Hello. My name is Jonathan Fields. I am 31 years old. Until October 1995, I was a CPA. Then a truck ran a red light and hit my car, and I woke up nine days later with a different brain. I call it Version 2.0. It does most of what Version 1.0 did, but slower, and it needs a lot more saving.

This page took me four months to make. I wrote every section at least twice and read every section at least twice. I'm telling you that so you know two things. One, people with brain injuries can do things. Two, it takes us longer, and that's all right.

I will repeat some things on this page. That's on purpose. My therapists repeated things to me until I had them, and I'm grateful. If you have a brain injury, you might be grateful too. If you don't, please be patient with me. You'll get it the first time and I'll say it a second time anyway.

This is how my therapists explained it to me. I am not a doctor. If you or someone you love has a brain injury, the doctors and therapists who know the person are the ones to ask.

What a traumatic brain injury is. A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is damage to the brain from outside force: a blow to the head, or the head being thrown hard and stopped suddenly, like in a car crash or a fall. The skull doesn't have to be broken. In my crash, my brain moved inside my skull and hit the inside of it, and the nerve fibers inside my brain were stretched and torn. My skull was fine. My brain was not.

Concussion and severe injury are not the same. A concussion is a mild brain injury. You may be dazed or knocked out for a short time, or not knocked out at all. Most people get better within days to a few months, though some people have symptoms longer. A severe injury, like mine, usually means a long time unconscious, a longer recovery, and some changes that stay. Both are real injuries. A concussion should be checked by a doctor.

The parts of the brain, the way my speech therapist drew them on a paper plate:

• Frontal lobes (behind your forehead). The manager. Planning, organizing, getting started on things, stopping yourself, paying attention, judgment, and keeping your temper. In car crashes the frontal lobes are often hurt, because they sit against bony ridges inside the front of the skull.
• Temporal lobes (on the sides, above your ears). Memory, especially making new memories, and understanding words. These are also often hurt in crashes, for the same reason.
• Parietal lobes (on top, toward the back). Touch, and knowing where your body and things around you are.
• Occipital lobes (in the back). Seeing.
• Cerebellum (low in the back). Balance and coordination.
• Brain stem (where the brain meets the spinal cord). Breathing, heartbeat, and being awake.

So when my frontal and temporal lobes were hurt, I had trouble with planning, memory and temper. My cerebellum was bruised too, so for a while I walked like a sailor. That got better. Summary: where the brain is hurt decides what changes. That is why no two brain injuries are the same.

Why it's invisible. I don't have a cast. I don't use a wheelchair. My scar is under my hair. When I meet someone, I look normal and I sound normal for about ten minutes. Then I forget their name, or I get tired, or the room gets too loud. People think I'm rude, or lazy, or not trying. I'm trying very hard. The injury is on the inside. I'll say it again because it's the most important thing on this page: the injury is on the inside.

Tuesday, October 10, 1995. I was driving home from my office at 6:15 in the evening. A loaded box truck ran a red light and hit the driver's side of my car. I don't remember any of this. I know it from the police report and from Terri. I was wearing my seat belt. The doctors told Terri that is why I lived.

Nine days. I was in a coma for nine days in the trauma unit. Terri sat with me every day. She read me the sports page because she didn't know what else to read.

Waking up. Waking up from a coma is not like in the movies. It was slow, over days. For about three weeks after I woke up, I couldn't make new memories at all. Terri says I asked her where our cat was about forty times a day, and she answered every time. I don't remember any of it. My first real memory is a whiteboard on the wall of my room with the date written on it in big letters, and not believing it. I thought it was still summer.

Rehab. Six weeks in an inpatient rehab hospital, then about a year of outpatient therapy three days a week: physical therapy for walking and balance, occupational therapy for everyday things like cooking and dressing, and speech therapy, which for me was mostly thinking therapy (see Patches, below). A neuropsychologist did testing to find out exactly what was working and what wasn't.

Back to work, then not. In 1997 I went back to the accounting firm part-time. Everybody was kind. I tried very hard. But I couldn't hold numbers in my head long enough to use them, I couldn't work with the phone ringing, and in March, in the middle of tax season, I made mistakes on two returns that Version 1.0 would never have made. I caught them, and my boss caught them, and nobody was hurt. But I knew. I resigned in April. That was the worst month since the crash.

Now. Since 1998 I have worked 20 hours a week as a library assistant at a branch library. I check in books, shelve, and help with the children's story hour on Thursdays. I like it because the whole library runs on a system. Every book has a number and a place. I'm good at the system. I found my way back to something that works for the brain I've got.

Summary: I lost a career. I didn't lose my life. I want to say that twice. I lost a career. I didn't lose my life.

Cognitive rehabilitation. This is therapy for thinking. Mine was with a speech-language pathologist, Ms. McCloskey, three mornings a week for a year. She didn't try to give me my old memory back. She taught me how to work around it: notebooks, routines, checklists, breaking big jobs into small steps, and checking my work. She also taught me the parts of the brain on that paper plate. I still have the plate.

Routines. Same wake-up time. Same breakfast. Same route to work. Same place for keys, wallet and Palm: a blue bowl by the door. When everything is in the same place every day, my memory doesn't have to work as hard. I'll repeat that: a routine is a memory you don't have to remember.

Lists. For everything. Groceries. Packing. How to make Terri's favorite chicken. The steps for checking in a book at work, taped inside my locker.

An alarm watch. A plain digital watch with five daily alarms. They go off at 8:00 (check the book), 12:00 (lunch, and check the book), 3:00 (wrap up work), 5:00 (check the book), and 9:00 (review the day with Terri). I have worn it every day since 1996.

My Palm III. Terri gave it to me for Christmas last year. It beeps to remind me of every appointment, it keeps every phone number, and it fits in my shirt pocket. It changed my life almost as much as the watch. I explain how I set it up on the memory book page.

The neuropsychologist's testing. It sounds scary. It was eight hours of puzzles and lists and questions. But afterward Dr. Lanham could tell me exactly what was hurt and, just as important, what wasn't. My reasoning was good. My vocabulary was good. My attention to detail was still good, as long as I had time. That's how I ended up at the library.

Terri's patience. This should be number one. She answered the cat question forty times a day. She learned the workarounds with me. She told me the truth when I was getting angry, and she told me the truth when I was doing better. We go to a brain injury support group together on the first Tuesday of the month, at a hospital here in Raleigh. It has a group for survivors and a group for families, and coffee for both.

Time. Most of my recovery came in the first two years. But I'm still getting a little better. I could not have written this page in 1997. Brains heal slowly, and they keep healing longer than people think.

Wear your seat belt. Every time. Even to the corner store. I did, and I'm here. My doctors said without it I would not be. Please read that again.

Wear a bicycle helmet, and make your children wear theirs. A helmet greatly lowers the chance of a serious head injury in a bike crash. A helmet costs less than one day in the hospital. I didn't wear one when I was a kid. Nobody did. We were lucky. You don't have to be lucky.

Don't drink and drive, and don't ride with someone who has. Falls are a big cause of brain injury too, especially for older people and little kids, so put a gate at the top of the stairs and a rail on Grandma's steps.

The Brain Injury Association. A national organization for people with brain injuries and their families. They have information about brain injury and rehab, and state groups and local support groups in many places. Our support group found us through them. Look in your phone book or ask at your hospital's rehab department.

Your rehab team. If you or your family member is in rehab now, ask the therapists everything. Ask twice. They're used to it. Ask them to write the answers down.

Me. If you have a brain injury, or someone you love does, you can write to me. I will answer. It might take me a few days, because I write my letters twice too.