Leaving Your House Empty

Here's a nasty consequence of being on the road all the time. Airline pilot Scott McEvoy returned home to discover a squatter in his house. Worse than that, he was attacked, forced to drive around withdrawing money from ATMs until the card stopped working, and then beaten and left for dead. There are some very bad people in the world.

Scott lived, but brain injury has left him with poor mobility and vision, and he's been discharged from the hospital because his insurance company won't pay for full-time rehabilitation. Wow. A downside of having a job that requires high mental and physical standards is that it's very easy to lose it. It's a terrifying thing.

It used to be called brain damage, but now it's recast as brain injury and that makes a lot of sense. Compared it to another injured part. Sure it's scarier, because the brain controls not only mobility but mood and cognition. But like an injured leg, it can recover. It still may get tired faster, have to do some things in different ways, may have good days and bad days, and the person still wants and sometimes expects it to do what it could do before. And our brains have amazing flexibility, so that the tasks of injured portions can be taken over by other parts of the brain.

At least Scott has some insurance, a supportive fiancée, a very positive attitude, and has come back before from a medical setback. I wish him all strength and hope that everything works out positively. I imagine some of my readers have worked with this guy. Please pass on my best wishes, if you know him.

The place I call home usually has one or more people in it, even when I'm not here. I'll be extra careful now when I come home.