Wipe out! A few seconds after the above image was captured, the surfer disappeared in a cloud of angry foam. Shortly after I completed work on the image, one of my piles of tottering paper let go. There was a minor earthquake as it collapsed and a landslide of papers spilled out across the base of the stairs. I have been trying to clean up and organize. Hence the greater mess.

On Tuesday, I transmitted the Summary document to TAQ. I have no idea how it will be received. My future depends on it. I have read it several times since submission. There are readings after which I am sure I have failed. I am doomed. I have torpedoed my own case, lost the thread, failed to understand the finer points of law, failed entirely in comprehending the distinctions between the civil code of Quebec and the common law operating in the rest of Canada. I just blew it. My case disappears in a cloud of foam. I am swept downriver, never to be seen again.

And then there are those readings which give me a slight sense that all of the years of effort may have paid off, that my exertions, my struggle with difficult medical texts, my fight with language, with paper, with time, with fatigue and headache and pain, that all of these efforts have somehow come to fruition in a document that may actually achieve something. Not entirely sure what it will achieve. Something better than a wipe out.

Just realized that my entire focus on obtaining a positive outcome, and having the insurer honour the claim, derives from what happened way back in 2012. Dr H sought to refer me for rehabilitative therapy. She made a referral to a well regarded Ontario institution but this referral was rejected as I was not resident in Ontario. Not unreasonably, they gave first priority to the needs of their own citizens. And they are overcrowded and wait-listed. Dr H also made referral to an acquired brain injury clinic in Montreal but this was rejected as I do not live in Montreal. Another referral was made to a local facility. This was refused because I lacked a valid insurance claim.

In 2012, my mind operated in a sort of binary fashion. I came to believe that my only hope for recovery rested with having an accepted insurance claim. The only way of getting back to “me” depended on getting access to rehabilitation. And gaining access to rehabilitation required a valid, fully endorsed, insurance claim.

I was suicidal at this time. It was necessary to wait a year from May of 2012 to obtain the MRI testing the insurer had demanded of my lawyer. The insurer knew that I was wait-listed for testing. In October 2012, seven months before I obtained the required test, the insurer sent me a letter rejecting my claim.

I went for long walks in an attempt to re-balance myself, pull myself back from the brink of despair. As I returned from one of these walks, I watched a red car take the same route my car had travelled on the night of the accident. As I watched, I realized the traffic lights performed a gating function. This gating function enforced a separation between my car and all following traffic. Recognizing this fact was my entry point into a the creation of a detailed reconstruction of the accident. It was the first step in the long fight that constitutes my long walk back from despair and wipe out.