“Okay. But what about when she called the blue circle on the paper right, or signing?”
“Maybe you had told her when you drew it that it was blue, and she remembered. I mean, in itself it’s pretty impressive if she remembered where and what you said without seeing it. We know she can hear, so she has learned to sign audibly.”
“Yeah, I guess. She’s pretty amazing. I’ll keep trying other tests and see if I can get her to look and then think about what she’s seeing.”
Friday afternoon, Aaron lifted Gini out of the harness and put her in her wheelchair. Debbie was just coming into the room to get Gini.
“Teem?” Gini called out.
“Oh, you’re done early today.”
“No… uff… teem,” Gini said with some emotion.
“That’s what she’s saying. It’s not time. How does she know what time it is?” Aaron asked.
Debbie turned and pointed to a large clock on the wall across the room. The session was short by five minutes.
Debbie knelt in front of her. “Gini, tell me what time it is.”
Gini slowly opened her eyes and then closed them. “No… uff.”
It was late Monday after Gini’s therapy. Debbie put her in the recliner to listen to an audio book. She rubbed her forefingers gently over Gini’s eyebrows and told her to open her eyes and look at her. Gini did as requested.
“Baby, tell me what color my eyes are.”
As usual, Gini didn’t answer but instead closed her eyes.
“I know you saw my eyes with your eyes. Tell me what color they are.”
“No… know… see?” She raised her voice at the end in a cute way that tickled Debbie.
Aaron arrived to work with Debbie to put that week’s gym therapy schedule together. Gini was quietly listening to the book.
They were near the end of the planning when Gini said, “Be… uff… brune.”
Debbie quickly turned to see her. She was still in the same position. “Gini, what did you say?”
“Dee… bee… be… uff… brune.”
“That’s right.” She turned and looked at Aaron, excited. “She can see! Gini can see. She knows my eye color. No one has ever told her.” She pointed to her eyes. “See, tell me what color my eyes are.”
Aaron said, “Brown.” At the same time, Gini said, “Brune.”
Debbie jumped up. “I have to tell Robert.” She gave Gini a quick kiss on the forehead and grabbed the phone. Aaron was taken aback by Debbie’s reaction. He had never seen her display much of any emotion, especially jubilation.
“Okay, Debbie, slow down,” Robert said.
“She, Gini, told me I have brown eyes. Robert, how would she know that if she can’t see them? I knew it, I just knew it.”
“It sounds like it was a delayed reaction.”
“Yes, a couple of hours, but that doesn’t matter so much as the fact she has vision.”
As the days passed, Debbie went to the medical library and checked out books on how to help traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients see when their brains and retinas don’t communicate. Gini’s diagnosis was a diffuse axonal injury (DAI), meaning there was widespread immediate damage with loss of white brain matter. The parts of her brain severely affected were coordination movements, language, memory, and possibly vision.
Debbie was well aware that the healthy part of the brain could take on the tasks of the damaged brain. The term was plasticity. Since the 1960s a lot had been learned about the regeneration of the brain. The sooner the patient got into intense therapy, the better, so new circuits could form to resume some lost function. So-called mirror neurons on the other side of the brain could also take on new tasks.
Because every brain injury was different, Debbie knew there was probably no clear-cut treatment. The best thing was to constantly make Gini aware that she could see, and maybe then her brain would patch the communication. Of course, the other issue was keeping her eyes open. A lot of therapy was still needed, but Gini was in the perfect situation with Debbie constantly there to challenge her brain.
Aaron’s focus was on Gini standing and then walking. He would hold her feet to the ground, but the minute he let go, she pulled her right leg up to her body. She thrust her tongue and concentrated hard, but controlling her leg movements was not coming easily to her. Finally, one day she kept both legs down. Aaron took her by the shoulders and pushed her to the left side of her body, putting her weight on that leg. Then he did the same with the right. She let out a painful cry. He immediately put her back in the chair and called Dr. Young.
“She did have a small fracture of that hip, but it has healed. I’ll call Dr. Jeffries, and we’ll get another X-ray and check it out,” Robert said when he arrived and checked Gini.
Debbie and Gini met Dr. Young in Dr. Jeffries’ office, and Dr. Young and Debbie went with Gini for the X-ray. Gini was frightened of people she didn’t know and could be quite stubborn if they asked her for something. They both assured her they were there in the room. She followed the technician’s instructions and lay on the table without moving for the four X-rays.
They all went back to Dr. Jeffries’ office. Gini sat in her wheelchair near Robert, and Debbie was on the other side of the room. Dr. Jeffries pulled up the new X-rays and compared them to the original ones taken after the accident.
He pointed to the fracture on the large screens in front of them. “I see the spread of her hips from the pregnancy.”
“No… uff… bee… bee,” Gini cried. She leaned forward like she was going to stand up, still crying. “No… uff… bee… bee.”
Robert quickly swooped her up into his
