That Could Be Me

Yesterday I met our newest patient - a 30 year-old woman who was t-boned on a Monday morning on her way to work as a physician assistant at a medical office out toward wine country. She is Oregon born and bred, an athlete, married to a high school teacher, with a well-educated family.

"That could be me," I thought. She's my first patient to share a lot of common elements - demographics such as age, education, marital status, personal interests. In another time and place, she and I could very likely be friends. And now here she is, unable to orient to time or place. She doesn't even realize she was in an accident. She's mobile, in that she's up out of bed and in a wheelchair. But she is limited to this chair, and will be for quite some time, as doctors and therapists work to rehab her left-side crush injuries and nerve damage.

She is very pretty. High cheekbones, shiny brown hair. I can only imagine what she looked like before the accident. She speaks in a quiet voice, and seems somewhat mousy. I wonder what her husband is experiencing. She is not the same woman he married a few years earlier.

Although she is very nearly clueless, she still uses complex syntax. When I ask her, "Can you point to the plastic spoon?" She responds, pensively, "That's a very good question. Apparently, it is this one." She happens to select the correct object. When asked to name a toothbrush, she says "plastic spoon." She is vey perseverative, not uncommon following a brain injury.

"What do you do with this?" I ask, holding up the toothbrush.

"Well, you scrub with it."

True. Not too bad of a start.

"And what do you scrub?"

"Incisors. It's an incisor-scrubber."

I can't much fault her for that. She's right, after all.