I worked at uh Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital um on their grounds had New Hope.  Um, they had uh teenage boys uh that were on drugs and alcohol uh and I was the family counselor up there and then I also worked with the, with the, women but that Saturday morning um I was, I am, I was giving them a party, you know, with the parents and the children because I had a scholarship to go for extra credits up on Rutgers.  So, I wanted to put them together.  Um, I have no memory about, you know, that that day.  Uh, I read on you know, I read about that after.  Um, so I went to this deli and I, I bought them a big sub to for their party um and I always take short cuts to miss the lights so I went on the other side of Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital and it was on Pleasant Valley Road and then um uh then I heard that the deer came through the windsheild and at that point that's when he cracked my face um and then the car I hit a stump and it turned around and then there was someone doing his lawn and he said several times my car went upside down and the deer was still in the car at that point um and um they um so they called the ambulance because after the man he told them you know that that I would be dead after that accident so they just had the ambulance um when they finally, you know, started to take me out um, there's a word for that um, and he um, um, so so then they realized that I was alive and they put a tube down to my throat, um there's a name for that, um and uh and then it took them two and a half hours to take me out of the car um and then they called the helicopter and the the the helicopter took me to the trauma section in Robert, Robert Wood Hospital.  They called, um called my my children uh and I had both, I lived in Fairhaven at that point and then my kids lived in Marlboro, um so I always had the double information, you know, if they needed anything so so they so they took me, you know, in there and I had several hemorrahages in the brain so they put that tube in directly into the brain um and uh uh my eyes were all swollen everything, there was everything, like my ribs, my back, my ankles, it was, you know, and then with the face but they waited for everything for like ten days um my daughter told me just to make sure I would be alive and um so finally they did all these little um surgeries uh I was still in the coma.  I was in the coma for two months um and then I had amnesia.  Um, they transfered me to um JKF with the brain trauma unit um, I had no memory.  I didn't know about children or, you know, I had nothing um and um so after about six they were still walking me, I was still in the coma, to save my legs because they were, I don't know, there's another word, um and so they kept me in the brain trauma um I'm not sure how how long and one day I just came out of that um but it uh it was um probably about six weeks.  I know my cousins used to come up and and asked if I was aware that they were there and I would say "no but thank you for visiting," you know, and I didn't know my kids.  I'm sure with my daughter, you know um, I would call her mommy, you know um.  So when I was coming out of that coma it was I was starting to be six months old and then a year old this is what I heard is that it takes a long time to get out of the number coma that I was in that was really that number was, you know, most people don't come out of that um so I came out and I didn't realize people were not understanding me, nothing you know, uh and I thought it was fine, you know.  It was time after that uh when the eye doctor came came in and then I saw him like six months after that and he said did you realize, when I was out of the coma, that he didn't understand a word that I said, nothing and I thought I said "oh hello and its very nice to meet you and."  You know, that I just spoke like a regular person um when I would write on the book to go to my physical therapy I would put uh Kathleen Murphy that was my maiden name, you know, so I and then my daughter said to me what what my name was and I thought which I always said that, no I won't say that.  It was, it took me, they transferred me to hardwick on the second floor and I was a very crazy person.  I wanted to leave there.  I wanted to go back to work um and I was the only person on that second floor that was not in a wheel chair and that made me that they would put me in a wheel chair.  I had polio when I was fifteen so I had that uncomfortable feeling with uh with the wheelchair um.  So it I hated everything about that, but they were really working so hard with my voice um.  She, the speach therapist, she would give me cards, a picture of a cat, of a dog, of you know of any little things and I couldn't guess any any cards.  You know, it was so frustrating but I couldn't, I couldn't get the cat or the dog, you know um, and she would give me home work to look at the pictures and I just I just couldn't look into the pictures, you know, just and uh I didn't realize at that point well they did send me to another place which I forgot the name of.  Um, it's in Hardwick but its down in the bottom.  Um and uh and. So, they did transfer me down there um and I still didn't know I lost almost ninty percent of my of my memory.  And the classes we were going to play games, which I always hated games so, you know, and then they would say OK say a famous person with their initials MM.  I couldn't get like a singer he would wear makeup.  I knew nothing.  That was the first day it really hit me that my memory was gone, you know, that was that was pretty hard, you know, and then it took me well I still don't have it you know but its like better its like 85 percent.  Um, sometimes if I'm meeting friends at different places I still um I get lost, you know.  So now I just try to imagine what how am I going what road and my daughter writes it down and I always keep it with me um and she should me how to go to the A&P uh and she was here yesterday and when I'm watching her going back to the A&P I was I had no idea, all her turns.  It was gone uh and that that always annoys me because I work with that and I write down, you know, and I do things.  If its like a month its gone um but I but I uh Its my own fault because I was taught to do the strategies and that is write down everything and I just think this is gone, I am so positive that this is gone.  If I go to Macy's and I want a pair of shoes, if I'm alone, uh that's why daughter goes with me, um if I want to ask about a size and the sales person is so annoyed, you know, to tell them what that size is um and uh uh doctors office's when they uh when they give you appointment's um and they get so annoyed because I can't keep up with this, you know, putting this information down and numbers, I never quite got number, um and so I put my answering machine like ten times, you know, and I write down one number and sometimes I I can hear a totally different number and then when I keep putting it on and its totally different numbers, you know very, and then I usually, you know, show Dr. Donahue, you know, like the next day and I put numbers on them, you know, so I still have those annoying things and I and I am into denial, major, you know, like I think its gone, you know um.  Now I'm living with an assisted living, you know, which is um its gorgeous it really is but I still have, you know, I'm the youngest person there, you know um, so I still the uh liberty mutual sent me to a different psychiatrist um to put me through testing and I still had that little part of me would think that he would say to liberty mutual "Ok send her back to work, you know, she's better," and I always I still have that, you know. So, I guess he said something bad enough.  We still never got the letter um and then I went to the assisted living, you know um, but I still have that I'm still waiting for someone to say, an authority, "oh she can go back to work," and I used to do charts, you know, like with the family's.  I would have like thirty six charts.  The writing never came back 100 percent so I still work with it, you know, so that so some thing, you know, like the reading now I can read a page and the next page it its its gone or I'm reading but it's not going up here and the major problem also I have uh if if if I go into a restaurant or I need a wall in back of my head and some and something to close my ears and the brain and if I hear the nosie then I'm losing the voice here um.  So my kids are a little agrivated yet with, with the sounds, you know, that's that really never came back um with the, you know, part with my brain.  There are things that really never came came back um.  So would you like to ask me something?

Mores

Well could you talk about the other elements that might not have come back?

Kate

Um it, the the numbers um the uh the noise just the tiny lit, um you know.  Did I say numbers?  Um, OK, uh the reading writing.  I am getting better you know with the writing, you know, but If someone calls and their telling me information I and then I scratch it out then I don't know what I did um and uh then there's little things, you know, I don't really pay attention, you know, there's there are so many people have more more things you know um even like driving, you know, I was so lucky to to be able to drive um and uh so I I'm uh extrememly blessed and even though with that number on the uh coma ninty percent of the people would not come out of that number and I did.  I was always stubborn thought, you know um, so if they would say no no no you can't really is so so I would do it um and it's uh I can't quite, you know, to think of what else but I I am incredibly blessed, you know um.

Mores

Could you talk about in detail your process of regaining speech?  You know what it was like in the beginning like the process in between because you talked about the begginning and where you are now but there seemed to be a lot of time in between it would be nice if you could talk about that.

Kate

Ok, um I was in a um a Hardwick um and uh I had a wonderful wonderful speech therapist um and all of a sudden they started this group and she was putting in putting me into different classes and the one that she put me in to listen a minute of the news and then write it down. So, she would put the television on and then write it after she would put it off.  I just never go that, you know um, so um so the other people would say "Ok now now go slow and just pick a word," you know, so it that was hard, you know, that everyone else was like writing and I couldn't hold a word even THE, you know I couldn't um and then there were they had then they decided we were going to have a group there were like six people we would have a private group everyday um and and uh one was with a doctor um Dr. uh we called her Linda um and that was the beginning of I I would speak, you know, maybe like a word um and so we helds that everyday for eight weeks.  That was at the point when I was going back and forth from from my house they gave me a car service and they would pick me up every morning at eight o'clock and drop me back there at five o'clock at night.  Um so uh this this group really um helped me um I was uh in the begginning I couldn't really say anything, you know, because not it it is for speaking but its also the word would come out of my brain, you know.  So and I went to the speech therapist Dorine and I said I don't think I should be there, you know. and she said lets let's just try it um and after that group um was like for eight weeks um it was myself and another woman that they put us both back to do another eight weeks, you know, because I I at the end of that eight weeks it was better, you know, it was enough that I could write down strategies and um but they felt and I didn't have a lot of speech so they put me back for another 8 weeks uh so I I was in the hospital for, I think, about a year and then as soon as that stopped then they would take me back and forth every day for like maybe two years, you know, it would be uh and they they would do some occupation um therapy and they they would let me go up stairs on my day off down there and to visit the nurse nursery home for the older people and I I would visit and I would go out and I write it in my book, you know, after I would see a couple of people and then when I went down stairs to do the sheet I I put one day the the four of the women had eight children so I said I think there something wrong here so I was mixing them up, you know, not holding as soon.  As I left one room I took it into the other one so so then I would have to give the information with a pad I would put it on their wall and just put down what I heard, you know, um I  I  I was not very talkative talk talkative but they loved it like the older people, you know, and I could just say a word and that would be enough to, you know, start them, you know, so I was happy doing that um and I still thought I was going back to work, you know, even thought it had been, you know, a while.  I still do it now like if I'm in the stores um and I want soemething and I do have papers in my book that it says aphasia is a communiative diesease, you know uh, most people are a little afraid, you know, if you want them to read this, "Ewh is this one crazy."  So so they just um it's a this is a different thing.  Now when I went into the post office I I had a couple of long like overnight and they wanted me to write this uh slip and I really couldn't read the questions and it was a major problem and I said to the woman, I said, "I have had a stroke, you know, could you help me." "Oh of course," you know, but if you say aphasia they don't get this.  So their not sure if you're a crazy person, you know, or because people will always tell you "oh mother had a stroke, or, you know, if my husdand, or sister-in-law," you know, people can hook into the stroke.  Not with the apahsia.  That's when I'm calling a doctor I ask who answers the phone is this a nurse or a secretary.  If they are a nurse they will know what aphasia is, a secretary will have no idea and they want to get you off anyway.  Um so I  I always wait for the nurse and then they'll say OK just go slow, but not the secretaries, you know.  And and I'm sure that they're very busy that they don't have time to, you know, to help someone that is speaking slow.

Mores

Could you talk about other social aspects like um the way aquantiances would react to you and the differents between that and the way friends would react to you after you were rehabilitated to a certain degree and through the different stages of rehabilitation.

Kate

Um, I still have uh several good friends um but they are also therapists so they studied with this and they, you know, they were comfortable with this.  Some other friends they they just.  Even my family didn't realize.  Now my sister and I talk about it and she just thought that after she say me at Robert Wood um they she just thought I'd be home after three three weeks, you know.  So and she's a social worker um but she said she was in major denial you know so this was and because my anniversary had been the fifteenth on Saturday uh my mother called my sister called and the woman who took over my job with the family therapist um she she called me um but that's about it.  Uh, when my son had brain cancer and I had a lot of friends it was the same thing, you know, people are afraid about the brain, you know, um so so when he went through that all my friends left, you know, it was, you know, different, you know, this this brain thing their not quite sure if you'll flip out some place um which in the beginning, you know, that that was that was easy with that anger, you know, um but not being aware of it, you know, like my kids would put me into the car and lock me up there, you know, it was uh it was different so.

Mores

Could you go over a general time line of um your recovery process starting from the beginning because I don't know how many years...

Kate

It was six on Saturday, um so it was six years.  Mine will never stop, you know, this goes on and on um I even though I knew I knew this I studied this, you know, with the drugs this is part of with the brain damage and um it was uh this will not go, you know,  I, I'll just have to uh cu- come out of denial, you know, but the time Saturday was six years and now, you know, I'm living in the assisted living, you know that's uh that's uh.

Mores

Is there anything that you would like to say to people who have just had a stroke or an accident and this is a forum for you to communicate to them is there any additional...

Kate

Well uh, I I would think that to relax, you know, I uh so many people said that it would not stop, you know, that I would have this forever and uh I think after you are finished your therapy, you know, and have a wonderful speech therapist and when that's all finished then to see a psychologist and when you have that time to sit with a psychologist you'll just talk you will talk for an hour, you know and that really really helped me you know to have a therapist that works wth apahsia, you know, and that and that really that the speech started to get better to have conversation, you know, this is someone who knows it you know not a lot of people know about aphasia even psychologist not everybody, you know, know's it.  So I have one that I think it's his specialty and I think that that helped me and just to have a converstaion, you know um, so I think that that helped me, you know, and then hearing little strategist like I couldn't deal with the secretaries at my doctor's office and he said alright speak to your doctor and lets see what she would like to do and she set me up with another nurse with a private line and so so there has been a hundred ideas, you know, here and with someone that really has all the education with aphasia, you know um, and knows about strokes and head injuries and, you know, so it was the only time I was comfortable to have a conversation you know and sometimes we could laugh or it could be, you know, to talk about something or appointments or, you know, so it was it was extremely comfortable, you know.  So, I think at that point when after I was finished rehab and I started, you know, with Dr. Donahue that I think was and then I joined hospice and I was, you know, I was doing with their bereavements um and so so after the hospice I could share all that information like the next session it would be all about hospice and whats going on and all that, you know, so that that was, you know, wonderful, you know, to share that information, you know, and I did not have to speak perfectly.  I know I'll ask him you know is that right, you know, or, but that really really pushed me, you know, um I still have that denial, you know, its still there um.

Mores

OK

Kate

OK