Tim was my next to last boyfriend, the only one I had ever lived with, and I have dated quite a few in my healthy days. He was in a motorcycle accident while living with me; he suffered a brain injury, and was flown to Hospital. His Helmet came off and his head hit the pavement, after he bounced off a Van. The pick up truck behind him failed to stop at a red light and rear-ended him. I rushed to the Hospital, and he was having seizures, it was horrible. I held his hand and they had to keep giving him a drug that would paralysis him to try to stop any further injury. I had to put my head down, cause I felt so sick, and lightheaded from the ordeal. Finally they were ready to take him to a room, they had him on a temp respirator, hand pump type, and I was thinking please don't mess up with that. I had to wait till they got him stabilized in his room. He was on life support, stomach being pumped, etc..After forever it seemed I was allowed in. I sat holding his hand, trying to talk with him, I was so upset it was hard to talk, but when i touched him his heart rate went up, so there was some response. You know it is hard to see someone you care about with all the tubes, and the respirator etc....Well, Tim wasn't divorced yet, and his wife saw dollar signs from the accident, so she blocked my visits. I was so angry, and felt too helpless. Didn't know what to do with myself. Tim always beeped me with all 7's on my beeper, and out of his fog a few days later he beeped me. I couldn't believe it. I called and he had recovered to the point where he was able to talk on the phone, however he still thought he was at work. I tried gently to get his brain to accept that he had been in the accident. He was asking where his pants were, and he needed to get back to work. It was really sad. I had him look around where he was. I told him about the accident, and had him look at the nurse, all the tubes etc..And finally he realized what happened, had to be a real shocker. I was still blocked from seeing him, and I couldn't see him until he was well enough to say he wanted to see me. I didn't know if he would even remember me. He had a Subdural Hematoma, which is basically bleeding and swelling in the brain. It is a slow process to get it under control, he bleed from his ears, and to discover the amount of brain injury. Some of his actions were just that actions, non-thought actions. It took several days for Tim to get to the point where he was able to talk normally to the Doctors, and he had endured visits from his wife in misery. He was finally able to ask them to let me see him, at least he remembered me, and he asked that his wife not be permitted in anymore. I couldn’t get there fast enough. Some of his family had come from Minn. to see him. His mom and brother were very nice, and were on my side as far as being able to visit with him as they knew his wife, and how she had treated him. It hadn’t been a good marriage. I couldn’t get there fast enough. When I walked in to his room, he just stared at me. No expression on his face. I thought that was odd, and at the time it hurt me feeling somewhat. I expected a happy greeting. I was to find out later, that he was happy, but his affect (expressions) had been affected, and many times his face showed a lack of expression, part of the damage. I was able to meet and talk with the Doctor along with his Mom and brother. The Doctor outlined his Rehab program, and asked if we noticed any changes with him. At the time I really couldn’t put my finger on what the change I saw was. I took me a few visits to realize that Tim acted much like a child in many ways, and the Doctor confirmed my observations. I went to several of his Rehab sessions as was requested me. It was important that I be there as I would be caring for him upon his release. Tim also had the sex drive of a teen, and he had me in his Hospital bed and snuggled etc... But I was told to expect this. When I had to leave he bagged me as a child would not to leave, but the visiting hours were over and I had to go. I tried to be kind and remember his state of mind. I was told there was no way to know how far the brain would heal and what the final result would be on his personality. His Mom asked me if I were going to be there for him, as otherwise they would have to make other arrangements. I assured them I would be. I went almost every day to see him and it was an hour and a half drive. This was down in Florida. On my way home one night, it was getting to be about 10 pm, my tire blew out. I couldn’t believe I made it to the side of the road as I had been going 60 mph. I was thinking, ok, now what do I do? I went to a house, knocked and the owners were very nice, but did not speak English. I had to use motions to make them understand car trouble, can I use your phone. They were very kind and let me in to use it. I called Triple A, whom I had a membership with at the time. Thank goodness, cause otherwise I don’t know whom I would have called. They were able to put on a spare that got me home, and the next day I had to take it to a shop and have it fixed. Whew! At the time I had been going to school and working at night, so life was pretty hectic, and stressful. After a few weeks Tim was able to walk with me outside and sit on the picnic table, and walk around. It was encouraged to get him back in shape after being in bed so long. He was a weight lifter (not professional), and you could see the loss of muscle in his arms. It was strange cause every week I could see improvement in his maturity; he was growing up so to speak in front of my eyes. We were encouraged to play games where he had to add, so we played a dice game that he loved and had taught to me called Fargo. He did very well with adding, and keeping score. Eventually after much Rehab he was allowed to come home. He had homework to do, like school work to make his brain work, and I helped him get through all that when he had problems. I wasn’t to leave him alone at anytime, so I had dropped my classes for the time being to be home during the day. My night job was my own little business as a bathroom valet in a upscale night club, and I had no one to cover me. So Tim was home at night but he was in bed, and he beeped me every night to let me know all was fine. There was a phone in the bathroom also, so he called and if it wasn’t busy we could talk. He wasn’t allowed to drive at all, and I was told that if he got into a car and tried to drive to call the police. I didn’t think that would be a problem, but at a point in his maturing process he became rebellious as a teen and said he was going to drive. I had a hard time convincing him not to, but he finally relented. I believe it was the trust he had in me that got through. He also had to abstain from drinking etc for a year. The healing process would do the most in the first year, and for up to 3 years after is what the Doctor told me. So I made sure he didn’t drink. I made sure he ate really well, and we went for walks a lot. His brain chemistry was out of whack and he couldn’t sleep, was very hyper, and unable to relax. The Doctor prescribed Ambien for sleep, and I spent one night on the phone with the Doctor till early morning trying to get him to sleep. He would gradually increase his dosage, and he ended up taking 3-4 of the Ambien, a pretty large dose. I would tell the Doctor, he is still walking and talking. After that first night he had to only take a regular dose of one Ambien and it seemed to work then. He was tired and under much stress. It took a lot out of him going back to work, trying to relate to his job and friends etc.. I think he had a difficult time with being friends with the guys under him as he was a supervisor. The people at work were very tolerant as I had spoken to his boss and explained about the brain injury etc..
As time went by I noticed a lack of the ability to rationalize situations, and to control his anger less than he had before. He seemed to be un-trustful of many people. His behavior/personality had def changed to where I could notice it. At the Doctors permission we started driving, and he was able to go back to work. He worked for the county had had a great boss. His friends at work told me as time went on that he had anger problems at work, didn’t treat them as nice, and his friendships eventually shifted from old friends to new ones. It was very hard for one of his friends, he had a hard time accepting Tim’s changes, and I could totally relate. It was hard. One of the first places he wanted to go was to see the motorcycle. Needless to say it was a mess and was totaled by the insurance company. The driver that hit him had no insurance and the Hospital that treated him did so for free. The bill for the Helicopter ride alone was in the thousands due to life support and so on. He was lucky to be able to get the treatment he needed, and from such an expensive injury. Some of the others on his ward were not fortunate enough to survive as well as he did. Their brain injuries were more severe, and some in a coma, very sad.
Tim continued to improve and eventually got to a stopping point where I felt he would not go much farther. Overall he did very well, and was very lucky. He was alive and back to being healthy. Eventually he stopped the sleep medication, and regained much of his strength. Unfortunately he started to care for a young girl at work. Weather it was due to his maturity going down or otherwise I will never know. He went to visit his family, and while he was there he hardly ever called, and when he did he seemed very distant. It was hard for him to pretend due to his injury. He acted the way he felt basically. So I was aware of the warning signs. Been there, done that. Guys have a way of acting towards the old girl as opposed to the new. The old gets criticized, they become distant, they don’t do things for you anymore and so on. It probably goes with women to but since I only know the female view that is what I was seeing. Of course I had hopped it was due to the injury, and not another girl. His beeper (actually mine, as I had loaned it to him) went off one night late, and I called to find out it was a message from the girl asking if he needed a ride from the airport. He was due home that evening, and I took all of his belongings and packed them into his pick up truck. The larger items in the yard he could get later. I left him a note, and I left the house so I would not be there when he arrived. It was best at the time. It was so hard to do, caused I really loved him, but I learned from experience He wasn’t going to change, and this was his choice. I waited in a Denny’s, open all night, till 3 AM, and then went home. I cried so hard, nut I knew it was my pain and I had to go through it. It was over, and that was that. Also learned from experience, don’t try to keep hanging on, and so on, end it and get it over with when you know that is it. By this time I had bought a Consignment store business, worked at night, and continued my classes to get my Associates degree. Getting through my days was hard, but I stayed really busy. Tim had called me that next night and I told him the pain was to much and I just could not talk to him. I talked to him again a week or so later and he wanted to keep seeing each other, and I asked him if he loved me, and he said no. So I said what is the point. He ended up moving in with the girl, and I soon saw on my phone bill where he had been calling her the last month or so, several times actually. I called her to talk to her, I can’t remember the whole conversation, Tim was there also, and I told he that Tim had told me that she wasn’t that great in bed. And she immediately attacked Tim, how could you say that. I was amused that she fell for this trick. It put a cloud over there relationship that hovered and grew blacker as I know it would. Not a nice thing to do, but what can I say. I had anger; I had resentment for all I had gone through for this man, all I had given up, and then for this to happen. I could not bear to give him another chance; I could not bear the pain again. She asked me how I could have been so cruel to throw him out. In the end, a few weeks later, she threw him out also. I wanted to call her and ask her the question, but didn’t. Tim and I stayed in contact off and on as friends, even though I always cared so much more for him. He helped me move once, and we had a really good talk about everything. It was good, it was cleansing. It didn’t change what had happened, but it softened the blow so to speak.
There are so many more details involved, but this would probably get much to boring. So we went on with our lives, and on occasion met up with each other, talked and went on. I was in a trance much of the time, just wanted the pain to end, so I could move on. A Lady at the nightclub had a brother she wanted to me, he was very tall, pretty nice guy, Postal worked. So I agreed to start seeing him. And we dated etc,,, and I had told him what happened and I am not able to be very giving right now, maybe in the further, normally I am very giving person. I had suffered a great loss and needed time to heal.
So I thought he understood this, as least he said he did. We dated for quite awhile, and it was hard due to out schedules. Andre, his name, was kind of on a face track type of guy, been divorced 3 times already. So he was fun to be with but he was wanted more. Asking t go to my job at night. And I would say, so who is going to be paying my bills. He had no answer. This went on for a while; Andre had spoken about not seeing other people and that was fine with me as I as having enough problems relating to any of it at the moment.
After awhile, of my working, being busy, etc,,I called and he is put on his boat, A boat I had never been asked out on. I asked his sister is he was with someone else. She said yeah, he is with friend, Light bulb here again!!!!!!!!,,I asked id she female, Oh yes, she was. Boy I have a great track record, He was the one wanted us to see only each other. Maybe this was cursed from the get go. He wanted to move faster, and I wasn’t able to, so there ya go…After he got home from his boat ride, I totally went off on him so bad, yelling, screaming, etc..And he was shocked, lol, Needless to say, it was over.
I ended up in the Hospital with severe abdominal pain for 5 days. I had to call Andre to see if he would go by and feed my dog. That was pretty hard after all I had said. He had his sister do it for me, and I thanked him, end of our story. But I was glad to get home from the Hospital and the outcome was most likely a ruptured ovarian cyst, which took care of itself. From someone at the nightclub I caught Mono, and not the fun way. Just by being around them. I got very sick, very tired, and ended up losing my position at the nightclub. I could go back to it most likely at that one or another one, when I got better. In the meantime, my rent was due and so on. My Mom had a house over in Kissimmee, and I called and asked Tim to help me move over there. On the way home we had a really good lengthy conversation about our relationship, and we remained friends. After several weeks I had acquired a job over there but it only pain min wage, and I couldn’t exist on that, and I had problems with sleeping. My Doctor had put me on Ambien, and then out of the blue decided I shouldn’t take it anymore. So I ended up going through withdrawals that put me back in the Hospital for a night and on a medication to help me with that. I had to leave the job over there, no big lose. They had me work 9 hours, by myself in the customer service booth, with no break. And when I left she had the gall to say, “How could I do this to them” Ha…
In the end I ended up moving back up north to Virginia with my sister till I got the job with State Farm Insurance, which I lost 3 years later due to my current illness. I wrote a letter to Tim shortly after getting up here, and he wrote a short one back. I decided it was best to just let it go, and don’t look back, though sometimes it is very hard. I think about Tim allot, and wonder how he is doing. Is he remarried yet?, How are his kids? And so on. But that is basically the story of Tim, and there were many more details, but this is the highlights.
I had to get passed allot of anger and resentment towards Tim for all I had sacrificed for him, all the help I gave him, and then for him to chase around some other girl. It was very painful, but today, several years later, I can say I hope he is doing well, and I still care about him and most likely always will. Since I sated Andre, I haven't dated anyone, and it has been 7 years. When I felt that I wouldn't mind starting to date again, I fell ill and so that has prevented me from doing it. I have no energy for it.
