Kathleen Watson
Imagine walking down a residential street and, all of a sudden, you’re hit by a motorbike. As you’re pulled along for some 50 feet, your whole body is banging against the hard surface of the road.
“That’s what happened to me in 1996,” Kathleen Watson said as she recounted the details of an accident that almost killed her. “I was visiting, actually returning, to Jamaica, my home country, because I had been asked to take the position of medical director of the leading rehabilitation hospital in the Caribbean. At the time, I had a successful practice in the New York City area as a physiatrist, the technical term for a rehabilitation physician, and chaired the medical committee of the International Hockey Federation.”
“As a result of the accident, I had fractures in my arms and legs. I had to undergo nine surgeries and recover from traumatic brain injuries which initially left me unable to think. I was lucky in my return to semi-normalcy in that I understood the rehabilitation process and I was determined to regain as much of my former life as I could. It’s the determination that you need above all other things,” she said.
A few years later, Kathleen decided to write a book about that journey which she titled ‘The Road Back.’ In it she says she’s writing to help people understand what it takes to recover from severe injuries. “But actually, I was also writing it for myself. I was very depressed and I hoped that talking about the experience, thinking it through, putting it into words would help cure my depression. And eventually it did.”
What does Kathleen do now?
First, she gives talks to groups about regaining physical and mental abilities after a serious accident. In those, she always stresses the role of the patient. “I learned from my injuries that recovery is not just about the physician and the medical facilities. It mostly depends on how much work you, the patient, are willing to undertake to give recovery a chance. That applies to the brain as well as the body because the brain is a specialized muscle.”
“And, believe it or not, I actually practice what I preach! I have a large garden in the back of my house where I grow vegetables and flowers, roses in particular. I used to do most of the gardening myself but increasingly I rely on a stalwart helper, a Mexican man who helps improve my Spanish as well as the garden.“
“In addition, I enrolled in a PhD program to learn to express myself again. I wrote my dissertation on the difference in the incidence of osteoporosis between the United States and Greece. (In Greece the incidence was lower because people are more exposed to sunshine.) Now, l exercise my brain by taking classes in French and Spanish. And I’m a member of Good Neighbors’ Shakespeare study program and the French conversation group. In addition, I have a little Airbnb on the top two floors of my house which keeps me busy, both mentally and physically … cleaning, climbing up and down the stairs and taking care of the business end of it.”
Before the accident in Jamaica, thinking her life in New York City had come to an end after she had been hired for the new job, Kathleen had tried to sell her house and her practice. But there were no takers. Did that happen for a reason, she asks herself, now that she’s firmly ensconced in her Brooklyn home?