{Karlton Bontrager}

It was not quite a year ago that I wrote updates to the website almost daily. Once I returned to the United States, however, I got caught up in the busy-ness of a new job and, later, having Karlton at home. There was so little time to write. But now the school year has ended, and Karlton is in Newport, RI attending the Shake-A-Leg camp. Once again I have time to breathe and to write. Perhaps as I recount anecdotes from the past year I can paint a picture of what it is like to live with someone who has a traumatic brain injury.

Shake-A-Leg began on Sunday, June 15th, 2003. Choy-Lang, Louis, and I helped Karlton unpack his bags, putting his possessions into the drawers and shelves in his dormitory room. The next day, he telephoned to ask if I knew where his sunglasses were. He was going sailing, and he needed his sunglasses. Unfortunately, I was not immediately available, and he ended up sailing without them. When we finally did talk, I suggested that he look in the top drawer of the chest of drawers. That was indeed where he found them.

This incident is frustratingly familiar. At home, I would put his mail or other items at his place at the kitchen table. He might sit there to eat a meal two or three times, never noticing the items until they were pointed out to him. Likewise, in the dorm he looked through all the drawers repeatedly. But he could not recognize his sunglasses until someone told him where to look for them.

Since November when he came to live with Louis and me, Karlton has gotten better at finding the things he is looking for. With time, he has established usual places for keeping things, and he knows to look in those places first. He also works (though inconsistently) to limit the clutter around him, especially on his bed and desk. So he now loses things less quickly and for shorter periods of time. But in the new environment of the Shake-A-Leg dorm, he returned to Square One again. That is, he had no sense of organization in this new room. Yet I am encouraged that he has called less frequently for help in finding things. He is apparently developing that sense of organization much more quickly this time than he did in November.