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Brain Go BOOM! Author/Survivor: John Cooper Chapter 49: Changes A s a Navy Corpsman and Registered Nurse, I consider myself to be a prepared person. I have always worn a belt in case I unexpectedly need a tourniquet or for self-protection (if held by the non-buckle end, it turns into a weapon that can be swung towards bad guys). I would carry a small knife in my car and always carried a pen in case I needed to perform an emergency tracheotomy. I know this may sound a bit overboard, but that’s how I was; I was always prepared. I lived life thinking that if something were go wrong, I would be prepared for those unforeseeable circumstances. However, I could have never prepared myself for a giant, ruptured brain aneurysm and stroke. I would have never imagined having two brain surgeries, being in a coma, seeing an angel, not knowing how much a quarter was worth, learning how to walk then wanting to end my own life. After my aneurysm, my over-prepared trait was amplified tenfold. I was told by several physicians and at my support group meetings that certain personality traits are amplified after a brain injury. Some were good while others weren’t. If a person was jerk before a brain injury, they could become a bigger jerk after one. The trait most notable in me was being over-prepared and my over-the-top protectiveness. My family’s security, along with me over analyzing the uncontrollable events that lay ahead of me had consumed me, and my family was concerned. I knew I had zero control over them but I was not going into battle without ammunition. I became neurotic about my home security and my family’s safety. I considered buying a better, newer gun and putting it in my safe, but I knew that wouldn’t be my best choice for the reasons stated in earlier chapters; I just wasn’t ready for that. I over-prepared and to this day still have more booby traps set up than most people could ever imagine. It’s not a DEFCON ONE setup, but it’s the best my brain-injured-self could muster up. Family members and friends that know about the booby traps shake their heads in disbelief at the extent of my over exaggerated, homemade security devices. I tested out a few mock ups on Laura and my girls. On one occasion, they frantically ran out of the house while screaming their heads off. BOOM! They wanted Johnny’s head on a Page 132 of 167
Brain Go BOOM! Author/Survivor: John Cooper platter. They were extremely pissed off at me but that’s what worked for the new me; it just didn’t work for them. In one of my testing scenarios, I took Laura off guard and in reactionary horror, she grabbed the device, threw it against the garage floor where it smashed into pieces. For my own safety, I don’t use my family members as test subjects anymore. My time management skills and abilities were, and still are, a wreck. I had to set alarms or reminders on my iPhone and iPad to remind me to set more alarms and reminders. It’s what seemed to work best for me but it mentally drained me. There were a multitude of chimes ringing from my devices two dozen times a day. It sounds like common sense to set one alarm, but some things aren’t so common nor do they make much sense either. For some reason, I unintentionally, and what would appear to many people, ignore the alerts. It’s not an excuse. If I have to be somewhere at 9:00 am and it takes me a half an hour to get there, with fifteen minutes to shower and get ready, I go bolting out the door at the very last second. All too often I am late. So why wouldn’t I start getting ready at 8:00 or 8:15? That part of my brain doesn’t work very well; it’s as if it’s dead! I battle with this every day. This adds much unwanted strain on me and my family while also increasing my anxiety to the point where I don’t want to go out at all. I become depressed because I feel like I’m a failure. It sounds like common sense, just set you alarms and pay attention John! I have all good intentions of sticking to my plan and getting out the door on time and yet it just doesn’t happen unless somebody is yelling at me to get ready. I take everything up to the last minute. I wish it was intentional so I could address it in a more reasonable manner or just make up some dumb excuse, but it’s not intentional. It’s a part of my new normal. It seems as if this new Johnny thrives on some form of self-inflicted pressure. It’s not like that—I actually hate it. I wrote about eighty percent of this book under pressure. I could only write when something needed to be done or when we needed to be somewhere. I take things down to the wire while Laura or the girls yell, “Let’s go! We have to leave in seven minutes. You didn’t even get a shower yet?” Only after this will I quickly shower, change and scatter about the house, set up my booby traps and hop in the car. When I finally get into the car, I run back into the house one or two times because I’ve either forgotten my medications, my Page 133 of 167
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