Читать книгу The Courage to Give - Jackie Waldman - Страница 18

I GUESS I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A TEACHER. I used to be a teacher of art. And now, I guess I'm a teacher and a student of life. I see things now that I never saw before. I can communicate now in ways I never could before. I understand people, and animals, a lot better than I did before.

Now I learn new things all the time. I talk to people whom others pass right by. But I stop and talk for a while, and I always learn something from them. In my old life, I used to have to do things. Now I get to do them. Everything is a learning opportunity these days. That's what a brain tumor can do for you._________________________________

In 1989, I was a ceramics instructor and the assistant head of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Oregon in Eugene. I worked mostly in clay myself. I made pitchers, bowls, coffee cups, and dishes.

I was married then to Rebecca. She was a researcher in the biology department. My son Tyler was about a year old, and my daughter Madeline hadn't been born yet.

I would say I was basically a happy guy, maybe just slightly depressed. But I loved teaching, and I loved my students. I especially loved the freshmen because they were always so eager to learn. I loved my graduate classes, too. They were harder to teach, but the students were so curious about everything. I like curiosity.

My students and I talked about everything together. It felt like I spent about ninety hours at school every week. We talked about the philosophy of life and poetry. I lived in the moment.

I would meet my students two nights a week, from 7 P.M. until midnight. We had a big workshop where they could weld or do anything else they wanted to do. And I always got there early so I could set everything up.

One day, when I was driving to school, I was backing down a street, and my vision got blurry. I thought it was time to go have an eye exam and get some glasses that work. But something was odd about the eye exam. The person who was giving it kept saying, “OK, let's take a break.” So we would take a break, but then the test would be odd again. Finally, he told me to have an MRI.

When the MRI was finished, there were seven people standing around looking at the screen. The doctor told me I had a huge brain tumor. I cried. My wife was having a party at home. The doctor called to tell her the news.

The tumor was so big that only one doctor in the country was willing to try surgery on it. He said I had a fifty-fifty chance to come out of the surgery OK. I took the chance. The surgery took fourteen hours. They were able to get most of it out, but some of it is still in there. That means I have an MRI twice a year.

After the surgery, I was doing well at first. But then I had a brain bleed. I went into a coma, and it took me three weeks to wake up. When I woke up, I was suffering from brain damage. I didn't know that I had been asleep for three weeks. I couldn't imagine how I got so much mail overnight. I couldn't walk and I could barely talk. I didn't recognize people.

I had a very short rehab program in the hospital, but when I came home, I didn't have any formal rehab. I learned to walk again because I wanted to. It took me five months to learn. I would practice around the house. A friend of mine who had been a graduate student came over to help. We paid her to help me walk, write, speak, and learn to ride in a car again—it really frightened me to ride in a car.

I see myself as an image of a human brain. There's a devil and an angel in there. Before, the devil was taking up most of the room and coming to the front. But after my surgery, I feel like the angel came forward and gave the devil a little bit of a kick in the butt. The devil could handle a lot of hard situations. The angel is very slow at those situations. But the angel can do things the devil couldn't do. The angel can cry. I cry a lot. Before the tumor, I only cried once—I hid in a closet when I cried that one time.

There was an old Dick. And then there was a new Dick. Both of them were curious and interested in things, but from different places.

After the surgery, I was very depressed at first. I kept a journal with pictures I cut out of magazines. I put a lot of Einsteins in there, many Einsteins. I could barely write. I thought it was pointless to stay alive. Everyone was afraid I would commit suicide. They took all the knives, forks, and everything else that was sharp out of the house. Nobody knew I had a heavy-duty pistol in a drawer, underneath my socks. But I never did do that. I was just too curious. I was always thinking, “What will happen if I do stay alive?”

My wife Rebecca took my journal to a therapist named Meira Yaer, and I began to see her. She was a psychologist, though she didn't seem like one. We met once a week for a long time. I was struggling on so many levels, and part of me just wanted to give up. But mostly, I was fascinated with life. Meira and I spent most of our time talking about the beauty of life and how, in a funny way, struggles are opportunities.

I was the first person Meira worked with who had a brain injury. So, in a way, she was learning while I was learning things, too. We were both teaching and we were both learning, too. I like that.

Meira decided that if there were others I could share stories with about brain injuries, it would help me. So we started the Healing Bridge Group. Three other people and I started the group. Every time someone was willing to tell their story, I learned a lot. More people kept coming. Meira and I are still working together to help people with brain injuries.

While working with Meira, I was also learning other things. For one thing, I learned I could understand animals a lot better than I could before. I first knew that when I saw the boxer.

Near my house there is an alley with a big sign saying, “Beware. Beware. Beware.” The family who lives there has a big boxer dog. And the boxer would bark and bark. It annoyed the hell out of me that this boxer would bark at me all the time. One day I thought, “Wait a minute. Maybe if the boxer got to know me, he wouldn't bark at me so much.” So I slowly got to know him.

By two or three months later, I would just open that gate and go inside, and the boxer and I would lie on the ground, and I would give him a pat and scratch him. I do that all the time now with dogs. Dogs are really wild about me now, and I always carry dog treats in my pocket.

I think animals’ intelligence is much higher than we think. I learned that with Ripple, Meira's horse. I just went and sat down in the middle of Ripple's pasture, and Ripple came over and laid down there with me. And we just talked a little bit. Ripple didn't judge me. And I thought that since she accepted me, maybe I could accept myself, too. People sometimes don't want to look at me because I have one eye sewn shut, but the animals all like me.

I've learned to see a lot of things differently. Behind the Sacred Heart Hospital is a big Dumpster, and I always like to look in there. I take things out of it. I took out a thing they used for hauling around an oxygen tank. I put carpeting on the place where you rest your arms, and then I used it to haul my kids around. I put my kids in it and go for walks all over Eugene. Someone threw it away because they didn't know what it could be. But when I saw it, I knew.

Sometimes sad things happen, too. One day, I got the courage to go in a car and ride to the grocery store. One of my graduate students saw me and came over to the car. I had helped him move a big sculpture one time to the people he had sold it to. I mean, it was huge. We had to get a trailer. It was a big job.

But when he saw me in the car that day, he said to me, “Well, you've been turned into a retarded person.”

It disappointed me so much that that was his view of me. When we got to the grocery store, I went and found an aisle where there were no people whatsoever, sat on the floor, and cried.

I do sculpture a lot now. There's a kind of tree in Eugene that I can't think of the name of. Every time the city cuts one down, I get a piece of it and make a sculpture. They all look different. I call them “Maturity.” I have forty or fifty of those now. Every one of them is different. It's like people. No two people are alike. But we're all similar.

I do hammer sculptures now, too. The hammers all start out the same. Like people. But the hammers have all been used in different ways. Some of them are chipped here, others are chipped there. The handles are different, too. I had an exhibit. People's reactions were wonderful. Their reactions were really my payment for that show.

I try to help people, like Meira helped me, whenever I can. We started out with a support group to help each other. Now we have the Healing Bridge Advocacy and Teaching Panel Group. With this group, I go around and help other people learn about brain injuries. And I talk to the speech and language students at the university. I tell them not to be judgmental. Curiosity works better than judgment. If you're judgmental, you will miss the fact that errors are wonderful because we learn a lot from them. Errors teach as much as perfection.

And I belong to another group, too, for professional people with brain injuries. I like to help out at the nursing home, and wherever people need someone to see things in a different way.

One day, Meira, her therapy dog, and I went to visit Meira's friend, a case manager at a nursing home. I met a guy there named George. He had a brain injury and was incredibly grumpy sometimes. He didn't have anybody. I made some Play-Doh with him. We took some wheels, and George just moved them around on the Play-Doh and made different shapes. I liked that. And I found out that George played the piano. No one else knew it at that place. No one else tried to find out what George could do. They didn't really see him—but I did.

I also go to a group where people have had strokes. There's a man there who had a severe stroke. He could not speak at all. I drew pictures with him on the blackboard. I liked that. I work mainly in sculpture. But still, I like drawing, too. So we drew a lot. And now he can speak.

I wish I could do some of the things I could do before. But I like myself more now. I feel like I've learned a lot. I know about dealing with difficulties now. And I have a lot more to learn and to teach. Educating others about brain injury is so important. We are all different and we are all the same. Every person has a right to be accepted.

I used to be a teacher. People say I still am.

Help others with brain injury realize their potential. Learn how to turn a support group into an advocacy and teaching panel and much more. Contact: Brain Injury Training & Services, Inc., c/o Opening The Way, Inc., 16209 Del Malley, Dallas, Texas 75248.