mention that the grain truck driver did not use his left turn signal when he decided to turn left onto the farm road.

Here is Jon's car. I was the front passenger and my brother Ethan was sitting behind me. We were all wearing our seatbelts and listening to my soundtrack from Evita when the accident happened. Thankfully, I was the only one seriously injured.

Our accident happened in Newdale, ID. Initially they didn't know how serious my injury was and took me in an ambulance to Rexburg, ID. Once there, they realized the severity of my injury and put me on a life flight that took me from Rexburg, ID to Idaho Falls, ID.

Here is a picture of the staples still in my head before they were removed. I had a depressed skull fracture and they had to remove the pieces of my skull that had been in my brain. I had complete hearing loss in my left ear which slowly came back after a few weeks to 95%. My parents and sister were told they needed to come from Alaska as it was a 50/50 chance if I lived or died. I have complete memory loss of the first week in the hospital and I remember bits and pieces of the second week. I remember asking "What happened to me?" quite often. I referred to my Mom as 239. I referred to my Dad, Ethan and Jon as Count. It's amazing how the neurons in my brain slowly began to reroute themselves enabling me so finally refer to things the right way.

Here is a picture of me and Jon, who was my boyfriend at the time, during my recovery at the hospital. I had to do physical, occupational and speech therapy during my hospital time. I did occcupational and speech therapy during my home recovery.

Initially they shaved one side of my head. Thankfully, my aunt Vicky cut my hair to make me look a little more symmetrical. Here I am at one of my first outings, which was to Tatuphaus Park Zoo, in Idaho Falls, ID, I remember not being able to read any of the signs describing the animals. The words looked so foreign, yet I knew I had been able to read a few days prior.

Everybody was so supportive, I received many visitors, flowers, cards and gifts. Those things really brightened my days. Here I am saying farewell to my Idaho friends and family. My immediate family then flew back to Alaska for further recovery.

After my accident, there was concern that I would suffer from seizures and I had to have constant supervision. Luckily, I have never had a seizure. My parents are both school teachers and had to go back to work. Jon, a recent college graduate, came to Alaska and helped care for me during my recovery. His parents then offered to let me stay with them in California for some of my recovery. When my accident happened, I had one class left in college (my senior thesis) before I could graduate. I got my degree in Sociocultural Anthropology and had done all of the participant observation, but still had to complete my senior thesis. It was a 50 page paper. That was very daunting considering I couldn't read anymore. My college professor was great and gave me time to complete it. My mother in-law was great too. She asked me every day how things were coming along on my paper and I always felt like I had to have an answer. I attribute some of my college success to my mother in-law. She's great.