Sutherland looks back on head injury with gratitude for healing

“Life is a mysterious mix of beautiful and painful experiences.”

— Akirah Robinson 

The human brain is an amazing, intricate, mysterious instrument. 

The death of actor Bob Saget after an unexplained head injury has people questioning why he didn’t call for help since the fall he took was bad enough to cause him to die in his sleep. Through my own experience exactly eight years ago today, I understand, and it now seems worth sharing. 

That February morning, I encountered an ice-covered sidewalk as I walked into a lab, running an errand for my boss. Preparing to leave, I asked if I could exit the back door, explaining their entrance was a thick sheet of ice. The owner said no, she preferred I exit the same way I had arrived. 

The last thing I remember after stepping outside is the feeling of taking flight. There was no handrail to save my fall. I was knocked unconscious. 

I fully understand the inability to grasp the seriousness of a head injury. All reasoning is gone. The reasonable action, when I came around, would have been to crawl back into the lab, asking for help, or use the cellphone I had in my car. 

I was no longer the person who could determine the wise thing to do. I couldn’t recite my correct phone number, and I reverted so far back that in my mind a cell phone didn’t exist, so there is no way I would have thought to use mine to seek help. 

Head injuries are all different, but I can tell you I inexplicably must have acted on autopilot. If my bed had magically been available to me, I would have climbed in it and gone to sleep. Through a haze of extreme confusion and pain, and though I have no memory of doing it, I somehow found my way to my car. It shocks and frightens me that I managed to drive back to work, in a sort of twilight lack of awareness. 

Some things I learned later, like the phone number I listed at the hospital is the very first one I memorized at age 5. When told that my daughter was coming to be with me, I said, “I don’t have a daughter. I only have sisters. They will wonder why I’m not on the bus.” I was sure I was in trouble for missing the bus. I was ridiculously giddy, then tearful when I learned the pretty girl holding my hand was my daughter. I can’t imagine how awful that day was for her. 

Trying to reason in the grips of a head injury is sort of like expecting toddlers to turn out the lights and get themselves ready for bed whenever they get tired. 

I realize every single day that I am lucky. The fall, a hard enough hit to create ongoing vision issues, frontal lobe and neck trauma, caused me to fall into a busy city street. Any number of things could have happened next. 

Because my knee was cut open and bleeding, it was initially assumed it was the main injury, with the head trauma clearly apparent as the hours and days unfolded. Complex hand surgery and numerous therapies would be required in the months and years to come. 

It is impossible to encapsulate the long and arduous process of healing, but there has been no place better to be than this peaceful farm with a caring family supporting me through it all. 

I’m definitely one of the lucky ones.