Neuro Note #2 The Friend Next Door

I moved into my new apartment with my husband immediately following our wedding. It's an old apartment complex in midtown that many of my parents' friends say their parents started out their married lives in way back when. I had seen the man next door a few times, and thought he was a bit unique, possibly just socially awkward. My (future) OT brain started churning and I began to wonder what made the man next door so special? One day as I was flying out the door to head to class, the man next door was leaving also. He was friendly, as usual. I could tell that he was willing to stop and talk for much more time than I could allow him. He had a goofy "happy birthday" hat on and was carrying a bright rainbow umbrella, and he started walking to his bus stop, where I frequently saw him walking back and forth from. My biases and preconceived ideas of him made me wary. Who rides the bus? Was it really his birthday or did he just like to wear goofy hats? And oh how I hoped it was the latter, because I felt a tight knot of guilt all day in my belly for not wishing him happy birthday when it possibly could have been.
The next week, I was taking our puppy out for a walk. His door opened at the same time. He stopped and greeted me in his usual friendly way. I introduced him to our puppy and we stood in the door way and I began to actually get to know the man next door. He saw that my t-shirt said occupational therapy and lit up! He showed me a new orthotic he had very recently received that went from his ankle to his knee and was really helping his ability to walk. I asked if he had been injured somehow, and he began to tell me his story. I found out that a few days after his graduation from my rival high school, he had been involved in a horrible car wreck at an intersection I use almost every week. Some kids were racing home, ran a red light, and the man next door's car went air borne. He described how his car grazed the traffic light as it shot into the sky. Thankfully, a nurse who rode on the helicopter for the upmost trauma center in the area was driving in the car behind him. She called her supervisors, requesting the helicopter to come to the scene of the crash immediately. Later, they told her that she could have been fired for doing that, but that it saved the man's life.
As it turns out, the man next door was a traumatic brain injury survivor. He told me that he bruised his basal ganglia, which can cause other parts of the brain to not function to their full potential. He told me that his memory is not so great, sometimes he can have trouble moving, and he can have a hard time finding the right words. He received extensive PT and OT during his long hospital stay. I waited patiently in the long pauses between his sentences, realizing how wrong I had been about the man next door and realizing my own biases.
The man next door is currently in a master's program at a school within walking distance from our apartment complex. He excitedly told me that he graduates in 9 days and was talking about all the many ways he wants to help people. He is currently volunteering at the trauma hospital that helped him regain his independence over a decade ago. He told me that his parents (who live in the same town I grew up in) pick him up every Friday so he can do laundry ("because it is MUCH cheaper there than at our apartment complex") and bring him back every Saturday so that he can be sure to make it to the church he has been working at on Sunday morning.
The man next door invited me to a small group Bible study, to his church, and asked how he could pray for me. He volunteered to take care of my puppy if me and my husband are ever too busy or are going to be gone for too long. We talked for over an hour! He is a guest speaker every year to a class at the local university that talks about similar brain injuries to his. He said that he would love to come speak to our class someday, if the opportunity allowed! Oh how wrong I was about this independent, friendly, strong, benevolent man next door! I'm so glad that I found a new friend next door.
This experience is hard for me to write about, because I do realize how unfairly I judged him. I think this moment happened at a crucial point in my occupational therapy journey. Before I head out on fieldworks and work with real people who are very different from me, the friend next door was able to teach me an important lesson about how I think of and treat other people.
I was wary to write about this experience, since I can't cite it or simply link to it. But I can recommend that my classmates come over and meet my new friend. I would also recommend our class having him come as a guest speaker! This experience taught me so much about people who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, and just how independent they can be! I will look back on this story for years as I continue on my OT journey.