I don't know how to react to this (a serious post, really).

[Leroy]

Thanks people. This forum is the best.

I'm kinda an oddball with stuff like this. I don't feel that something was lost or taken away, I feel like I had a gift that I probably didn't deserve. So I'm ok.

I am kinda crushed for his wife and kids. The boy is a HS Senior and the girl is about 10.

[GeddyWrox]

Out of curiosity, how did the amnesia thing go? Did it gradually get better? Stay the same?

[thrill]

My uncle passed in a similar manner after a traumatic head injury at work. He didn't get amnesia, but his behavior got increasingly erratic until he passed (as a result of the erratic behavior). Protect your noggin, folks.

[Leroy]

I guess I don't have a real handle on it. We spoke for a couple hours right after everything, and if he wasn't telling the truth, he was really doing a good job (which I didn't really think he was capable of). We hadn't talked since, I was kind of leaving the ball in his court, he did talk to my wife once. We only really talked about twice a year anyway, so I was kind of waiting. He did his taxes with me, so I thought I would hear from him shortly.

I did notice he was making some posts on Facebook about things he would have posted about before, mostly the Sooners and 49ers, so either he was told what his interests were, remembered them, or really never lost memory.

I'm sure I'll know more tomorrow, maybe more than I want but whatever.

[Fat_Bulldog]

My uncle passed in a similar manner after a traumatic head injury at work. He didn't get amnesia, but his behavior got increasingly erratic until he passed (as a result of the erratic behavior). Protect your noggin, folks.

This is all too familiar for me. Dealing with someone in my family who had head trauma in 2019. Very erratic behavior since then. Like a roller coaster. No amnesia but behavior is not predictable.

[st.lewis11]

My condolences to you Leroy.

[IMADreamer]

My uncle passed in a similar manner after a traumatic head injury at work. He didn't get amnesia, but his behavior got increasingly erratic until he passed (as a result of the erratic behavior). Protect your noggin, folks.

This is all too familiar for me. Dealing with someone in my family who had head trauma in 2019. Very erratic behavior since then. Like a roller coaster. No amnesia but behavior is not predictable.

Do you guys mind if I open up about something that no one out side of my immediate family really knows? Not trying to hijack Leroy's thread but maybe this can help some people.

More than ten years ago I was hit head on by a drunk driver. My car slide down into a deep ditch and rolled. I was fine except for I took a big hit on the head. I was unconscious for just a minute or two and when I came to I was pretty normal. Still I got an ambulance ride to the hospital to get checked out. As the evening progressed I got worse, more confused, etc. I don't remember much of the next few days after that.

Upon returning home things basically got back to normal except I'd have little memory lapses and particularly I'd have trouble coming up with words when I spoke. That got better but I was changed. I had some massive anxiety problems and I had rage issues. Fortunately I was really good at not getting upset at people, just things, but man could I go from zero to rage in a split second. I was never like that before. I also did not have anxiety before. Since anxiety has been the ongoing issue. I will occasionally just have a massive breakdown where I become nonfunctional for a period of time. Usually only maybe 20 minutes, occasionally for an hour or more. It's embarrassing and scary because I have thoughts in my head that aren't me and I sometimes worry what could happen.

I guess my point to this is head injuries are really weird, very scary, and very real. I think we as a country have done an awful job of realizing that. You can see a broken arm, but you can't see brain damage and particularly as a guy too often it's not seen as real and you are told just to suck it up. I'm thankful that my family for the most part understands, although I think my Dad sometimes doesn't when I have a crippling anxiety attack and can't get out of bed on time.

Anyway, I don't know if anything like this has happened to you all, but I want you to know I'm here if you ever need to talk.

[Leroy]

I don't really know about injuries really, but I do know that chemicals can really do a number on the brain. I have a bad liver that doesn't clean out ammonia like it should. Seems harmless enough, but if too much builds up, you go absolutely crazy. Shelly found me one morning just out of it, acting nuts so she called an ambulance. They called cops too, because they couldn't handle me. I am not violent, I don't ever put up struggles, I just go with things and hope that helps. In the hospital I was trying to fight the male nurse and ripping cords out of my arms and swearing and acting like I never would if I had any control, or knew what I was doing. I assume injuries work the same. I think the term is encephalopathy, and some football players describe the symptoms I can have years after playing football...forgetting where they are, things like that. I control it now, but I feel for these guys that it just kind of 'happens' to.

Anyway, I learned then that we are just a drop of a chemical or an injury from being animalistic. I assume over thousands of years, we have learned to repress all of those things I was doing, but are not far off from seeing that behavior again.

I did not want to sleep that night, scared that I would fall back into that 'haze'.