((This is a Chance blog post for the Labs, that was posted earlier inside A Chance To Live, but seemed appropriate to re-post onto the original blog that was its origin))

((SWAT Kats belongs to Hannah-Barbera and I do not own any of the trademarked characters nor am I profiting from this in any way, other than it's fun.))

(Dear readers: This is an old post, guys - I pulled it up out of the blog archives as it's Aphasia Week again, and dated it to post today. You'll be seeing some retro posts popping up from time to time. - Jake Clawson, CEO Clawson Labs)

Mornin, people. Ol' T-Bone here, typing at you, 'stead of Jake. Or not typing actually, I'm using vocal software the Labs perfected just for me. I'm one of those hunt and peck typers so it sure is convenient to have a buncha geniuses (dare I say it? Nerds?) on your side.

Those of you who've read this blog for a long time are probably aware that after Dark Kat nearly did the two of us in with a missile strike I got my head pounded. (The first time Dark Kat hit us with a missile that was, the second time was the one that took Jake out of the SWAT Kat game permanently, but I digress.)

I have to think back I guess, and the memories aren't pretty. Talk about a personal, individual hell. And I wasn't as bad off as I coulda been.

I don't remember anything from probably, 2-3 days before the missile strike, until I started to wake up. Being on the vent was a weird, painful, unhappy period. Every breath was agony. I broke up my ribs in the accident. Well they pulverized them doing CPR. I was just vaguely aware enough to feel the vent exploding my chest with each breath, and it sure made life hell.

Stupid thing to complain about huh, when I'm alive right? I probably would of been more appreciative had I known I was alive.

I could hear what was going on around me when I was in the coma, but I didn't understand what most of it was. It was a cruddy combination.

Also I'd never been hurt like that before. Waking up in the ICU is…. weird. Especially when it's your first experience. You got no clue where you are, or why, and you feel like crud. There's weird noises and voices you don't recognize and you're confused. And you can't move because you're drugged and tied down so you don't rip out important things.

The 'ping ping bong bing bings' that all the monitors make are both enough to drive you crazy, and at the same time kinda soothing. They become a weird lullaby after listening long enough.

Sometimes some meter is alarming and the nurses are swearing at it, and you're laying there thinking 'what the hell is wrong?!' but it's not like anybody explains it to you. And you can't see it. So finally the beep booping gets more normal and you're still breathing (like you have any choice on a vent) so you figure you're living. That's about all you know. You just hang out til the next crisis.

If you ever have family or friends in ICU, try to remember they often can hear you. I heard and remember a surprising amount from during my coma. It's amazing what people will talk about in front of you. I learned more about one nurse's personal life than I would ever, ever have wanted. Yech. I'm glad I wasn't her ex.

I kept listening for people I knew and I was missing one very specific voice. My buddy Jake. I remember wondering why among all the other noises and voices, why couldn't I hear his? I heard (Deputy Mayor, at the time) Briggs, and Felina, and Commander Feral. Feral was there a lot.

Would you believe the Commander read a Louis LaMew novel to me? Hanging She-Kat Creek. It wasn't half bad, when his droning didn't put me to sleep.

Anyway I welcomed actual sleep. It dulled the pain and I didn't have to think about the obvious: If Jake's not here, something is wrong. And nobody says nothing. The whole time I'm listening for Jake. Didn't hear his voice once, and I got more and more worried.

Eventually people started mentioning him, and I at least knew he was alive, you know, but 'burn unit?' That's all I knew. "Razor says hi from the burn unit! Razor's doing good today, he walked twenty paces!"

What? I was out of my mind with frustration. Why was he on the burn unit? For that matter, what's a burn unit and where was I? I didn't remember any accident and still don't to this day, decades later. It was like being buried in a tomb of pain. Wow that sounds melodramatic. Anyway, I didn't understand cause NOBODY TELLS YOU NOTHING.

It wasn't til I really started waking up that people started talking to me. Well Felina, and Callie and Feral, they all talked like I was listening, but the weather outside and what new ordnance Manx is promoting isn't really what I wanted to know about. (Or how great the newest Enforcer pilot graduates are and how they're going to put the SWAT Kats outta business, thanks for that Commander.) Others had been talking at me before, right but, something changed once I was looking at them. They tried holding conversations with me rather than just yammering nonsense. They even told me what had happened. It helped when I had the "blink twice for yes, and once for no" thing down.

That still made it hard for me to get what I needed across. Being restrained and intubated is a lesson in frustration and patience. Not being able to scratch my nose when it itched, and all that. And how do you explain that with blinks? Feral was better at communicating with me than any of the others.

I think we bonded a little. It was bizarre.

Finally getting extubated was great. I -stretched- and it hurt and felt great at the same time. Coughing sucked, but I was breathing on my own at least. Doc Bengal was listening to my lungs and then my oxygen level tanked with all the coughing, and they fuddled around with whether to stick me on BiPap or not for a while but after I got on high flow oxygen I perked up.

I gave 'em all a thumbs up, and Callie was clapping and Felina whistled. First thing I did when I got enough breath was to ask about Jake.

It took me a moment to realize that what I said and what they heard were two different things. In my head, I knew I had the right words. But everybody was looking at me confused. I ripped off the oxygen mask they'd stuck on in case I coulda blamed that, and tried again, but got gibberish. Again I couldn't… figure out how to spit the words I wanted out. Like I couldn't get my tongue around it.

I completely lost it. Felina had me by the shoulders and Callie had my hands and I was being swarmed by nurses all of whom were pretty panicked themselves, trying to figure out why I was flipping out. I pulled my hand away from Callie and managed to scribble my finger in my palm, like I was writing. Dr. Bengal, who was the only person in the room not losing their cool, calmly handed over a script pad and pen.

So, I wrote "I can't talk!' down, and tried to show it to Callie. Who just looked… confused and maybe a little scared at that point. Then I looked at what I'd written. There were like, three random letters. And the word 'talk'. But I didn't get the K right.

Welcome to waking up with aphasia, blog readers. Probably some of you readers have known a relative who's had a stroke, and who couldn't get words out after, or had trouble finding the right word to use. Or maybe they didn't understand you anymore. Those are all different forms of what I had. Aphasia is a real common outcome of traumatic brain injuries(TBI) and strokes. This is National Aphasia Awareness Week and so since I'm rather uniquely qualified to discuss it, I'm gonna talk a bit more about it.

Trust me when I tell you from experience, that moment when you learn nobody understands you is one of the hardest things anyone will ever face. Maybe one of the worst parts about it is aphasia doesn't affect your intelligence. Well, something else from the TBI might. But just because a person with aphasia can't speak doesn't mean they're stupid but most people don't realize that. Now, remember, I didn't know any of that. I thought my brain musta turned into jelly.

I had never felt that level of panic. Except maybe this one time; I was drowning and Jake saved me. Or the time Viper tossed Razor off the roof of Megakat Towers. I saw him falling but I was right below in the Turbokat, and caught him.

Yeah maybe this panic was a whisker less. Maybe. But my eyes were filling up with tears and I couldn't see. Right at that moment I wanted Jake at my side so incredibly bad. I wanted to hear the sureshot saying "Hey no sweat buddy, I'll help you."

((Jake just wandered into my classroom and looked at the screen over my shoulder, and went 'awwwwww'. Then he's trying to give me a noogie. That's not gonna happen. So I grabbed him and hung him upside down while hauling him towards the bathroom.))

((No I didn't actually give him a swirly. The best part was Security showed up to check out all the yowling but didn't help him, they just stood there and laughed.))

Well Jake was six days post-op, in the ICU room across from mine, after having his insides sewn back up. I didn't know it but he'd had some sorta medication reaction and was a lot sicker than he shoulda been. Felina was talking in my ear and trying to calm me down, and when I was just a little more focused Dr. Bengal explained gently as he could that I couldn't talk because I had aphasia. And that it was from my head injury. And that he would arrange testing to see "what other challenges you may be facing."

He was trying to be real honest and reassuring. Didn't work for me. My first thought was "What the crud is aphasia?! And what's he mean 'Other challenges?' It could be worse?"

Course I didn't know this but Bengal'd told Feral I had a real poor chance of surviving, and even if I did, I wasn't gonna wake up. (You know I never did find out how Feral felt about it. Hmm...)

So Doc was pleased as punch with my level of function being so high. It turned out I only (only! Hah) had what's called expressive aphasia. Basically I understood others speaking. And I could read. Speech and writing were beyond me. I also had some memory problems, things like that which come with TBI but aren't part of aphasia.

But understanding all of that was in the future. At that moment all I knew was I couldn't talk and my life was over.

I wanted to scream at them. Why did you keep me alive? I can't get into the air again if I can't speak! I could see -everything- I was slipping out of my hands. I saw myself getting old and grey and muted, sitting in a rocking chair, good for nothing. Never seeing Dark Kat go down. Crud, forget that, just not being a SWAT Kat at all. Never getting out of the debt we had to the Enforcers, just… everything being over.

Felina was patting my shoulder awkwardly and before I knew it I was clinging to her and I just… I'm not very proud of myself. More fun brain injury things. You get all emotionally weird and bawl a lot. Well Callie was standing there looking suspiciously misty too. Felina's always a rock and put up with me crying all over her. Feral looked plain uncomfortable and escaped.

Dr. Bengal was getting frustrated with all the hysteria, and kept saying "This is not the end of your world. You can understand us. With work, we'll be able to understand you. Please believe me when I tell you this is treatable." I kind of accepted that he was sincere. He insisted I was going to talk again. Everybody kept telling me it coulda been worse.

I didn't know how. I cried more instead of calming down. I had woke up reduced to a stammering, blubbering idiot.

But at least I got to see him. Jake I mean. I kept pointing and gesturing until Callie finally guessed right. They moved the whole bed with me in it over to his room. All I could do was hold his hand and then sob like some kinda wuss.

This is harder to write about than I expected. Amazing how memories go huh?

(Jake showed up again and was hanging over my shoulder to read. He brought me coffee though. Now he's gone back to whatever it is he's doing today. I heard something exploding earlier, but that noise is not all that unusual around here. As long as no alarms go off we ignore it.)

Anyway Jake's been on my case to blog regular but I guess I don't find time. I mean i am a little busy! Outside of work hours I've been partnering with Operation: Travel Buddies. They provide free transportation to kats and kittens with TBI, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and other neurological disorders and their families to and from hospitals and doctor's appointments. I've been logging hundreds of hours with volunteer transport services, mostly ground transport around the city. I really have enjoyed it and it takes very little effort to make a big difference in their day. Oh, and you should see the faces when they realize that T-Bone is their chauffeur.

With my students at Top Kat Flight Training I've co-piloted dozens of pilot trainees getting the Kats that Operation: Travel Buddies serves to specialists. I'm planning on going to work with Operation: Travel Buddies full time after I retire from Top Kat as head flight instructor.

Having struggled with TBI myself, supporting survivors and their families has become a huge priority for me in the past few years.

That's why I'm pleased to announce that my buddy Jake at Clawson Labs has created a grant extending 20 million dollars earmarked towards paying for therapy, medical bills, and medication and equipment for citizens of Megakat City who are struggling to pay for the costs related to their TBI or other related disorders. It's his hope and mine that the fund will ease the bills that insurance doesn't cover and also soften the blow for the uninsured. Applications can be made by writing Clawson Labs and requesting one, or go to their website at wkw. clawsonlabs, org.

I'm also pleased to announce that the remodel of the neuro wing at Megakat Memorial is slated to be completed by the end of the month, along with the new therapy suite and the new cognitive generator install.

I'm told these new models are nothing like the one I had to put up with. You don't feel a thing.

I am extremely pleased that Clawson Labs and Top Kat Flight Training have been able to serve our community in this fashion. Me n' Jake owe a lot to Megakat City's support of us over the years and it's only right we give back as much as we can.

As always you can send your questions, comments, and death threats to cfurlongtbone clawsonlabs. mkc .org or just link to the blog with your Furbook account.

P.S. Go visit your local long term care facility. Take some flowers and ask to spend time with some lonely old Kat who doesn't speak any more. Treat them like they're listening and understanding you, and maybe give them a hug. It'll make their day.

Chance Furlong, Founder Top Kat Flight Training

Through these mean skies a Kat must fly.

Chance Furlong, CEO Top Kat Flight Academy