OK so i have to say growing up with a brain injury that happens suddenly when you are 12 years old is alot harder then anyone could ever imagine. One word to describe my life the first four year after my accident would be VICTIM. You may ask why, well there are alot of things,bad things that is that happened to me following my accident.i could list them all but it would take up so much space and time. Here are a few though...For some reason following what happened to me ...oh ya maybe i should start by saying what did happen to me....ill tell you from what i can remember (not what people told me) It was a day like every other day....i was supposed to go to ball hockey that evening. When my father said to me i had to go and collect on my paper route. So i tried to get out of it but unfortunately my mom sided with my dad and said i should go. I went to the garage got my bike out and started on my way (meanwhile my helmet was where i always left it on my Handel bars) it was a cold day in December of 1997 when all of a sudden almost at the end of my paper route i was riding across the street at a 4 way stop and BOOM life changed. I was hit by a 4x4 pickup truck that ran the stop sing,,,rushed to the hospital this is where i had a grand mill seizure from there they rushed my to sick kids hospital .....i was in ICU for a couple of days. The whole time i was in there i remember being in the most pain ever. I was recently informed by my mom that they could not give me any medication for the pain because my brain was swollen (no wounder why my head felt like it was going to explode) i remember constantly asking my mom to massage my brain .....i was in so much pain. After leaving the hospital is when things got worse. I decided i wanted to go back to school within i believe it was a month or so. Bad idea. This is where tings began to go bad. Who knew no one would understand an injury they couldn't see. From day one people (teachers and princebles) could not comprehend that i did have something wrong with me. they tried to place me as a behavioral student in grade 9 because they didn't want to do anything to help me....So there i was feeling alone. I didn't fit in any where in school. Not with the cool crowed , not with the nerd crowed, and not even with the misfits.. School was so rough for me i wanted so badly to be a great student academically but it didn't seem to matter how hard i tried i just failed...Teachers didn't understand nor did they want to understand my problem. I even had this great tutor who would call meetings with the teachers and princables to try to educate them on my injury but they didn't care. its so hard living a life that you don't feel like your even worth living. So eventually after going through the hardest part of my life (school) i passed, it took me many years more then the average person and alot of different schools. I can't even count how many. But i do have some people i need to thank for that. First off is my mom, a girl couldn't ask for a better mom. She was and is my very best friend. Then there is my brother i know he probably doesn't feel that he had much to do with helping me but he helped allot. Seeing him strong and looking up to him like i always did, really helped me in staying on track and not getting into bad things like drugs and stuff. He had eyes and ears everywhere so i knew if i did anything stupid i would get caught(just like i did smoking, Thanks James)...lol. Then there is my Grandma she was a big help as well because when my mom decided to leave my loser dad her and her husband let us stay at there house. Last but definitely not least Kathy Headly the most amazing tutor in the world ( she is a special tutor for brain injured children) She probably thought i didn't like her witch maybe true but who could like someone that buts in to there life every day! but i really did like her deep inside. I Definitely like her now i just hope she knows i am sorry for being such a rotten kid for her. Any ways those are definitely the people in my life who helped me the most to get me to this point in my life....to be continued...