(edited)To whom it may concern:

As a new resident of Vancouver who moved here in September of 2006, I have been pleasantly surprised by the professionalism and punctuality displayed by your bus drivers. Unfortunately, today I had an experience with one such driver which has left me humiliated and disturbed. Therefore, I would like to make a complaint about said event.

I am a student at Capilano College and I live near Skeena and East 22nd . I have a bus-pass and a FastTrax sticker.

This morning, May 8, 2007, at 11:18 AM, I boarded an Eastbound 25 Brentwood bus at Skeena and East 22nd Avenue. The bus number was 7237. I was on my way to the Emergency Room at Burnaby General Hospital, as I had recently suffered a head injury which had developed complications.

I realize that it is only a short distance from 22nd and Skeena to the hospital, but as I was frightened and in pain, I did not feel it was safe to walk. I also cannot currently see out of my right eye, which is one of the complications, so walking is not easy for me at this time.

I did not want to miss my stop, so upon boarding the bus, I asked the driver to let me know when it got to the hospital. As I was saying that, I pulled out my bus pass. The driver said to me, referring to the zone change at Boundary Road, “it will cost you an extra 1$” . I apologized, and said I had a FastTrax sticker and went to retrieve it from my wallet. The bus driver replied to me snidely by saying ” why are you telling me that when you could have showed me your pass?” I apologized again and told him that I have a head injury, (which is quite evident to anybody who looks at my face; I have 15 stitches in my forehead.) I told him that I wasn’t really sure what was going on because I was upset and needed to go to the hospital. The bus driver’s response was “I don’t give a shit what the hell is wrong with you” and then said something about me being another crazy person on the bus.

I do not recall what he said verbatim about my “craziness”, but he also said that I had probably been “crazy” before the injury as well. I found this inference to me being a drug addict or mentally disabled quite derogatory; I have relatives and friends who have suffered and overcome drug addiction and mental illnesses, and they are exponentially more personable and courteous than this bus driver.

I did not appreciate being verbally abused in front of the other passengers. I was humiliated and terribly upset. I did not do anything to provoke this driver, nor did I use any profane language. It was absolutely out of line, and his attitude was such that I was terrified that he would not allow me to ride the bus on account of him being an inconsiderate individual. When I was discharged from the hospital, I chose to walk home to avoid the risk of having the same bus driver. As I mentioned, I cannot see out of my right eye, so the walk home was unpleasant at best. I could not afford a cab home because, as I said, I am a student (with an un-crazy Grade Point Average of 4.0). This is why I have a bus pass and a FastTrax sticker which allows me to travel for the price of one zone in the first place.

I asked the bus driver for his name; he told me it was Steve and then asked me what mine was. I said my name didn’t matter and that I did not appreciate his attitude. I then told him I would write Translink about him. He yelled at me that “wow, your head injury sure improved quickly if you’re able to write.” Then he continued to yell and swear about me being crazy as I took my seat. While Steve is entitled to his opinion, he is not a doctor, and my head injury, as advised to me by the doctor at Burnaby General, does not appear to have left any neurological damage. So I am not “crazy” and was not at the time. Just injured. This is why I am perfectly capable of writing this complaint four hours after my encounter with your driver, Steve.

I do not have any further details at this time to add to this letter, however I would greatly appreciate a response from somebody at Translink. I do not imagine that this is the first time you have received a complaint about “Steve”, and so I would hope that he be disciplined properly.

Thank you for your time,

Leora

If you can remember any of note that I have omitted, feel free to add.

My second concussion that I ever had, (this, of course, being my fifth) occurred when I was six or seven years old. I was playing at my friend Kristy’s, swinging from the rope attached to her tree house.  I stood on the platform of the treehouse, and did a massive swing across the yard.  You should not swing from the platform of the tree house; you should swing from the fence.  Why? Because if you swing from the platform of the tree house, you will crack your head off of the eavestrough of the garage.

A year or so earlier, I was at my crazy Nana’s house in Belleville.  Nana, Wally and Vi were having a BBQ.  I am afraid of fire.  There was a lot of smoke.  I started screaming and running around and did not notice Wally coming out of the house, so the metal door slammed into my head.  Nana yelled at me.

When I was ten years old, I dislocated my kneecap in an unfortunate bicycle/ice cream sandwich fiasco.  I had purchased an Oreo ice cream sandwich from a convenience store and was riding back to my friend erin’s house to eat it.  This was a big-kid bike, so it had handle breaks.  I may have mentioned something about having purchased an Oreo ice cream sandwich.  Yes.  So, I had that in one hand which somewhat impeded me from being able to use the handle breaks without making a giant mess of the ice cream sandwich.  I was unable to break, and crashed head first into a parked blue Pontiac.

When I was eleven years old, I fractured my arm horribly.  I was playing box-head tag with my brothers. It is a cross between hide-and-seek and tag.  The person who is “it” wears a box on their head to block their ability to see.  Because of this, you can be a little crafty in where you hide.  I hid on top of the dryer on the laundry room.  Casey was “it”, and he came into the laundry room with outstretched arms feeling around for a sign of hidden human life.  I kneeled atop the dryer making sure not to move or make a sound.  Casey knocked me off.  I broke my fall with my left wrist and ended up with metal rods up my radius and ulna.  My arm is actually slightly deformed now.

Oh yes.  I tore a few ligaments in my left hand when I was skiing on the bunny hill of Horseshoe Valley.  Not only was this a bunny hill, but an Ontario bunny hill.  Picture what kind of slope that is. Picture it.

Okay.  That’s enough for now.  Obviously it takes more than 5 concussions to ruin my ability to remember.  I’m impressed with myself.

Just my luck that I was wearing the “my other house is a methlab t-shirt” when I got take to the hospital. JUST MY LUCK. Meanwhile, Aaron was wearing a nice black dress shirt and pants. We must have looked like the “odd couple”. White trash girl bleeding profusely from the head accompanied by some classier looking gentleman.

I have realized that not being able to see out of one eye makes things very difficult. It fucks up your depth perception. Crossing the street is scary. Lighting cigarettes is difficult. Mixing up salad is also difficult. Playing board games and recognizing what is on the dice is difficult. That was my fifth concussion I’ve had in my life that I know of. It is amazing I don’t appear to have any brain damage related to the concussions I’ve had….

NOT A GOOD SHIRT TO BE WEARING AT A HOSPITAL IN A CITY WITH A VERY HIGH NUMBER OF DRUG ADDICTS.

I clopsed myself last night, it seems.
I was playfighting with my roommate, apparently.  I do not remember as I am mad concussed.  What I have been told is that I was dropped by accident.  I hit my head off the side of a milk crate that Carson uses when he busks.  Everyone took good care of me.  I have 20 stitches in my head.  It hurts a lot.

Distracticon played last night and it was one of their best shows ever.  Afterwards we had an impromptu party at the house.   Aaron came with me in the ambulance to the hospital which was very nice of him, cause he had to deal with like 4 hours of me sobbing like an idiot.  Remember I said I wasn’t sure what it would take to bring me to tears? Well, now I know that it’s a head injury requiring 20 stitches that brings me to tears.

I was upset cause I need a job and you can’t go to job interviews looking like this.  One of my eyes opens, the other does not.  20 stitches; my hair covers it up though, at least.  I was crying about how no boy would ever like someone with a scar on their face… which was kind of wack cause at the hospital I was pretending that Aaron was my boyfriend.  I thought that pretending Aaron was my boyfriend would mean he could sit with me in the hospital.  Nope.

My momsy explained when a man and woman come into a hospital and the woman is injured, the hospital suspects that it is domestic abuse.  They asked me several times what happened, I guess to see if I was lying.  They thought I had been beat up by Aaron?  No way.  THe staff was kind of rude to me and it made me upset, but I have good stitches.

This is highly un-eloquent.  Sorry, I have a concussions.

I walked home in the rain and didn’t even bother to wipe the wet hair out of my face.
I didn’t mind. They doped me up.

She took me to a white-washed room.
I had never seen this particular white-washed room, but I had been in it dozens of times before.
The same 12×9 white walls and white floors, with white chairs and white lab-coats.
This was only an hour after a woman in triage barked at me “well, what’s wrong with YOU?”
I said to the triage woman that my brain is on the verge of exploding, but in layman’s term so as not to be interpreted as a full out lunatic.

I had sat in that room before, and I had sat across from that same person before. On some occasions she had looked like a man, others a woman. Sometimes she was white, sometimes he was Chinese. There were others. The room had stayed the same and I stayed the same all these years and all these visits.

She said to me that she was the psych nurse and that “it appears as though you have an anxiety disorder.” I had heard this every time I sat in this room. She asked me to do what I do every time I sit in that room. I listed off my resumé. My traumatic, fucked up resumé. Once again, she checked everything off on her list except for “suicidal”, “hears voices” and “hallucinates”.

She told me there are things in life we can’t control. She told me it must have been upsetting when my dad died. She told me that moving to a new city and going to a new school are probably contributing to my anxiety. She told me everything that I already know. She was a nice lady with purple eyeshadow.

When I left the white room, I had six white pills for the road. Whenever I leave that room they give me pills for the road.

And a pamphlet to call to speak to more people who will ask me the same questions and tell me the same things I already know, and may or may not dope me up further.