Assessing My Brain Damage

During my time in a spinal cord injury rehabilitation center I had to do all kinds of rehab (hence the name of the center, where I lived for 40 days).  Every day I had physical therapy, occupational therapy, and—ugh—speech therapy.

My speech therapist, who I met with every day at 1:00pm, basically had the job of seeing to what extent my brain had been damaged during my car accident.  She quickly realized that it hadn’t been damaged at all, so instead of going through pointless drills she began giving me math worksheets and things like that, things that were still pretty pointless, but at least not mindless.

She was a really nice lady, but unfortunately I don’t even remember her name.

But I do remember another speech therapist’s name.

Kay.

One day I went to speech therapy to find that my regular therapist was gone for a week.  I was greeted by Kay, a woman who spoke to me in a tone that one might use with…scratch that, it was a tone one should never use with anybody.  A condescending tone that made it seem that she assumed that I had suffered terrible brain damage.

“What’s your name?” she asked me in a slow, over-expressive, I know this is a tough question manner.

“Abby…”

She pointed to my dad, who was sitting across the room.

“Good.  What’s that man’s name?” she asked in the same tone.  Ten seconds into our session and I already felt like screaming at this woman.

“Dal…”

“And he is your…”

“Father…”

“Good! Your regular therapist is gone for a week.  Where did she go?”

“I don’t know; she didn’t tell me she was leaving.”

“She’s in another state.  Is she in Oregon, Texas, or Arizona?”

“I don’t know; she never told me.”

“She’s in Texas.”

The rest of the session went on like this, me with a tone saying, I’m not stupid and her mocking me with every question with a tone that seemed to say, Oh, yes you are.  I honestly don’t know how I didn’t hit the woman.

The next day I went to speech therapy again, dreading it but hoping it would be a bit more challenging.

The first question I was asked was, “What is my name?”

Shoot.  I had actually forgotten this woman’s name.  Maybe I had blocked it out of my memory like so much of the other trauma I had recently experienced.

“I don’t remember.”

“It’s also a letter of the alphabet.”

I briefly tried to think of what it could be, but wasn’t fast enough.

“Is it Dee, Elle, or Kay?”

“Kay.”

“Good!”

That was the last day I went to speech therapy.

No one likes condescension.  One day a young man with cerebral palsy came into rehab, and I couldn’t even imagine how people must have talked to him.  He looked and talked like someone with a severe mental handicap, but his brain functioned just as well as mine.

My experience as a “handicapped” person is something I now draw from every time I come into contact with someone different than me.  Who knows what any given person’s brain is truly capable of.