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- 2002-10-07
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Art Pallen suffered his brain injury back in the caveman era of concussion treatment.
Which means little or no treatment at all. Pallen had it all going at the time — 30 years old and newly married to Debra, they made beautiful music together, literally, playing in local bands, often alongside stylish lead guitarist Bobby Lavigne. Debra sang like an angel and played bass guitar. Art was a drummer.
In his day job, Pallen was an artist under the hood, known as one of the best engine tune-up mechanics in Ottawa. His world fell apart in 1983 when he was test driving a small bulldozer up a pile of sand and was thrown forward, violently, smashing his head on the cross beam. He wasn’t wearing a safety helmet.
Other than a small cut on his forehead, Pallen thought he was OK, walking back to the workshop with his fellow mechanic, Ron, who had stood on the side of the bucking bulldozer and escaped unhurt. Within minutes, Pallen, overcome with fatigue, fell off his chair. Off they went to the Queensway Carleton Hospital, picking up Debra on the way.
After an X-ray of his forehead and a few stitches to close his cut, Pallen was instructed to “take tomorrow off” work and use Tylenol for pain.
“Doc, I really don’t feel good,” Pallen remembers saying.
Then take two days off, he was told.
Years later, he would discover that the initial assessment missed a couple of cracked vertebrae suffered in the accident, a body blow overlooked by Pallen himself in the fog and misery of his head injury. Leg numbness overnight was a hint at the back issue, but it wasn’t confirmed until a chiropractor discovered the fractures 18 years after the incident.
Pallen spent most of the first four months either in a hot bath or in bed, his head buried between two pillows.
When he visited a doctor, he was asked where it hurt. “Everywhere,” he replied.
Still, he was only 30, and figured his youthful energy would win out.
“I never dreamed then I’d be sitting here now telling you this story,” says the 65-year-old.
When doctors suggested it was all in his head, psychosomatic, Pallen thought, “For once they were right. It was all in my head. Only it wasn’t what they thought.”
In the mid-1980s, struggling to hold a job as a mechanic or musician, Pallen was working in his brother’s shop when Pallen’s son, Tom, from his first marriage, came over to Pallen while he was welding. As he pulled off his head cover, a spark from the welding gun ignited a tray of lacquer thinner, used to clean parts. The lacquer ignited.
“Fire!” Pallen heard his son yell. Then, “I’m on fire!”
The boy ran, instinctively. Pallen chased after him, tackled him, and used his bare hands to pat out the flames. The nylon pants Tom was wearing burned quickly and the boy suffered serious burns to his legs and crotch. Pallen’s hands suffered third-degree burns from patting out the fire.
At the children’s hospital, Pallen and his ex-wife heard their son screaming in pain. The memory brings tears to his eyes to this day. It was a fluke accident, but Pallen blames himself and his condition.
“It was an accident that shouldn’t have happened,” Pallen says. “I shouldn’t have been working.”
The greatest loss: Pallen and his son don’t speak to each other all these years later.
To escape his emotional pain, Pallen and Debra briefly moved to Barrie, where he worked for six months at a Ford dealership, until he accidentally damaged a new truck and was fired.
The couple have three grown children of their own, one with MS. The children drop by, but cut the visits short if their father is having a tough day. Pallen’s condition has taken a toll on the whole family, but especially the woman who has stood by him through it all.
In defence, she throws up a block on the past.
“Thirty-five years of this, it’s been very rough,” Debra says. “And let me tell you, if I wasn’t so in love with my husband I probably would have left him long ago to deal with this by himself.
“But we have strong morals.”
Mixed in with the symptoms, headaches, nausea, sleeplessness, was financial strain. Debts mounted. They lost their home. Debra works part-time in Ottawa, but Pallen hasn’t held steady work since his injury. In 1993, he was finally diagnosed with a brain injury, which allowed him a disability pension. They are currently staying with Pallen’s sister in Renfrew, and dream of one day moving into their own home, across the river in Quebec.
The property was cheap because the little house on it is dilapidated.
“A roof and four walls,” Pallen says. The entire inside has to be rebuilt and Debra looks for affordable fixtures online.
Playing nice with others remains a challenge for Pallen, who gets frustrated and lashes out.
“Your typical A-holes, don’t put one around me,” he says.
He’s had trouble with police and has been banned from numerous medical offices, despite a note on his file to avoid confrontation with him.
“It’s not my fault. I’m a sick guy,” Pallen says. Aren’t they supposed to help me? Instead, they push me out the door.”
Though his suicidal thoughts have receded, Pallen still suffers terrible anxiety. He needs two hours to get out of bed in the morning, he says.
Still handy, he has created devices to support his neck, to hold a cup of coffee on his waist. A mobile electrical current relieves tension in his neck. (He even created a drum set he could play by foot.) He hopes for the best, but expects the worst, a brain trauma victim who got hurt before concussion treatments evolved.
“We just need a bit of consideration and support,” says Debra Pallen. “This man was great when I met him.”
wscanlan@postmedia.com
查看原文...
Which means little or no treatment at all. Pallen had it all going at the time — 30 years old and newly married to Debra, they made beautiful music together, literally, playing in local bands, often alongside stylish lead guitarist Bobby Lavigne. Debra sang like an angel and played bass guitar. Art was a drummer.
In his day job, Pallen was an artist under the hood, known as one of the best engine tune-up mechanics in Ottawa. His world fell apart in 1983 when he was test driving a small bulldozer up a pile of sand and was thrown forward, violently, smashing his head on the cross beam. He wasn’t wearing a safety helmet.
Other than a small cut on his forehead, Pallen thought he was OK, walking back to the workshop with his fellow mechanic, Ron, who had stood on the side of the bucking bulldozer and escaped unhurt. Within minutes, Pallen, overcome with fatigue, fell off his chair. Off they went to the Queensway Carleton Hospital, picking up Debra on the way.
After an X-ray of his forehead and a few stitches to close his cut, Pallen was instructed to “take tomorrow off” work and use Tylenol for pain.
“Doc, I really don’t feel good,” Pallen remembers saying.
Then take two days off, he was told.
Years later, he would discover that the initial assessment missed a couple of cracked vertebrae suffered in the accident, a body blow overlooked by Pallen himself in the fog and misery of his head injury. Leg numbness overnight was a hint at the back issue, but it wasn’t confirmed until a chiropractor discovered the fractures 18 years after the incident.
Pallen spent most of the first four months either in a hot bath or in bed, his head buried between two pillows.
When he visited a doctor, he was asked where it hurt. “Everywhere,” he replied.
Still, he was only 30, and figured his youthful energy would win out.
“I never dreamed then I’d be sitting here now telling you this story,” says the 65-year-old.
When doctors suggested it was all in his head, psychosomatic, Pallen thought, “For once they were right. It was all in my head. Only it wasn’t what they thought.”
In the mid-1980s, struggling to hold a job as a mechanic or musician, Pallen was working in his brother’s shop when Pallen’s son, Tom, from his first marriage, came over to Pallen while he was welding. As he pulled off his head cover, a spark from the welding gun ignited a tray of lacquer thinner, used to clean parts. The lacquer ignited.
“Fire!” Pallen heard his son yell. Then, “I’m on fire!”
The boy ran, instinctively. Pallen chased after him, tackled him, and used his bare hands to pat out the flames. The nylon pants Tom was wearing burned quickly and the boy suffered serious burns to his legs and crotch. Pallen’s hands suffered third-degree burns from patting out the fire.
At the children’s hospital, Pallen and his ex-wife heard their son screaming in pain. The memory brings tears to his eyes to this day. It was a fluke accident, but Pallen blames himself and his condition.
“It was an accident that shouldn’t have happened,” Pallen says. “I shouldn’t have been working.”
The greatest loss: Pallen and his son don’t speak to each other all these years later.
To escape his emotional pain, Pallen and Debra briefly moved to Barrie, where he worked for six months at a Ford dealership, until he accidentally damaged a new truck and was fired.
The couple have three grown children of their own, one with MS. The children drop by, but cut the visits short if their father is having a tough day. Pallen’s condition has taken a toll on the whole family, but especially the woman who has stood by him through it all.
In defence, she throws up a block on the past.
“Thirty-five years of this, it’s been very rough,” Debra says. “And let me tell you, if I wasn’t so in love with my husband I probably would have left him long ago to deal with this by himself.
“But we have strong morals.”
Mixed in with the symptoms, headaches, nausea, sleeplessness, was financial strain. Debts mounted. They lost their home. Debra works part-time in Ottawa, but Pallen hasn’t held steady work since his injury. In 1993, he was finally diagnosed with a brain injury, which allowed him a disability pension. They are currently staying with Pallen’s sister in Renfrew, and dream of one day moving into their own home, across the river in Quebec.
The property was cheap because the little house on it is dilapidated.
“A roof and four walls,” Pallen says. The entire inside has to be rebuilt and Debra looks for affordable fixtures online.
Playing nice with others remains a challenge for Pallen, who gets frustrated and lashes out.
“Your typical A-holes, don’t put one around me,” he says.
He’s had trouble with police and has been banned from numerous medical offices, despite a note on his file to avoid confrontation with him.
“It’s not my fault. I’m a sick guy,” Pallen says. Aren’t they supposed to help me? Instead, they push me out the door.”
Though his suicidal thoughts have receded, Pallen still suffers terrible anxiety. He needs two hours to get out of bed in the morning, he says.
Still handy, he has created devices to support his neck, to hold a cup of coffee on his waist. A mobile electrical current relieves tension in his neck. (He even created a drum set he could play by foot.) He hopes for the best, but expects the worst, a brain trauma victim who got hurt before concussion treatments evolved.
“We just need a bit of consideration and support,” says Debra Pallen. “This man was great when I met him.”
wscanlan@postmedia.com
查看原文...
