“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Fred R. Barnard

How many of you understood the Emojis in the title? Don’t all raise your hands. Emojis make up the majority of our world today. Instead of ‘I don’t know’ you’re likely to receive the shorthand “idk” or simply 🤷🏼‍♀️.

No matter where you are in the world, or what language you speak— pictures are universal. From paintings at the Met to the emojis on our phones, we are surrounded by billions of words — every moment of every day.

Even in someone still up at 2am because of insomnia that wishes they could sleep—instead of writing this blog— is capable of understand pictures better than words at the moment. Just as the gentleman sound asleep next to her is seeing the pictures of his dreams.

Today, instead of a literal picture— I’d like to approach the subject of the pictures in our minds. Let’s talk DREAMS.

Fair warning, this may get a little graphic at times. My stop sign folks, please proceed with caution!

Why do you think we dream when we sleep?

I fully believe dreams are the proverbial garbage man of our neurological system. They are the brains way of creating RAM space for the next day. Dreams are unique as in, you don’t have to be asleep to dream. Really, you just need to be unconscious or dormant.

I don’t dream. Not because I don’t sleep, that is a whole other issue. It’s because I have a traumatic brain injury— TBI for short.

January 4, 2020 is the night I stopped dreaming. I do not remember much of that evening. I remember trying to pack the boxes in my room for the move. I had the kids upstairs working on their rooms, while the Men hauled all my overly large furniture items downstairs and into the Uhaul. I remember calling for the last dresser and then excusing myself to the bathroom. When my eyes opened it was like I was in a dream. The world through my eyes was almost mist like. I was laying on my right side facing away from the door. The commode at my feet and a pedestal sink above my head. I couldn’t move. My arms felt like lead and there was no feeling past my belly button. It took me 5 attempts to roll over and swing my arm high enough so I could slap the handle to open the door. Unable to use the majority of my five foot six body and fully emerged in cognitive dream state, I managed to low crawl my way 40 feet into the adjoined bedroom. My 8 year old son came running through the house for his 4 minute ‘checking on you’ session just in time to hear me struggling to keep myself upright enough so that I didn’t face-plant in my freshly made pile of vomit. The only words I could weakly mutter before everything went black were, “Call 911.” He immediately grabbed my phone and dialed for help, while running to get one of the other adults.

After that, there are only flashes. Like the Paramedics grabbing my arms to lift me as they asked around the room if I could stand. The spine board on the gurney stunning my shoulder blade across the raised threshold and down each of the 3 stairs. Then only a single headlight of my then boyfriends Chevy Avalanche through the ambulance door as the paramedics called me into the Emergency Room.

For the next 16 hours, my lights were on but nobody was home. A mostly healthy 37 year old shouldn’t be catatonic for no reason.

I woke up at 10:16pm on January 5th to the most irritating voice I’d heard since my ex husband last spoke my name. I was naked, covered in vomit in the hospital with a migraine— I was fucking terrified.

It took the medical staff at one of Americas Top 100 hospitals 6 weeks, 144 seizures and countless bitchy phone calls to finally stuff me in a CT machine. According to the full clinicians report and lab reports, I was one Tequila Sunrise away from Kidney Failure. There was no other attempt to treat me outside of smelling salts and cleanup care. They just let me lay there hoping I would wake up.

Since my accident I’ve never slept the same again. My dreams were nightmares. Reliving the event over and over— each time my brain would scour for what was lost. I’d wake up after an hour, completely drenched from sweat and go into a seizure from the pain in my brain. It was a living hell. Eventually, my Neurological Team decided to plug me in and put me to sleep…

Then they medicated me. My dreams paid the price for my damaged brain.

It’s now 4:10am and I am going to at least lay down. Good Morning-🍋💋