Experience with minimally conscious state

Mary Laforet

6/14/2010 7:47:24 PM

I was unconscious 3 weeks after a car threw me into the car I was pushing. After 2 weeks in the ICU they must have been able to tell I was progressing and they moved me to private room. What I remember best is the tampering with the catheter and the tilt table. PAIN encourages consciousness, or at least it did for me. Over the years I have on occasion helped by volunteering at Magee Rehab in Phila, PA, and it makes me wonder if the bladder pain may have been a factor. A patient there was just staring out into space and I wondered if perhaps his bladder was cut to put a permanent catheter in, like they had wanted to do for me.

At the time my mother was a nurse in charge of a nursing pool. In her fledgling business, I was the 1st patient. I had round-the-clock nurses that helped with the catheter. My foot of course was of no use, as it dropped everytime I went to move. I managed to live my life in this deficient state until old-age began creeping in. My active lifestyle meant that although muscles had always compensated for those hurt in the TBI, that was no longer sufficient. I was in constant pain. But now I made it my business to learn the proper way to get the correct muscles working again.

This was all inspired by Obama asking a group of disabled veterans "Does any body know about this?"I wrote a book about that, called "Fighting Back." The publisher is Tate Publishing out of Mustang, OK. That first night in 1975 my parents were instructed to pray for my death. But through the years I have come to some concllusions about how to influence the brain and my book is worth reading. I'm doing a "pep-talk" Thursday at Special Tree rehabilitation to other survivors. I kindof feel robbed of my life. Now at almost 50, I understand and can relate to the difficulties of this and I can see that moving and getting back into life was the thing which saved me.