I live my life outside
of the box because when I die they're going to put me into one!
Many times in this
life, people will try to tell you what you can and cannot do. They will also
try to tell you who you are and who you are not. DON’T LET ANYBODY DEFINE YOU!
When I was a kid, I had a teacher tell me that I would never be a millionaire
because I was black and the system was set up to keep me down. This was a
TEACHER! Can you believe that? I’m so glad that my little boy mind didn’t accept
that. I have often been told that I wouldn’t make it because I was poor or
because of the color of my skin. I had family members tell me I would never
make it and my dreams would never come true for one reason or another... boy
were they wrong. If I had listened to any of those voices I wouldn’t be here
writing this to you. Hear me when I say this to you: no matter what anyone says
to you, LIVE YOUR LIFE!! Follow that still small voice inside of you. That is
GOD’s Holy Spirit and I think we all have the capacity to hear that voice. We
just need to still ourselves to hear it. You must silence all the outside
voices in order to hear THE voice. I try to stay as clear as I can so that I
can hear it. It’s not always easy, but necessary.
This is your life. Make
decisions based on your own path. Let no one define it for you!
If you live the life
everyone else wants you to live and you never live the life you want to live, and
then are you really living??
THE STORY BEGINS.......On September 13, 1848, the then 25-year-old Gage was working as the
foreman of a crew preparing a railroad bed near Cavendish, Vermont. He
was using an iron tamping rod to pack explosive powder into a hole.
Unfortunately, the powder detonated, sending the 43 inch long and 1.25
inch diameter rod hurtling upward. The rod penetrated Gage's left cheek,
tore through his brain, and exited his skull before reportedly landing
some 80 feet away.
Shockingly, Gage not only survived the initial injury but was able to
speak and walk to a nearby cart so he could be taken into town to be
seen by a doctor. Dr. Edward H. Williams, the first physician to respond
later described what he found:
"I first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted
from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct. Mr.
Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the
manner in which he was injured to the bystanders. I did not believe Mr.
Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived. Mr. Gage
persisted in saying that the bar went through his head… Mr. G. got up
and vomited; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a teacupful
of the brain, which fell upon the floor."
Soon after, Dr. John Martyn Harlow, took over the case. It is through
Harlow's observations of the injury and his later descriptions of
Gage's mental changes that provide much of the primary information that
we now know about the case. Harlow described the initial aftermath of
the accident as "literally one gore of blood."
Later in a published description of the case, Harlow wrote that Gage
was still conscious later that evening and was able to recount the names
of his co-workers. Gage even suggested that he didn't wish to see his
friends, since he would be back to work in "a day or two" anyways.
After developing an infection, Gage then spent September 23 to
October 3 in a semi-comatose state. On October 7, he took his first
steps out of bed and by October 11 his intellectual functioning began to
improve. Harlow noted that Gage knew how much time had passed since the
accident and remembered clearly how the accident occurred, but had
difficulty estimating size and amounts of money. Within a month, Gage
was even venturing out of the house and into the street.
The Aftermath
In the months that followed, Gage returned to his parent's home in
New Hampshire to recuperate. When Harlow saw Gage again the following
year, the doctor noted that while Gage had lost vision in his eye and
was left with obvious scars from the accident, he was in good physical
health and appeared recovered.
Unable to return to his railroad job, Gage held a series of jobs
including work in a livery stable, a stagecoach driver in Chile and farm
work in California. Popular reports of Gage often depict him as a
hardworking, pleasant man prior to the accident. Post-accident, these
reports describe him as a changed man, suggesting that the injury had
transformed him into a surly, aggressive drunkard who was unable to hold
down a job.
The myths surround the effects of Gage's injury seem to have grown
after his death, and many of these claims are not supported by any
direct evidence from primary sources.
Neither Harlow nor any others who had actual contact with Gage reported
any of these behaviors. "Phineas' story is worth remembering because it
illustrates how easily a small stock of facts becomes transformed into
popular and scientific myth," explains psychologist Malcolm Macmillan,
author of An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage.
So was Gage's personality as changed as some of the reports after his
death have claimed? Recently, Macmillian has suggested that the most
marked changes in Gage may have been limited to the period of time
immediately after the accident. Evidence suggests that many of the
supposed effects of the accident were exaggerated and that he was
actually far more functional than previously reported.
In 1968, Harlow presented the first account of the changes in Gage's behavior following the accident:
"The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his
intellectual faculties and animal propensities, seems to have been
destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest
profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little
deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it
conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet
capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations,
which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others
appearing more feasible. A child in his intellectual capacity and
manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to
his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a
well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a
shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing
all his plans of operation. In this regard his mind was radically
changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no
longer Gage.'"
Since there is little direct evidence of the exact extent of Gage's
injuries aside from Harlow's report, it is difficult to know exactly how
severely his brain was damaged. Harlow's accounts suggest that the
injury did lead to a loss of social inhibition, leading Gage to behave
in ways that were seen as inappropriate.
In a 1994 study, researchers utilized neuroimaging techniques
to reconstruct Gage's skull and determine the exact placement of the
injury. Their findings indicate that he suffered injury to both the left
and right prefrontal cortices, which would result in problems with
emotional processing and rational decision making. Another study
conducted in 2004 that involved using three-dimensional, computer aided
reconstruction to analyze the extent of Gage's injury, and found that
the effects were limited to the left frontal lobe.
In 2012, new research led by Jack Van Horn of UCLA's Laboratory of
Neuroimaging (LONI) reanalyzed the high-resolution scans from the 2004
study to re-estimate the path of the projectile as it passed through
Gage's skull. They then utilized data from 110 healthy individuals from
their data archive to produce a generalized map of the brain in order to
better understand the connections that would have been impacted. Based
upon this research, Van Horn and his colleagues estimate that the iron
rod destroyed approximately 11-percent of the white matter in Gage's
frontal lobe, and 4-percent of his cerebral cortex.
LIFE AFTER THE INJURY
After the accident, Gage was unable to return to his previous job and his personality changed completely.According to Harlow, Gage spent some time traveling through New England
and Europe with his tamping iron in order to earn money, supposedly even
appearing in the Barnum American Museum in New York. Like many aspects
of Gage's case, however, this is difficult to verify.
He worked briefly at a livery stable in New Hampshire and then spent
seven years as a stagecoach driver in Chile. He eventually moved to San
Francisco to live with his mother as his health deteriorated. After
suffering a series of epileptic seizures, Gage died on May 20, 1860,
almost 13 years after his accident.
Seven years later, Gage's body was exhumed and his skull and the
tamping rod were taken to Dr. Harlow. Today, both can be seen at the
Harvard University School of Medicine.
