Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel (6 page)

Fortunately, I had something that Gage did not: access to advanced medical knowledge and high-tech brain-imaging tools. I’d had that one MRI scan for my fasciculations, which to my surprise had come back normal. I have since learned that it’s not that unusual for an MRI to miss the type of damage associated with mild traumatic brain injury. MRIs do provide more detailed three-dimensional images of the brain than CT scans, which are typically used to detect skull fractures and life-threatening bleeding in the brain. But MRIs aren’t sensitive enough to pick up damage at the microscopic or cellular level. Nowadays, there are more effective brain-imaging scans available, such as functional MRI (fMRI), which measures brain activity by showing detailed images of blood flow throughout the brain. This type of test probably could have detected changes in the way my brain functioned. Unfortunately, fMRI wasn’t widely used at the time. I couldn’t afford additional testing anyway, and I’d never heard of anything more advanced than a regular MRI, so I didn’t pursue further studies.

Even the doctors responsible for my care at the time didn’t recommend any other testing. In the medical community, there are agreed-upon protocols for severe brain injuries—say a bullet wound that leaves a gaping hole. But when it comes to treating closed-head, less traumatic injuries, like mine, there is a bit of a gray area. Despite the fact that my MRI was read as normal, my new impressions of the world persisted, and they were as astonishing as they were disturbing.

In the mugging, I had received three direct punches to the back and sides of my skull and at least one very hard kick to the back of it. My skull wasn’t fractured, probably owing to bone being one of the strongest materials found in nature.

Bone is, ounce for ounce, stronger than steel. Even though the eight bones that make up the human skull average only about a quarter of an inch in thickness, some parts of the skull are estimated to be able to withstand a force of twelve hundred to fourteen hundred pounds. Research shows that Olympic and professional boxers are capable of delivering blows that top one thousand pounds of force per square inch. Lucky for me, the guys who assaulted me were likely delivering only about sixty to eighty-five pounds of force per square inch, which is the average for a human punch. The kicks to my head were probably about three and a half times stronger, but still within the ability of my skull to withstand them. But that doesn’t mean that nothing devastating happened inside my head.

The mugging did physical damage to my brain, but it also did psychological damage, a result of being the victim of a violent crime. I was warned I might experience some posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms related to this, and as I read about it, I really began to recognize the feelings I was having. I was becoming afraid to leave my home and afraid to be around people. I couldn’t explain it beyond the fact that people, even my friends, made me feel uncomfortable and suspicious.

From what I understand, it’s completely normal to feel anxious, jumpy, or frightened for some time after something traumatic happens. But when those feelings don’t go away or when they start interfering with everyday life, then it may be PTSD. To understand this better, I needed to look at what had been happening inside my body while I was being attacked.

As I walked out of the bar on the night of the mugging, my body was in a state of homeostasis, or internal equilibrium. But when I was attacked, a part of my brain called the hypothalamus sent out an SOS message, triggering my body’s natural fight-or-flight stress response. A cascade of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, flooded into my bloodstream, causing my heart to beat faster and my breathing to quicken. My muscles tensed up so they were ready for action. And my liver started breaking down glycogen (a form of sugar) and converting it into glucose so I’d have the energy to either fight back or run for my life (that’s why they call it the fight-or-flight response). I tried to fight back—remember, I bit that one guy on the thigh! Sometime after the mugging was over, this chemical surge subsided, and my body returned to its state of homeostasis.

The problem is that in some people, when a traumatic event occurs, the body’s stress response system gets out of whack and gets stuck on high alert. Little things, like a door slamming or a telephone ringing, can trigger the fight-or-flight response. It’s like you feel like you’re still under attack even though you’re in the comfort of your own living room. That’s PTSD, and it comes with a laundry list of unpleasant symptoms, including flashbacks, insomnia, nightmares, being easily startled, and more. I found myself exhibiting some of the most classic PTSD symptoms: reliving the mugging over and over, avoiding situations that reminded me of the event, and feeling both numb and overstimulated at the same time.

It turns out that, according to the National Center for PTSD, there are about 7.7 million Americans who suffer from the condition. I was surprised to learn that not everyone who suffers a trauma gets PTSD. In fact, most people who live through some form of trauma don’t develop the condition. Why are so many people able to handle the stress while others, like me, can’t seem to get over it? Experts say that it depends in part on the intensity of the traumatic event as well as the amount of support a person gets afterward. But that’s not all. Genetics and past traumas can also play a role in the likelihood of someone developing PTSD.

I was beginning to realize that my situation put me at higher risk for the condition. I had gotten injured in the mugging, felt like I had no control during the event, and wasn’t getting adequate support in the aftermath. At the time, I was so laser-focused on the mugging as the trigger for my PTSD that I didn’t even stop to think about how other life events might have contributed to the problem. It wasn’t until much later that I would realize that my parents’ numerous divorces and remarriages, the death of my infant son, and other family troubles might have had something to do with it too.

It helped to read about other people in the same situation, and I hoped that one day I would get the help I needed. Even though I knew that seeking help would be good for me, it wasn’t enough to motivate me to act back then. I didn’t want to leave the house—my fear was truly disabling.

Though I was very concerned for myself after reading about PTSD, I felt that the greater mystery was my new visions and abilities. I’d never heard of anyone who experienced the things that were happening to me. At the same time, I was also becoming fascinated by the greater cosmos and wondering how I, and my consciousness, fit into the whole universe. I even broke my self-imposed exile briefly and bought a telescope from Costco to look deeper into the galaxy; I peered out at the night sky from my darkened living room.

I was filled with questions about everything from outer space to my inner space. I wondered if there were even words to describe what was happening to me.

Chapter Five

I
NITIALLY, SOME SERIOUS
distractions kept me from having to face the profound changes my mind had undergone. My mother called the day after the mugging, and once I had relayed my own bad news, she told me my stepfather had lost his fight with cancer the same night that I was attacked. To lose my stepdad was a very deep blow. He may not have been my biological father, but he was the one stepfather of many I had who was as much a father to me as any man could be. He was a happy force and a stabilizing influence in my life from the age of twelve onward. My fractured family consisted of divorced biological parents with multiple remarriages between them, but this man, Captain Steve Smith, my hero, was not just passing through. He was a real father figure and mentor. I felt devastated and very much alone.

Captain Smith was a Special Forces operative in Vietnam who was shot down twice during his tour of duty. He liked to say stoically that he got a vasectomy courtesy of the Viet Cong during one of these attacks: a chopper he was in was shot at, and shrapnel from the artillery that blew off his pilot’s head landed between his own legs. He managed to fly the chopper ninety miles and get it to a safe area before it went down. The other time he was shot down in a helicopter, he found himself in a field surrounded by the enemy. Thrown from the vehicle, he nonetheless made it back through heavy fire to blow the chopper up, as it was carrying sensitive equipment. A friend of senators and high-ranking military officials, he instilled in me a strong work ethic.

He also gave me my first exposure to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Captain Smith ran such an orderly household that when dining-room chairs were moved to new positions, he made my brother and me rub out the previous marks in the carpeting. Even with this tic, he inspired me to be more self-sufficient. He did not give me a lot of material things, but he provided a strong example of personal responsibility and mettle. There would not be a funeral, my mother said—Captain Smith wanted to be remembered the way he had been.

He was the one person I probably needed most in the world right then, someone strong who would help me find the men who had done this to me. If anyone could have found my attackers and brought them to justice, it was Steve. I let that thought guide me in my next move.

That day, the day after the mugging, I called a few friends and we gathered to make posters stating that the karaoke bar was involved in the cover-up of a violent crime. We drove to the bar and marched out front until a television news crew showed up. Between the journalists covering the story and my group informing several dozen patrons showing up at the business what had happened the night before—several of them turned on their heels and left; some went in and gave the management an earful—we eventually got the owner to come outside. At first he was angry and called the police on us, thinking that we were disturbing the peace and that we were not allowed to protest. The police came and said that we were not breaking any laws, shook my hand, and left. Minutes afterward, the restaurant owner provided me with the names and addresses of the attackers and asked us to leave. We did.

For the next five days I tried to get police to respond to my calls about the incident, with no success. Just two weeks after my mugging, Tacoma police chief David Brame would shoot and kill his wife and then himself in front of their kids while seated in the family car in a grocery-store parking lot. Eleven months later, the FBI would descend on the city to investigate allegations of police corruption and illegal business transactions by government officials. To say that the crime against me happened in a strange policing environment is an understatement. I didn’t know what was going on at the time; I just knew I was getting nowhere asking for help. So I did surveillance on the attackers’ home myself and found they were roommates and that they were packing up to move. I was so angry, I pulled my car up on their lawn just four feet from their front door to announce my arrival. I knocked on their door and told all who passed what the occupants had done to me. I told neighbors to call the police; the men were wanted for a violent crime. One of the assailants answered the door and began to shake and stutter as he tried to stare me down. A squad car showed up, and the police questioned him with me by their side. This time, the police treated the situation differently. The man admitted to the crime, claiming they were drunk that night. It came to light that two women employees of the bar, one of whom was the bartender who’d eyed my wallet, were dating the thugs. He was arrested on the spot and the other one was tracked down later that day.

I collapsed with relief when I heard the police had both men in custody, but my relief was short-lived. With the capture of my attackers accomplished, I now had time to think about what had happened to me and to my stepfather, and a depression began to set in. I was so immobilized by grief I took some time off from Planet Futon to regroup. At first I thought it would be just a couple of weeks. Then weeks turned into months. Three months into my isolation, I got a phone call from my brother John’s live-in girlfriend, Keri. It was the day after Christmas, and I’d barely acknowledged the holiday. “We had an argument,” she explained when she called; she was checking to see if I had heard from John. “He put out the garbage and tracked in a bunch of water. I yelled at him and he said, ‘I can’t do anything right!’ before grabbing some pills and a blanket and walking out the door. I’m really worried. I think something terrible has happened.” He’d been missing almost twenty-four hours.

“You know my brother,” I countered. “He’s walked out before and he’s always made his way to a nice hotel. John likes his creature comforts. He’ll come back eventually.”

I was pretty sure John would turn up, but I still spent some time over the next couple of weeks working down a list of phone numbers of my brother’s friends and associates. He’d never been gone more than a week before. Sometimes when I looked at the phone numbers, I’d see different shapes for each number. I’d see cubes for individual numbers, and if I stared at the whole strand of numbers, these big crystal grids would form before me or in my mind’s eye. I would lose myself pondering this bizarre imagery for a while, then snap myself out of it and go back to working down the list. I was as determined to find my brother as I had been to find the men who mugged me. Several times I called people at inappropriate hours, unaware of what day of the week it was, much less what time. I had not yet returned to work, I had no real routine, and I was beginning to lose track of time. No one seemed to have any information.

My mind was also flooded by memories of my brother. Two things occurred to me: First, my long-term memory was apparently intact. I could remember back to our days as toddlers very clearly. And second, these memories were smooth as they played, like movies in my mind. My present-day perceptions were choppy and stop-action and overlaid with strange shapes, but the memories appeared just as I used to see the world. I would get lost in them over and over. It was much less exhausting than considering the present. They also brought me back to a time when John and I were close. I remembered the day I almost drowned and John tried to save me. I wanted to repay the brother who had rushed to my aid when we were small, even though we’d drifted apart in recent years. I picked up the list of phone numbers and worked down it again. No one had heard a thing.