Upon reading this title, the mind’s natural curiosity would inquire, “How in the world does a fractured mind have anything to do with golf carts?” Two seemingly unrelated subjects that somehow changed a 13-year-old kid’s life (possibly could have ended it too, but you’ll get to that). 

I regain consciousness in an unknown bed with a wrenching, excruciating pain in my head. It takes me a moment to adjust my bearings and when I do, I see my mom and a woman dressed in scrubs next to me. I ask her, “What happened?”

“You had an accident. You’re in the hospital,” the nurse said, “You fractured your skull.”

At first, I was in disbelief because I definitely didn’t remember actively taking part in an accident. But since I was in a hospital, and I was hurting everywhere, I chose to believe her. I was also under the impression that I had been in a car accident…well not quite.

“Do you know what happened to you exactly?” the nurse asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Hmm…I remember I had gone to a county fair, I remember buying a lot of weird trinkets, I remember eating blooming onions and funnel cakes, I remember seeing this one exceptionally large bunny, I remember getting in the car and closing the door- I come up short. Closing the car door is the last thing I remember. Clearly, I am missing something. I can’t just go from shutting a car door to waking up in a hospital bed. It was like a piece of seemingly orderly life puzzle had gone missing. Wait a second…funnel cakes and blooming onions. At the mere thought of such greasy foods, I involuntarily vomit. Luckily the nurse is prepared with a bag. So what did happen?

“You jumped off a golf cart,” my mom is talking now, “you were riding in the back seat of a golf cart and your friends said you jumped off. You landed on your feet but then whiplashed back onto a manhole cover on the street, fracturing your skull.”

Of course. That sounds like a dumbass thing I would do. Leave it to me to forget that physics and gravity exists. I actually think it’s quite funny at first. No, I did not get hit by a car. No, I did not fall from a giant tree. No, I did not get bludgeoned by a serial killer. I jumped off a golf cart…exactly something I would do. I almost died, and I would have had the stupidest reason for it. *Sigh*…I can only imagine what my hypothetical coroner’s reaction would have been. Despite the humor, I found in it, the pain was no laughing matter. I had suffered a fracture of the skull, a concussion, and two blood clots. Not to mention, I was on morphine for the pain. It also turns out that all this happened the previous day! I had been unconscious for an entire day, which slightly terrified me. I actually figured this would be great because it means I would miss the last month of school, meaning no finals or projects! Except I found that this was not as convenient as I thought it to be.

Throughout my healing process, I felt weaker than I had ever felt. At first, I could barely move in a bed. Then I could barely walk or look at bright lights. And finally, I was unsure of whether I’d be able to smell again because my olfactory nerve was messed up in the fall. This meant that I could not smell things properly. This became quite frustrating because I would get what I would call “phantom smells” because I would smell something one day and then I would smell that same smell for the next couple of days. On several nights, I would punch my pillow in frustration because I couldn’t get the smell of what I had for dinner three nights ago out of my nose no matter how hard I tried. This also troubled me because I love to cook. I loved it so much that at that time I secretly wanted to be a chef (I still do…don’t tell my mother). Without a sense of smell, I worried I might never be able to cook again.

Similarly, I was worried about whether I would ever be able to play piano again. What worried me was that my motor controls were absolutely jacked. I couldn’t move from the bed which I was confined to for three days. When I managed to get out of the bed, I was in a wheelchair. When I finally got out of the wheelchair, I needed to hold someone to walk so that I wouldn’t get yet another head injury. I wasn’t even allowed to read because it would cause a strain on my eyes. My logical conclusion was that “I can barely walk right now. Will I ever have the hand-eye coordination to play something as intricate as a piano?”. I had also heard the stories of people who suffered a cranial trauma and completely changed mentally. I was so anxious about what I would find out when I got home that I headed straight for my piano when I did (even though my mom wanted me to pray to the gods and give them thanks first).

I remember distinctly one night while I was half asleep, the doctor came in and asked if I wanted to switch to a less powerful painkiller. the only thing I could muster to say was, “Moooooooooooorphiiiiiiiiiiinnnnneeeeee.” I was so terrified with myself subconsciously. I knew I didn’t need such a substance anymore. My fear came from the fact that I wanted it because of the warm, comforting feeling that it sent through my body. Despite the warm feeling it gave me, my own response chilled me to the core. The pain was intolerable, sure, but nothing was ever bad enough to validate an opioid addiction. At that moment- well the nearest moment when I wasn’t high on morphine- I vowed to myself that I would never take any sort of drug or alcohol. The doctor changed my medicine anyway.

So you hear some kid fractured his skull by jumping off a golf cart, subsequently missing the last month of school. Your first reaction is probably, “What an idiot”. Well, that was my first reaction as well. The only problem was… I was the idiot. One of the worst parts about the incident was that I couldn’t even remember it. Amnesia is a loss of memory that’s usually a result of some sort of head trauma. I was subconsciously going through the different stages of grief. I kept feeling like it wasn’t me that did the act because I couldn’t even recall doing it. My frustration with the entire situation resulted in several outbursts of saying “It wasn’t me!” even though I knew it was. What I thought was funny at first, I gradually started to feel terrible about it because I would hear, “How the heck do you jump off a golf cart and break your head?” which I would think implied my stupidity and ineptness. I would find reasons to shoot blame at people. I would blame my mom for making me go to the fair. I would claim my friends had pushed me off the golf cart. I think a better analogy for what I felt like would be a case of twins. Imagine you had an identical twin, and they did something stupid, but everybody asked you why you did it. It just didn’t seem fair to blame me for something I have no recollection of even doing. I would think, “It’s ok to blame past me, but you can’t hold me accountable because I didn’t do it”. And what would it mean for my future? What if this pain never leaves me? What if I can’t cook again? What if I can never play the piano? What if I become a druggy? The thoughts made me cry.

However, the last stage of grief is always acceptance. Gradually, I learned to deal with it. I learned that, yes, I did do it, and I should own up to it. Instead of giving up cooking, I started cooking, even more, to make up for it (my mother said I over-seasoned everything at that time because a lot of your taste actually comes from your nose). And even though it took almost two years, my sense of smell did recover. When I sat down at that piano when I got back from the hospital, I played it for the rest of the day. I was so relieved that, somehow, I could still play as though nothing happened. The vow that I made in the hospital helps me to this day. While I have been offered drugs on several occasions, my vow to myself has made me more confident in saying “no” because I want to be in control of myself and not some narcotic. The incident helped me become more proactive in my passions because, well, I never know when I might lose the ability to enjoy them. I learned that, sometimes, accidents happen for a reason, and I know I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t jumped off that golf cart and fractured my skull.