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Brain Go BOOM! Author/Survivor: John Cooper I looked at the four stacks of papers, put them into the copy machine and made twentyfive copies each. I handed them to my dad and asked him to sort them. After they were sorted, I gave the stack to my mom and asked her to staple and restack them. Good, job complete! The therapist peered over and said, “What are you doing John?” I replied, “I’m doing what you asked me to do.” She explained that she wanted me to do every single step of that task by myself. I rebutted by saying, “In my previous employment, I would have delegated and assigned tasks like this to others so I could concentrate and complete more pertinent tasks.” I think her lesson plan failed with me that day, but I believe she was equally impressed with my thought process. I knew I couldn’t have copied, sorted, stapled, and stacked everything the way she wanted it, but I sure knew how to use the resources around me to get the job done. It was then I identified a reoccurring pattern: I was only able to grasp and correctly complete about fifty percent of the tasks that were asked of me. That was better than nothing at all, but I wondered if I would ever get back to one hundred percent? Following that, my occupational therapist scheduled me for a trial session in the ADL suite the following day. ADL stands for Activities of Daily Living. The ADL suite resembled a mini apartment. I had to make my bed, take a shower, make coffee, make toast and use the stovetop to make scrambled eggs. If I passed this test, I would be yet another step closer to being discharged! Making the bed was no problem. I had been in the Navy so I did my military corners—you could’ve bounced a handful of quarters off of that bed. Anyone who has served our great country would have been impressed with the final result. My left hand was still very weak and got in the way but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. The shower was a little shaky. I was still very unbalanced, so I got wet, washed the essentials and quickly got out. It had to be less than two minutes. Fresh brewed coffee sounded good at this moment. I gathered the necessary things to do this, or so I thought. BOOM! I had forgotten the coffee filter and wet grounds scattered the coffee maker and across the counter. The coffee began streaming from the coffee maker to the counter and pooled down onto the cold, white, tiled floor. There was only one clean towel and Page 48 of 167
Brain Go BOOM! Author/Survivor: John Cooper one washcloth, so I resorted to using towels in the soiled linen container. I quickly grabbed three large towels that had been used by the prior patients and cleaned up the mess before anyone came in. It was disgusting. I had to use dirty towels left over from previous patients, but I was not going to fail that mission. I scoured my hands like never known to man, discarded the coffee-drenched towels and moved onto scrambling some eggs. At that point, I was on E (for empty) and running on fumes. I resorted to my mom’s recipe for scrambling eggs in the microwave. There was no way in hell I was going to use a stovetop after the coffee fiasco. I would have burned down the joint. My mom was the typical Irish-Catholic mother from Philly. She could burn water. She couldn’t cook, with the exception of her bread crumb topped baked macaroni and cheese. She redeemed herself by being a great baker. Her chocolate-chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies voided out any cooking deficiencies. Along came the unveiling of the new and magical microwave oven. Our first one resembled our old 1970’s RCA television with the two big dials and the simulated wood, veneer outer shell. My mom cooked everything in that microwave! Pardon the flashback; let’s get back to the scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs, you can’t screw this up, John. Crack the eggs on the countertop, split them apart and…crap! Some small shell fragments got mixed in, thanks to my left hand which was not cooperating with me (and to this day still doesn’t cooperate with me). Stir up the eggs, pop them in the microwave and on to the toast. Ironically, the toast was perfectly done and not burnt. I finally sat down at the small, round table and slowly peeled open the foiled lid of the plastic orange juice container, which I had almost spilled, thanks to my uncooperative left hand. As my occupational therapist walked in, she said, “Wow things look really great in here John!” She walked around and evaluated the ADL suite with Laura. She went into the kitchen and came back out to me. Page 49 of 167
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