My Severe and Forgotten Brain Trauma

Dreaming My Life Away Every day or night, whenever I go to sleep, I may as well be dead. In the morning, it is rare that I remember anything from last night. No dreams. All I might remember the ne xt day is if I had awakened and g o t up to use the bathroom. But, I don't remember my dreams. I never do. Not anymore. Many times, I think I don't dream at all. But we all must dream. We are human beings. T hat is part of being human. That is part of being alive. I b elieve I don't remember my dreams, but I dream.   It is only recently that I decided to blog about this. It is only recently that I decided to blog about anything. I can blog and I can write about what ever I want. That thought has enticed me for so long, but I have been unaware of how to accomplish it. Yet, it was always right in front of me. I just needed to reach my arms out; to grab my computer keyboard; to start typing. I can blog about w hat ever I wan t. I want to write stories, t oo . I ...

Awake at 5:30 am It is early Thursday morning – 05:30. I got up to record some information on my new blog site. Not sure exactly what I am doing yet, but I will do it My nose is all filled up again, as it was when I was in bed. It has been full of some sort of crud – a mixture of dried and wet snot and chunks of sold matter. It is disgusting. This has been going on since early in the month of December from last year – 2015. The crud expulsions are more recent – since just after Christmas. It is time to stop, but it keeps on happening. At least my nose hasn't filled up again yet. I hope I can go back to bed for a while now. I slept well enough tonight, but still, no dreams – nothing. Because this has seemed to be the main common denominator since my brain injury, I wonder how much the two are related? I had dreamed a lot in my past. I even had a period of time where I could dream lucidly. Harry B from Reliance Electric informed me of those techniques in the 1980's or...

We all must work. If we do not, nor cannot, we become lazy, or disingenuous. That is the most common belief. Grandma always told me that we humans are considered as part of a working class. We cannot rest. Our bosses and the overseers of our society - whomever they may be - will make sure of this. So, we all fall in line, not really knowing what other people are doing, and not caring. As long as we work and continue to work every day. Even our non-working life is filled with work and toil. Constant strife. That is another form of dissension and division. We must wash the dishes. We must clean all around us; in our homes, in our cars, at our workplace. This work is not usually paid for. But, it must be done. We can never be truly free. We are slaves, trained to believe that work and production is the only way to survive. Human slavery has existed forever. It's just not always visible.     Posted 22nd January 2016 by James L Verhovec ...

As I Get Older OK, so I'm in my 58th year. But, I am still 57 years old for another 8 months. When I try to accomplish anything now, it seems like I must be 157 years old! That is how it seems to me. I may lean on my old injuries as a problem that makes life tougher for me. That occurs for many reasons. Even if I try not to be burdened by my difficulties, my slowness of wit and comprehension, my poor speech annunciation (which has gotten so much better in recent years and even the past several months or weeks), my physical ineptness resulting from lessened muscular coordination and my overall instability, and other reasons in my background that are not visible to me now, those difficulties tend to drag me into a swirl of sluggishness and awkwardness which is beyond my control. I can't get out, nor can I get away.  Youth has the privilege to give you the ability to take on new challenges and conquer those challenges by doing things and not worrying about the...

I Remembered What I Forgot OK. So I remembered what I wanted to record on my blog. Geez! Whenever I go to sleep at night, or through the day, or anytime, I don't dream. I may as well be dead. I'm sure I do dream. Everyone dreams. I can even remember bits of my dream every once-in-a-while. But, that's extremely rare. That is my idea of what death is like. Everything becomes nothing. No thoughts. No sounds. No visions. No one to talk to. Just black space - everywhere. Everything is nothing. That is my concept of death. A lot of people make a big deal about dying and going to heaven. But do we go to heaven? The more I think about it, the less I think that happens. We may never go to heaven. We may be a creation of other, more intelligent and ingenious beings from out there. Mere biological robots. Theories exist that we were created to mine gold on Earth, our home planet. We were created from animals, but we were given other characteristics that the animal ...

January 29th, 2016 Nothing can ever be the same again. Nothing will ever be the same – not in my lifetime; not in my life. Not in all of eternity. This is true for all of us. For some, that becomes more pronounced. Since the car accident happened on January 29th in 1983, I am who is left. That is really pronounced and visible to me. Today is the 33rd anniversary of the auto crash that mostly ended my life – it stopped how my life was becoming and how it had developed before the incident. It was approximately 1:00 am when the driver missed that turn on Diez Hill road near the city park. We struck the culvert in his little Ford Pinto. But that was 33 years ago. A long time ago. We had gone out the night before to meet with friends from work and to watch a local band play at a club downtown. He came to her house and picked me up there.  This is all a story that I had been told since the incident, after the accident. I could not remember anything about it myself. I stil...

Sorting Things Out   Things tend to sort themselves out. Whenever something new goes on in my life, and I don't know for sure what I can do about it, if I let it go for a while, things may fall into place. At the same time, that same event may become highly agitated and cause me to take some God-forsaken action. Whichever is the case, there is no turning back. I must run with it and make the best of the outcome. This happens a lot of the time. Whenever I try to force the issue, unless I know most of the particulars, a foolish outcome may result. So often, that happens. Too often.    Posted 30th January 2016 by James L Verhovec

Life is Short   Facebook is a wonderful toy. It is a way to communicate over the Internet and express some thoughts and feelings that may otherwise be suppressed but other interests. Everything seems to be controlled by the big money of our world. I have noticed more recently, when I do things on my Facebook pages and try to keep things real, it has gotten harder. Maybe Mark Z has sold out. But this was all created as a money-making project – no altruistic intentions or endeavors were included. He made his money and maybe he wants to keep that ball rolling. I think that too much is being controlled and manipulated but those other forces. Am I being paranoid? Maybe. But, look around at how our social structure has become. My paranoia may be a very real thing and true beyond our understanding. I don't know and my life will continue either way. At least for a while. But, life is short.   Posted 31st January 2016 by James L Verhovec

Lost in All the Details What happened to me after the automobile accident that occurred in January of 1983 is one thing. Surviving it is another. Recovery and my continued struggle to remain truthful, competent and capable is another ongoing subject. Trying to keep interest in a subject that most people hardly care about has become increasingly hard to do. I am alone. I get farther and farther away from those events every minute of every hour of every day. Days turn into weeks. Weeks into months. Months into years. Years into decades. The story remains the same. My ability to tell that story and honor the truth varies and lessens from moment to moment. Sure, it's a true story that only I can tell. Sure, it's a story of nearly infinite importance to me. Sure, it is an extremely interesting and important true story to tell all if I am capable of telling it to others. I've been trying tell this story in some fashion and some manner for quite a long perio...

Mom Died Too Quickly I didn't know she would die so quickly, I didn't think Mom would die at all. She was getting better. Besides, she was only 76 years old - merely 20 years older than me, her oldest son. Her prognosis kept changing. Her heart was bad. Her father died of a similar event when he was 68 years old. Her brother died from heart disease when he was only 47. She had serious bypass surgery about 12 years before. They removed her heart and used the Heart and Lung machine to keep her alive while they bypassed four blood-vessels. One of her surgeons didn't expect to her to last another year. But, Mom is a fighter. She kept charging forward and doing things to keep going, She kept going until July 8th, 2015. That is when her heart disease began to kill her. Mom died of a broken heart - her heart was actually physically broken. It broke that July 8th morning while I was still in bed. I could hear something going on downstairs in the kitch...

Is God an Alien?   Speaking about God an any sense is inherently difficult since it involves the idiosyncrasy of mixing mysticism and religion with our own human belief system. Yet, we use God's name as a common curse. You may know many of those terms, so I won't elaborate further.   Anyhow, the concept of God as an alien being is culturally taboo. But, that is our intermediate human belief. We are greater than the animal kingdom, yet our species lacks the intelligence and understanding to live harmoniously within our own environment. We are intermediaries; not able or even capable to exist in a truly angelic fashion, yet we have an understanding of our world that may be infinitely greater than our animal cousins. Therefore, as an intelligent animal, we may be able to understand the nature of God, but unable to fully comprehend God in all it's magnificence. I put this concept and idea into my subjective point-of-view. We each have our own specific opinio...

Saturday February 6th, 2016 It's noon. I've been up and awake for a couple of hours. After I had some French toast and a cup for breakfast, I've been watching You Tube videos.  Something is always going on all over the world. I get news reports and speculative non-fiction, etc. This is what I mean when I say we cannot handle the total amount of information that comes in from all the different sources – world wide. Now they are talking about a new ZIKA virus, spread by mosquitoes, and coming from South America. What that seems like to me is a way to get into our blood stream.  Then, they can put whatever they want into our bodies and call it a preventative measure. That is all a part of the control mechanism. It is all a scam. But, because we are human beings and we have a limited life span, I don't understand the end result that is being hoped for. We won't be alive long enough for it to make any difference. It just does not make sense unless our speci...

Sunday Morning Journal (01:00) I am still awake and I should not be. As soon as I finish writing this last attempt at a blog entry, I can go to bed and to sleep. I am surely tired. I still wonder if I should have gone back to the Am-Vet's club. Linda may have gone out tonight if she got off early enough. I don't know – we never discussed it. We barely know each other. But, Elain and I hardly know each other, too. I did ask her to have a cup of coffee with me, even if it was by email. She said she is too busy. OK. Enough said.  (01:15) And even this morning, as I get ready to go to bed, my nose and my right nostril suddenly act up and I had to blow it again. Just for a few moments, it was in bad shape. Oh well. It is pretty cold outside tonight – down to 22 degrees F according to my computer Weather Channel.  (06:15) The loud talking has been going on since after 1 am this morning. I know it was that late because I went to bed after 1:00 am before the noise sta...

Whatever I Start Writing About  My Internet cable bill has been sent in via my debit card. Since it was due on the 18th, I sent it in to Time Warner today.  I thought the 18th is on Wednesday. No, the 18th is on Thursday. Wednesday it the 17th – for our monthly Writers' Guild meeting at the NP Center for the Arts. I think we are doing critiques. Since I have not written anything worthy of a critique, maybe I won't even go.  Earlier today, I thought I could visit the VFW tonight. But, I don't have a good reason. It's Monday night and I wanted to sign up for the Happy Day and the Sure Pot for tomorrow. Nope . . . I didn't.  My left eyeball is bothering me vision-wise again. It has done that over the past 10 or 20 or 30 years. More recently, it has become harder to see out of. The muscles around one or both eyes start to aggravate me and my head bones begin hurting. Especially in my upper left temple area between my forehead and that lef...

Upstairs Door Slamming  [Thursday, February 18, 2016](02:45) Well, the upstairs neighbors must be home. And awake. They must be lonely and want the rest of us to be awake too. It sounds like her angry voice, She is definitely loud enough. And she certainly raises her voice. I just heard something being knocked around, too. Maybe she threw something. Or, maybe another neighbor got upset because it is so late and they want to sleep – like most of the rest of us want. Yes, life is hell! Now I hear some upstairs door slamming, etc. (03:45) It started out with her being loud and making noises. All seemed to quiet down. Now he is yelling and cursing and slamming things around. WTF? I still want out. I live in a hell created by me and for me. Hell sucks! Am I the only one who can hear all this? It is getting louder and louder. But, what can anyone do? I still have a horrible taste in my mouth from eating a cookie when I first went to bed a few hours ago. So, this is wh...

My Head Still Hurts My head still hurts; right in the forehead today. This pain and infection has been going on since the first week of last December - nearly three months ago. What aggravates me about this sinus infection is it should be all gone by now. I took my med's for ten days - two prescribed antibiotic pills per day. Retired nurse, Ann said I should have gotten a second prescription. But, I thought it was over. I guess not and I don't want to do this again. But my head may hurt severely in my forehead and on my temples. Seldom in my nose, but I think my sinus cavities do still hurt. What is this about?   Posted 25th February 2016 by James L Verhovec

Monday, March 14, 2016 My Youngest Days In my youngest days, as an infant and beyond, I must have been pretty agreeable. Mom told me I was always content to play outside in the dirt or the grass, and even in the mud. Sure, I had some toys and games. But no, I didn't need anything really special. We lived above the Edgefield Tavern. Mom worked, so a Sid, babysitter would watch over me. Sid didn't always pay really close attention. It rained and became wet and muddy outside. In the alley beside the upstairs apartment, a lot of standing water had gathered. I was still young, maybe three or four years old. Sid did not watch me closely. I spent a lot of time playing in the water puddles, becoming wet and muddy. When Mom came home from working, that was the very last time she used Sid as a babysitter. When we lived on East Street, on the west side of Uhrichsville, I could have fun just riding my small peddle-powered metal car outside by myself. I could peddle on th...

We Are Only Temporary We don't get it! Human beings are only temporary. Our life is important to us right now. But, since we are only temporary, our life will end and we will be gone. We are a temporary fixture. One day we are here, another day we are gone forever. Where will we go? No one knows for sure. Just like anything else which is temporary, we will go away. It will all be over as we close our eyes for the last time. We are all waiting to die. No one knows why, how, or when they will finally die, but we must die to make room for other people. All living things on Earth will die. So, why do people make such a big deal about death? It is going to happen. We are only temporary. Every living being which was born and is now alive will die – no exceptions. Most people act like they will live forever. Many of us believe that while we are still young enough to be vibrant and fully alive. We don't fear death since we are so alive. No one wants to die, but we al...

Friday, July 21, 2017 Traumatic Brain Injury 1983 Hello everyone. My name is Jim. I am a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor. All survivors are unique. Each of us has at least one special quality about their injury. No two brain injuries are alike. No two recoveries are alike. Simply stated, no two people are truly alike. Not even twins. Just similar. This blog is created to tell about my injury and my recovery, as best I can tell it. Right away, I must state that my brain injury has affected my mental capacity, my aptitude, and my critical thinking skills very much. So, I will tell you what I may remember, what others have told me, what I have learned from reading articles and documented information about myself, and what I can remember about growing up. Stories, such as where I came from and what I did. It will be as true as I can make it. This is how it all began; how I suffered a severe brain injury in 1983. Near Deis Hill Road in Dover, Ohio. More tales will fo...

It's All A Part Of The Scam I'm unsure of how this all works. If I trudge forward, I hope I can develop something. There is a really good story inside of my and I hope to share it. So, I will trudge forward, and I hope others may enjoy what I write. _____________________________________________________________________________ There is way too much happening at any one time, all the time. Every minute of every day. That seems to be how they want us people. We are always on the edge trying to get all our ducks in a row, so to say. I think that is all part of being human. Most of us must struggle and force ourselves to work at a lower level of value in order to be creative and capitalize on our individual conditions. As if we are being led to an unknown end product. It is harder to maintain a sense of achievement as we struggle to merely survive. At least 90 percent of our population may achieve that much when we are at our best. I believe this is the reason we...

Monday, July 2, 2018 In The Beginning On January 28th, 1983, after I worked at K-Mart in New Philadelphia, a co-worker and I visited a bar to watch a local band play. Jill didn't go. Tim met me at her apartment. That is where I left my car. From there, we left to watch the band play at Windchaser's Nightclub Lounge in downtown New Philadelphia. My 1979, medium dark-brown Ford Granada remained at Jill's white, double-story, wooden apartment, owned by her dad's brother. She rented the downstairs apartment from him. We left her apartment that night in his tiny Ford Pinto. Tim and I met our friends from work and from college that Friday night at the Windchaser's Lounge in downtown New Philadelphia. That is where we learned of a geodesic-style home having been built near Deis Hill Road, close to the Dover city park. We decided to visit and see the new home, before I went back to Jill's home for me to get my car. I did not make it back. Not as ...