Sooner than the coincidence, Dad would infrequently emerge from an extended sojourn on the bathroom — that almost all prosaic of places — with a remote glance in his eyes.
“Are you fascinated with me?” my mom would tease.
“No, I am fascinated with science,” Dad would answer, the chance to pay his spouse of just about 40 years a praise totally escaping him.
My father, Tom Lyons, used to be a meteorologist and emeritus professor who helped determine Murdoch College’s environmental science stage program and later its marine science stage program ahead of retiring in 2014. Despite the fact that I’d question whether or not scientists ever in reality retire.
Even all through the summer season vacation, together with the times after Christmas after we indulged in our annually ritual of staring at the Australian males’s cricket workforce play within the conventional Boxing Day Take a look at fit, he would periodically head towards the learn about to move and test on his type.
“You might be fortunate we all know that is a mathematical type you are speaking about, Dad,” I’d say.
In his mid-sixties, he used to be additionally annoyingly are compatible.
He cycled across the Canning River close to his house in Perth, Australia, each morning, and 4 years previous we might walked the final 70 miles of certainly one of Spain’s well-known Camino de Santiago pilgrims’ routes collectively.
I elected to stroll the Camino with Dad as a result of I figured if I began complaining alongside the best way about whose nice thought it have been (mine), as my father he’d be morally obligated to not go away me in the back of.
It used to be additionally treasured time to spend collectively now that I lived in a special town, in spite of our restricted Spanish (“Dos Cola Cao, por choose”) and differing perspectives on siestas and sangria (I used to be professional each, Dad used to be hostile).
At the second-to-last day of our stroll, I used to be trudging in conjunction with two painful blisters as he skipped forward of me, pointing out, “I may just do some other week of this!”
I think pissed off when Mum’s title flashes on my telephone at breakfast. Does not she understand how dear it’s to name across the world?
It is the second one morning of a long-anticipated vacation in China I am taking with a cousin and two different pals in September 2015. My cousin misses a decision from her father, too, and we understand one thing has came about.
He texts: Whilst on his morning motorcycle trip, Dad used to be the sufferer of a hit-and-run and has been taken to the medical institution.
Within the foyer of my Beijing resort, I fall aside and adhere to my cousin. “I am not in a position to lose my father but.”
Worse nonetheless, I will be able to’t get a flight house till the next morning, which is how I to find myself incongruously visiting the Nice Wall of China at the afternoon of Dad’s coincidence, whilst getting updates over the telephone from my more youthful sister.
Two days later I am status through Dad’s mattress within the ICU, complaining to my sedated father that he hadn’t warned me the Nice Wall used to be so steep and that my calves are nonetheless killing me.
I to find out later, all through the court docket case for the motive force who hit Dad, that he used to be struck head-on through a pickup truck that swerved onto the mistaken facet of the street.
The pressure of the collision ripped off the motive force’s facet replicate and left Dad in a pool of blood through the facet of the street having a seizure, his motorcycle a tangled mess.
At Royal Perth Health facility, a talented workforce of maxillofacial surgeons save the sight in his proper eye, however because of the crash he has suffered a vital nerve-racking mind damage, or TBI.
Learn extra: Demanding Mind Harm: Indicators, Signs and When to Get Assist
Silent epidemic
A TBI is “an damage that comes to some roughly blunt trauma to the pinnacle,” says Jennie Ponsford, a professor of neuropsychology at Monash College and director of the Monash Epworth Rehabilitation Analysis Centre, each in Melbourne.
It may possibly end result from a nasty fall, an attack or a automotive coincidence. A concussion is regarded as a gentle nerve-racking mind damage. This distinguishes it from the wider class of received mind accidents, which may also be brought about through vascular occasions like a stroke.
Analysis estimates that between 64 million and 74 million other people globally endure a TBI each and every 12 months. In line with the Facilities for Illness Keep an eye on and Prevention, 1 / 4 of all TBIs in the United States are brought about through motor automobile injuries.
With TBIs representing “the best contributor to dying and incapacity globally amongst all trauma-related accidents,” in step with one learn about, many researchers have dubbed them a silent epidemic.
Lyndsey Collins-Praino says delicate mind accidents can prompt a “form of hurricane of occasions” within the mind.
We used to think about a TBI as a unmarried match, says Lyndsey Collins-Praino, an affiliate professor in translational neuroscience on the College of Adelaide.
“You had the damage, after which that used to be it,” she says. “What we now know is that in reality it is a lot more of a prolonged illness procedure.”
There may be the principle damage, brought about through the exterior pressure carried out to the mind. It will bruise mind tissue, rupture blood vessels, injury neurons (or nerve cells) and shear axons, the lengthy fibers that attach the neurons. This number one damage then kicks off a complete host of secondary cell cascades, says Collins-Praino.
“Even the ones delicate accidents [like concussion] can prompt this kind of hurricane of occasions that is taking place on the cell stage within the mind, which may end up in in point of fact unfavorable long-term results for other people,” she says.
The issue is, it is very exhausting to understand on the outset whether or not a affected person with a TBI will totally get well or have long-term impairments.
Within the ICU, the docs are reluctant to let us know what Dad may well be like when he wakes up from sedation.
We dub certainly one of them “Unhealthy Information Tim” as a result of every time he comes towards us it is to let us know one thing we do not wish to listen. One of the most nurses, Martin, performs gospel track to take a look at to wake Dad up.
Tomorrow I to find out he is began to open his eyes for folks however he refuses to take action for me. So I am getting cunning.
“Da, if you do not open your eyes for me, Ashley [his nurse] and I can talk about final evening’s episode of The Bachelorette in excruciating element.”
I am rewarded with a baleful glare via slitted lids. His hatred of truth TV stays intact.
After per week in extensive care, Dad is shipped to the neuro ward. For weeks, he cannot discuss on account of the tracheostomy to insert a tube to stay his airway open.
On a small whiteboard we are the usage of to keep up a correspondence with him, he laboriously issues on the person letters to spell out the phrases “I wish to cross house.” I flip my head away to cover my tears.
I do not like how one of the most body of workers infantilize him, talking to him like they are talking to a tender kid reasonably than an esteemed scientist as a result of he cannot keep up a correspondence simply.
As a substitute I stay cracking jokes with him like we used to, about foolish such things as the prevalence of the state of Western Australia (the place we’re) to the state of Victoria (the place Dad used to be born) or how our respective groups are doing in cricket.
Once I land a in particular well-timed gibe, I am getting a sarcastic finger level of his left index finger. It is so early in his restoration we nonetheless do not understand how a lot the damage has impacted his cognition, however his finger jab no less than tells us some portions of his character stay intact.
Local weather scientist Tom Lyons (heart), a 12 months previous to the coincidence.
One of the most greatest issues other people do not perceive about TBIs, the professionals inform me, is how lengthy it will probably take for any individual to get well. “It isn’t only a topic of getting the damage after which shaking it off,” Collins-Praino says.
Explains Dr. Kathleen McCarthy, a rehabilitation drugs doctor in personal observe in Sydney, “It is a lengthy, grueling rehab for the more serious other people.” Like the opposite clinical professionals I interviewed, she wasn’t serious about Dad’s care.
McCarthy has adopted maximum sufferers with critical mind accidents for approximately 3 to 5 years, however she’s additionally sorted sufferers for 20.
The upside is that every one mind accidents support, she says, noting that whilst the stage of development is tricky to are expecting, each mind will proceed to recuperate through the years.
A few months after Dad’s coincidence, a pal assumes he will have to be house from the medical institution through now. He is not.
After six weeks at Royal Perth Health facility, he is transferred to the State Rehabilitation Provider, the place he spends the following 3 and a part months in rehab.
He works with a variety of clinical consultants, together with physiotherapists and occupational therapists, to support his mobility and different clinical problems to the purpose the place he is effectively sufficient to proceed his rehabilitation at house.
For Christmas 2015, 3 months after the coincidence, we are fortunate we are allowed to convey him house for the day.
Other folks react in a different way to Dad’s damage. I am harm through a former housemate who is met Dad on more than one events, however who can not use the phrase “father” with me in dialog. However I am so thankful for the good friend who tells me to name every time I wish to have a excellent cry.
McCarthy is not stunned some other people to find chatting with me about Dad too confronting.
“The general public really feel insufficient,” she says. “They are downside solvers, and it isn’t an issue to resolve.”
We are experiencing one of those “ambiguous loss” with Dad’s mind damage. He is nonetheless bodily with us, however psychologically he is altered and now and then absent. There are not any obviously outlined rituals to lead other people on how to answer that.
His different bodily accidents will heal or succeed in some degree of stasis, however his TBI is extra elusive. On occasion he responds to one thing the best way he used to do, different instances we are forcefully reminded we are coping with any individual who has mind injury.
There also are lighter moments staring at a scientist undergo rehab, in particular given my very own background as a science creator.
If you happen to had requested me to believe my father’s mind ahead of the coincidence, it would not be as a mass of jelly-like tissue curled serpentine within his cranium, however as a 3-dimensional internet of sunshine, repeatedly converting as electric indicators dart round his thoughts.
This used to be a person who used to fly in motorized gliders more or less 30 to 60 toes above the tree cover to gather meteorological information for his analysis taking a look at why there used to be 20% much less rainfall at the agricultural facet in comparison to the local crops facet of Western Australia’s Rabbit Evidence Fence. He’d tease his American collaborators about the specter of drop bears and hoop snakes within the far flung West Australian the city of Lake King.
Dad’s occupational therapist is stunned when he makes use of common sense to reassemble wood blocks into the form of a triangle.
“I have by no means noticed someone do it that method ahead of,” Catherine says.
The scientist and his scientifically minded daughter have a look at her uncomprehendingly. Is not it glaring other people would attempt to resolve the puzzle that method?
Invisible accidents
TBIs are frequently known as invisible accidents as a result of best about 20% of essentially the most critical accidents purpose bodily deficits, McCarthy says.
“For numerous other people, in the event you have a look at them, they appear standard. … It is invisible to other people on first influence.”
The most typical penalties of TBIs are cognitive and behavioral adjustments, Ponsford says. Fatigue, reminiscence issues and irritability have all been related to mind accidents.
Numerous other people with TBIs interviewed through Ponsford say having a hidden incapacity could be a barrier when interacting with others.
One of the most issues of mind accidents, McCarthy says, is that if you are down a minute quantity in the case of your cognition, you realize it without delay. While you won’t understand a far better downside along with your mobility.
In line with the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2018 Survey of Incapacity, Getting old and Careers, 1,459,200 Australians reported having a head damage, stroke or different received mind damage. Of the ones, 323,200 other people have a incapacity, that means their received mind damage restricts their on a regular basis actions.
Statistics from the United States CDC recommend that 2.5 million American citizens talk over with an emergency division due wholly or in part to a TBI once a year, and between 3.2 million and 5.3 million other people are living with a TBI-related incapacity.
After nearly 5 months in rehab, Dad in the end comes house.
Sadly, he is a part of the 20% of TBI victims with bodily issues, together with wanting to relearn stroll. For any individual used to being so energetic, it is a crucial preliminary step in his restoration.
Dad main the best way at the Camino de Santiago.
This fixation on strolling is one thing McCarthy has noticed time and again.
“Other folks nearly completely exclude some other considering, except for for strolling,” she says. “They wish to stroll, they’ve to stroll, it will have to be so built in.”
In the beginning, Dad seems to be bettering, strolling moderately however optimistically the quick distance between a chair within the circle of relatives room and a chair within the eating room. A few weeks later, issues get started going mistaken once more.
He will get ill, he isn’t as cell, his left leg is swollen and he turns into delirious. Mum has to name an ambulance to take him to medical institution with a urinary tract an infection and a most probably deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or blood clot.
From my house in a small West Australian regional the city I as soon as once more drop the whole thing and go back and forth to Perth to look him. I am too disenchanted to power the 5 hours house, so a pal drops me off on the small airport out of doors the city as an alternative.
Dad is decreased.
He is somewhat previous guy sitting in a large medical institution mattress, stooped and frail, now not the person I all the time seemed as much as and mentioned I’d develop taller than through genetics or stilettos.
His keep at his 3rd medical institution in six months additionally impacts Dad’s temper.
Sooner than the coincidence, he used to be any individual with an unfailingly certain perspective, who loved being energetic and exploring the sector round him. Now he is extra closed in on himself, inclined and scared.
Sooner or later, he tells me he does not wish to be a human anymore.
I attempt to make mild of his remark.
“Smartly, I feel you will have left it too overdue to turn out to be a canine,” I say.
He blinks at me, stunned.
“As soon as any individual begins to get perception or self-awareness, then frequently they turn out to be reasonably depressed, as a result of that is after they begin to understand that they are other,” McCarthy says.
“They are now not the similar as they was.”
An orchestra out of time
Whilst no two TBIs are alike, they lead to a few commonplace issues.
Fatigue is regularly noticed around the spectrum of damage severity, Monash neuropsychologist Ponsford says, and that’s the reason because of many elements.
“Other folks have diffuse axonal accidents of their brains, diffuse neuronal damage, because of this they have got form of were given much less horsepower, they have got were given fewer neuronal connections,” she says.
Other folks with TBIs additionally usually have sleep issues, together with sleep apnea, contributing to their fatigue. Dad does not get the similar get pleasure from a excellent evening’s sleep as he did ahead of the coincidence, and when he is drained he begins to slur his speech.
Cognitively, there is also adjustments in reminiscence, the facility to pay attention and the rate at which sufferers can assume or procedure knowledge.
As soon as an avid reader of each clinical literature and ancient epics, Dad now struggles to learn as his problem concentrating not makes it pleasant.
Then there are the so-called govt purposes, Ponsford says, which incorporate the facility to plot and prepare, to set targets and observe via on them, to observe your habits and concept processes. Those purposes are ruled through the frontal lobes of the mind — Dad’s proper frontal lobe bore the brunt of his damage.
He turns into hopeless at replying to even a easy textual content message as he forgets to take action.
McCarthy describes the frontal lobes because the putting-it-all-together a part of the mind.
“It is just like the conductor of an orchestra,” she explains.
Government purposes then morph into regulate over habits. Some other people with TBIs might get extra simply pissed off, irritable or competitive. Numerous other people turn out to be disinhibited: tending to speak an excessive amount of, regularly swearing or now not tracking what is popping out in their mouths really well however announcing no matter’s of their head.
“If you are [working] in mind damage, you simply in point of fact forget about the swearing,” McCarthy says. Fortunately for my mom, who loathes swearing, that hasn’t came about in my father’s case.
The frontal lobe (highlighted) is regarded as the “putting-it-all-together” a part of the mind, in step with McCarthy.
“There may be frequently an inflexibility of considering, problem considering in summary phrases, generalizing from a unmarried example and working out folks’s perspective, studying folks’s feelings,” Ponsford says.
I understand this when I am talking to Dad over the telephone. He’ll giggle when I am referring to a comic story to him, after which reply in precisely the similar method when I am telling him about one thing severe.
Dad is elated after we’re in a position to convey him house from the medical institution once more, smiling like a extremely joyful kid who cannot reasonably consider his success.
Because the months cross I understand two important adjustments in my father.
He used to be all the time fast with a witty observation or playful banter, together with his a lot proclaimed promise to are living lengthy sufficient to be an issue to his youngsters. Now he infrequently is in a position to make jokes anymore.
Humor is connected having the ability to assume in summary phrases, Ponsford tells me, and Dad’s talent to attract an inference has been affected.
However infrequently he surprises me. One such time I am kneeling in entrance of him, serving to him placed on his shoe.
“Ouch!” he says.
“What is came about?” I say, immediately involved and protecting the best way you might be with any individual you presently understand as fragile.
I glance as much as see a cheeky grin: “Gotcha.”
“You bastard!” I answer.
Because of his damage, it seems like Dad has grew to become inward. Whilst by no means an effusive particular person, he can not now categorical affection, both via phrases of endearment or the little issues he used to do to handle us, like bringing me a freshly brewed cup of tea each morning when I used to be visiting house.
“Bye, Dad. Love you,” I say on the finish of a telephone dialog.
“Bye, bye.”
Ponsford says it does not essentially imply he isn’t feeling feelings, it is extra that there is a sure passivity with expressing them.
Some other people with TBIs, she says, cross in the wrong way, excessively expressing feelings out of all percentage to what they are in reality feeling, like guffawing or crying for no obvious reason why.
I leave out listening to Dad announcing a reassuring “God bless” on the finish of a telephone name.
Circle of relatives affects
Dad’s damage profoundly affects us as a circle of relatives, however all of us cope in numerous techniques.
It is toughest on Mum, whose decades-long courting with Dad has been irrevocably altered.
Despite the fact that she will get day-to-day lend a hand from incapacity enhance staff, she’s been thrust into the position of Dad’s number one caregiver at a time when, with Dad now retired, they have been taking a look at having the ability to take issues just a little more uncomplicated.
Dad used to be indulging his love of cooking and had taken over making dinner each evening, and so they have been making plans on in the end going for a vacation touring Victoria’s Nice Ocean Street, a travel Dad have been promising to take Mum on for many in their marriage.
She’s additionally in some ways misplaced her spouse and teammate of the final 40 years. The one who took care of her, infrequently gently pushing her to take a look at issues out of doors her convenience zone. The individual she took care of, encouraging him to be just a little extra extroverted, is now endlessly modified.
Dad and Mum at my thirtieth party, two and a part years ahead of the coincidence.
I’ve to remind Dad of birthdays, anniversaries and different events of notice, then cajole him to write down extra within the card than “Thanks for taking good care of me.”
My sister prefers to think about Dad as long past, with this new guy having taken his position.
I search for ways in which Dad and I will be able to nonetheless do issues collectively that we have all the time loved, like going to cricket suits or staring at a science fiction movie or tv display collectively, like Physician Who.
I take a look at to answer his clinical tribulations with humor. I’m upbeat at the telephone when he will get some other DVT.
“Smartly, no less than they did not wish to bring to an end your leg,” I say.
“You all the time see the certain facet of items,” he says, part grumbling at me.
In some other telephone name with my sister I burst into tears.
I inform a counselor who focuses on serving to other people impacted through highway injuries that I all the time imagined that if one thing this horrible have been to occur to my circle of relatives I’d behave like a residing saint, selfless and calm below drive.
“And the way’s that going for you?” she asks, brazenly guffawing at me.
“Now not effectively,” I answer tersely.
On occasion I to find myself strolling round my space, crying unpleasant, offended tears that one thing this merciless may just occur to my superb and type father, a person who would bring to mind not anything of flying around the nation to lend a hand me transfer towns another time, or as soon as drove me some 250 miles and cheerfully stuck the bus again to Perth the following day as a result of he may just see I used to be too drained to power house alone.
TBIs could have a devastating affect on members of the family, Ponsford says.
“If you are in an in depth courting with an individual as a partner or spouse, that particular person is also only a other particular person, and they are now not delicate in your feelings in the similar method that they have been.”
Households as a complete can turn out to be socially remoted, Ponsford says, as a result of they are managing their cherished one’s damage and folks do not perceive the more than one stresses concerned.
A technique households can turn out to be extra resilient is through turning into somewhat bit extra unbiased, in step with McCarthy, the rehabilitation drugs doctor from Sydney.
“I am getting dictatorial to other people and say you must take care of your self. It is no excellent in the event you run your self into the bottom, it isn’t going to lend a hand [your loved one],” she says.
The mind has some capability for reorganization and regeneration, Ponsford says, even though the capability for neurons to regrow is proscribed.
“It is concept that the so-called restoration that folks enjoy is almost certainly extra a reorganization inside the mind, and reasonably numerous intact spaces taking up impaired purposes,” she says. “Additionally other people discover ways to do issues in new techniques, they adapt.”
Alternatively, there are some elements that affect how effectively you get well from a TBI.
The older you might be while you maintain the damage does lead to larger preliminary penalties to your cognition and serve as, even though Ponsford’s analysis does not imply it reasons larger decline through the years.
The upper your IQ ahead of your damage, the simpler.
A neuropsychologist tells Dad he now has extra of a median mind since his coincidence. However Dad will get disenchanted that he cannot do sudoku puzzles as temporarily as he used to.
A pal laughs once I inform her this: “Suzannah, I will be able to’t do sudoku puzzles, and I do not need a mind damage.”
It is like all mind serve as, McCarthy says. The extra he does it, the simpler he’s going to get.
What remedies are to be had to you, in addition to the surroundings round you, too can affect how effectively you do. As an example, having a wheelchair so you are cell if you’ll be able to’t stroll, solid lodging and having the ability to purchase respectable meals all assist you to to do higher.
Ponsford says it will be important other people get get right of entry to to each mental and bodily lend a hand, as any individual’s coping taste has a larger affect on their long-term restoration than anything.
“Getting access to the precise forms of enhance on the proper time is essential,” she says.
Dad takes up hippotherapy, one of those assisted horse-riding treatment, to lend a hand support his strolling, however isn’t amused once I inform him he jogs my memory of the vintage Previous Spice advert.
Pleasure amid the trauma
A TBI infrequently seems like an damage that assists in keeping on giving — within the worst conceivable method. Simply while you assume you will have reached top shit, some other layer finds itself to you.
That second comes for us just about two years after Dad’s coincidence.
He is recognized with an extraordinary neurodegenerative situation, hypertrophic olivary degeneration, concept to were caused by his TBI.
It impacts his strolling and stability, and is the reason why he is nonetheless so wobbly on his toes. It additionally affects his comfortable palate, inflicting him to infrequently choke when he beverages one thing too temporarily.
Once we seek the advice of a moment neurologist, he tells us Dad’s stability is shot and there is not anything he can do about it.
“Around the board for neurodegenerative prerequisites, we all know that trauma could be a contributing issue,” Collins-Praino says.
Largely, that is most probably because of the neuroinflammation that will get prompt through the principle damage, she says.
Her analysis is taking a look at higher are expecting whether or not any individual with a TBI will get well, is prone to long-lasting impairments or will cross directly to increase a neurodegenerative situation.
“We wish to know who is maximum in danger … in order that we will be able to intrude and get other people the enhance and systems that may lend a hand them to forestall the ones results,” Collins-Praino says.
Dad and me on the cricket fit with my brother-in-law.
We’ve got stopped hoping the following specialist would be the one who proposes the miracle treatment, or is helping Dad stroll correctly once more. As each and every clinical process brings new indignities, I ponder how a lot more he can take.
There are nonetheless moments of pleasure, then again.
Within the leadup to my sister’s marriage ceremony 3 and part years after the coincidence, Dad drafts his father-of-the-bride speech.
I’ve to almost totally rewrite it, after getting rid of all of the portions Dad concept could be humorous however may just finally end up insulting part the target audience.
He is going off script a few instances, however now not so rogue that I’ve to remove the mic, and I am happy he feels relaxed sufficient to advert lib.
The speech is a large luck. Other folks arise in a while to inform him he made them cry. Particularly the road the place he thanked his new son-in-law for being there for his daughter at a time of significant misery for our circle of relatives.
Many of us with very critical mind accidents cross on to steer necessarily standard lives, Ponsford says. She’s interviewed other people with TBIs as much as 30 years after their damage.
Her analysis displays that whilst to begin with other people really feel very unfavorable and feature many unfavorable reviews because of their TBI, through the years they frequently succeed in a degree of acceptance.
“Nearly they all have been in a position to search out one thing certain within the enjoy, which used to be marked,” she says. “I feel it takes greater than a decade to achieve that time.”
We do not succeed in that fabled decade with Dad.
5 and a part years after the coincidence, in April 2021, my father dies abruptly at age 72 all through one of the crucial widespread medical institution visits that have been starting to really feel nearly regimen.
In spite of the massive presence he’s in my existence, and in our circle of relatives, the time has come for us to let him cross.
Now residing at the different facet of the rustic, I watch over FaceTime as his wasted frame takes its final, worked, damn breaths.
Studying to are living with my father’s mind damage used to be about each him and us accepting the individual he had turn out to be, reasonably than evaluating him with how he used to be ahead of.
“Learning the brand new particular person and figuring out what the individual can do … and what they’ve to offer, and their delight in existence, is in point of fact what rehabilitation’s all about,” Ponsford says.
There have been days when the whole thing went mistaken: Dad would have some other dangerous choking episode or a fall. There have been days he informed me he did not wish to be a human anymore.
Identical to there have been days I took him to a cricket fit and acquired him a lager and sizzling chips (with an admonishment to not inform Mum) like he used to do for me.
However at my sister’s marriage ceremony, a lovely factor occurs. Towards the tip of the evening certainly one of her pals wheels Dad in his chair into the center of a crowd at the dance ground.
And only for this second, my Dad, who I have by no means noticed dance in my existence, is smiling together with his head tossed again, having a boogie.
Suzannah Lyons is a contract science journalist who labored for the Australian Broadcasting Company for over a decade. She skilled as a chemist however discovered she used to be higher at telling tales than putting out within the lab. She will nonetheless make a median batch of cornflour slime. Practice her on Twitter @ZtheTrain.
