The Detours

When they found the car, the engine was cold. I was barely conscious next to that deserted interstate, suspended by my seatbelt and trapped inside the twisted cage that had been my car, when the new reality, one which paid little regard to my willingness to acknowledge it, found me. My car’s slide on the wet interstate road and the rolls down the hill had left nothing, not my car, my mind, or my identity, whole. Those who supported me were the ones to learn the first lessons of survival, demonstrated by plastic surgeons, breathing machines, and intubation tubes. I didn’t see those days. For me, the hard ones were to follow.

I suffered a severe traumatic brain injury that August day, and the months of hospitals and rehabilitation that followed were just the beginning of my fight. Saddled with a life that I didn’t expect and weak in ways I couldn’t understand, I fought, I surrendered, I collapsed, I denied, and I failed. But I survived. This is the story of a boy robbed of what he knew about himself who set out to learn enough to want to live the life in front of him. This is my story.