Brain injuries: Best of intentions paved with pain

Her voice was soft, and I listened carefully. Her message was too important, and I didn't want to miss a word.

The woman was in an auto accident several years ago and sustained a brain injury that forced her to slow down. Her doctor told her she'd be walking again on her own within five or 10 years. She struggled with a walker and put all of her energy into learning how to walk but still had to rely on a wheelchair to get around most of the time.

Well-meaning friends thought she would be more "motivated" to walk if they took away her wheelchair and left her to move with only the walker.

She fell.

She fell again.

She fell again and again and again …

She thought her hip had broken on the last of eight falls. The doctors told her she didn't have one fracture: she had a half-dozen.

And modern technology finally revealed a spot on her brain stem from the accident that explained why she had not been able to walk. Add that to the destruction to her hip …

My heart simply broke as I fixated on her beautiful eyes.

I thanked her for sharing that difficult story. I told her it would help other people understand that what they consider "excuses"—depression, laziness, self-pity, or lack of motivation—that keep someone with a brain injury from making progress, can't be blamed. There are some injuries that can't repair themselves immediately or sometimes ever.

Yes, there are times and ways to challenge someone to improve … having them pick up something on a table to sharpen motor skills … letting the survivor keep trying to find the right word to make a request … but not removing a vital tool of their movement, something that keeps them as independent as they can be.

I asked if I could push her in her wheelchair out to where the bus with the lift waited to take her home. The sweetest smile and nod were a gentle and appreciative "yes." I told her I loved her "thumbs up" button she wore on her colorful holiday sweatshirt. She explained that it came from Disneyland where friends saw Mickey Mouse's familiar hand—the thumb and three fingers—giving this positive sign and immediately thought of her because that's who she is.

And the "thumbs up" she gave me in the chill of the night as I said good-bye was enough to warm my heart far beyond the distance I had to walk to my car.

I think I'll be carrying that around for a very long time.

'Tis the perfect season.