At the end of January, 2012 I was drinking heavily, about a liter of vodka per day. One Friday night I fell down a short flight of stairs, breaking four ribs and apparently cracking my skull. As far as I know I remained unconscious until Monday morning, when I awoke in the hospital.
When I awoke the ribs were obvious to me and my caregivers, so little things like blurred vision in my left eye got glossed over. There was some pain around the left zygomatico-frontal suture that lasted until quite recently, but nothing debilitating. No medical people at the time mentioned possible brain damage, but I received at least one MRI while hospitalized and my doctor recommended a follow-up MRI a month after I was released, but I couldn’t afford it.
There was no evidence of stroke, but based on how out I was after the fall (the kids had to check if I was still alive) my wife suspects I had a seizure on the steps. I don’t know why I was unconscious for two days, or if I even was. My (former) doctor was not forthcoming, and I had trouble getting it together enough to ask. Anyway, it took me months to pry out of him why he threw me in the hospital a few months before, and then it was only, “Because you were near death,” so I didn’t expect much.
After my release for that they threw me straight into the psych ward because I confessed to thoughts of suicide. Time in a psych ward can turn one into a murderer, I believe, because your time there is spent with people you come to really want to kill. Did I get much psych treatment beyond my usual Prozac? Nope. They knew I drank too much, but did I get any treatment for that beyond, “When you get out join AA?” Nope.
Out, I drank for a while, got caught by my wife, and joined AA. By their standards I’m a failure because I stopped going to meetings, but I have been sober for 30 months or so. But that’s another rant.
While I was still drinking my handwriting was a jerky scrawl. Prior to drinking I had been a draftsman, so my printing was very good, but two years after quitting it still isn’t to my standards. Six months after quitting my eye was still bad and I was just starting to get my brain rebuilt enough to hold a crappy job. Two years after that my brain is doing much better but I have more trouble reading than I ever had; sorting out the letters, arranging words, and remembering what the sentence is about when I finish reading it. I’ve had those problems all along, but it’s worse now. I would like a better job, and I probably could handle it, but I am nervous that I can’t.
So, I have insurance now for that MRI and I can get a better set of doctors. But I’m curious. I drank like that for only a year or two; prior to that for a few years it was only on weekends. Could my brain problems be blamed on that, my fall, or both, with other factors mixed in? My new doctor will probably know no more about my case than anybody who reads this.