what was I thinking?

This is my story of my life. I was born twice. Once in 1980 and once again in 1997 after my Severe Traumatic Brain Injury. I was born in Riverton Wyoming, it's a town of about 10,000 people and right in the middle of the state of Wyoming I had an amazing childhood my mom and dad both worked and my younger brother, John, and I did our best to get along except we fought like all the brothers do but we went through some very good times together and some very hard times, for both of us. My younger brother and I worked very hard on our grandparents farm and around my mom and dad's house we had about four acres and for years we ran game birds and did a lot of agriculture work. My Father, Ken Metzler, for years was a government trapper and he was gone most of the time trapping coyotes and killing predators that were killing sheep for farmers and ranchers. My Mother, Kathi Metzler, did a few jobs in Riverton Wyoming before she got her best job yet. She worked at The Wyoming Fire Academy, then she worked for Fremont County Emergency Management. She worked for many years for some very questionable folks, before she was given a promotion to head of Fremont County Emergency Management. My parents and my brother and I all went to school in Shoshoni Wyoming and it is the best school in Wyoming. Shoshoni, at that time was only a town of less than 500 people. The school had classes of less than 30 students so basically you know every person in the School! From Kindergarten to Senior Year, your class started with a handful of students and over the years, you'd gain or lose a few. By going to a small school, you really get close to almost everyone, weather you want it or not. My grandparents on my Mother's side, Wayne and Sue Wilson, were very good farmers and my brother and I worked many years on the farm as hired help. We would help change the water running in the fields early each morning and each afternoon. Since we grew up helping on the farm, we also spent many days working on the equipment in the shop or the fields, if that's where it broke down. For a lot of years, my brother and I got tools for our grandfather, then as my Grandfather got older, I worked and did pretty much all the mechanic work in the shop. My mom always made the joke, every night there was always anywhere from 2 to 10 of our friends, from other firefighters, both of my parents were volunteer firefighters in the country, to when my brother and I got into high school, there were about 3 to 7 of our friends over to our house having dinner and visiting. Metzler's Restaurant, Boarding House and Hunting Club is what my Mom named our house! My friends and I would always go down to my shop and work on my car or their vehicles if they felt like tuning on their vehicles. I have always loved mechanics so our friends would bring their vehicles to my house and we'd work on them in my shop, or in our driveway. In the country it was a 30 minute drive to town to get parts I'd always ask my Mom and Dad if they needed anything else from town. I had enough tools and parts that I would work on my car or anyone's vehicle that needed it and I had to start when I get home from school and I'd work on it until I got done if on the weekends it'll be in the middle of the night and I would keep working until I got the job done, running a Mountain Dew and Copenhagen! Since my brother and I worked on our Grandparents farm, my Grandfather had me get a farmers permit, so I would drive my brother John and I two miles up the road and we would be farmers for the first half of our lives! My Grandpa gave me many lessons on driving the tractors in the fields and I got to spend many days in a John Deere 4020 tractor driving back and forth in our Grandparents farm fields getting the crops ready for harvest. I used to drive my brother and I to the farm and we would help my Grandparents change the water, then Grandpa would drive me to the field and I would start running the tractor back and forth for the day. After we got done for the day I would drive my brother and I home and we would take a showers and visit with our mom and dad they'd ask how our day was and we'd say busy. John would go do his thing and I would go to the shop and work on my pickup or my 1971 Dodge Charger hot rod car. At that time I was young and very tough. I subscribed to Hot Rod magazine and when I got the new magazine each month, I would read it from cover to cover each month, then of course I would save every magazine for the articles. My high school friends, Charlie DeWitt and Jon McConahey would come over to my parents house every night and we would visit and I would help my friends work on their vehicles for most of the night until we got it fixed. Bumper To Bumper, the auto parts store would recognize me or my Mother walk in the door and they had my vehicles saved on the computer and would get the parts for my vehicles. On the weekends I would fire up the kerosene furnace in the shop and keep on working the vehicles until I had them running. As a hot Rodding kid, I had the exhaust pulled off the vehicle so it was very loud. Most of our neighbors in the country heard me when I would drive my vehicles up and down the road. If I wasn't working on my vehicles or helping my friends with their vehicles, my reading of choice was a Chilton's Manual. I would buy the book for my vehicles and read them from cover to cover. My classmate's used to ask me through the day at school how to fix their vehicles, or what might be the problem. To this day, I can still remember a lot of the information about them. Like I said I've always grown up with grease under my nails and love working on vehicles. in 1996 and 1997 we had a foreign exchange student from Denmark stay with my mom and dad brother and I. Martin was his name and he was so much fun. We all went hunting together and he ran a trap line on the creek behind our house and caught some coyotes and foxes and other predators. Mom, Dad, John and I were always hunters and since we grew up eating wild game, we had trophies hanging on the walls of our house. Martin had the taxidermist tan the cat hides he caught and hung them on the walls. Our neighbors really didn't appreciate Martin trapping their housecats! The summer of 1997 we got so much rain and it flooded the fields and washed off the foundation! we rebuilt our property as much as we could but we had to get a new Modular home, since our house was washed off the foundation! Since we couldn't repair the house, we got a modular home and they delivered and set up our new house in a weekend! We had so much fun with Martin that my brother and I were invited to go to Denmark and visit him and his mother. Martin showed us around Denmark, Sweden and we visited Germany also. My brother and I had so much fun visiting all those countries and spending time with them. since I was a pretty good athlete in high school, I wrestled and played football. I was All State in wrestling and football. My senior year, the first football game of the year, I hit a player so hard that I knocked out my own contact lenses! The following week, on September 12, 1997, I suffered from a Severe Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. Since my mom and dad were at the football game, my family and my brother ran to the field and my Dad asked me what hurts? I said that My Head hurts! Then I went unconscious! In Fremont County, Wyoming, it's a very rural area, and this was a very fortunate game, as we had an Ambulance at the game that day! My dad and EMTS loaded me into the ambulance and we left for the hospital in Riverton Wyoming. The Paramedic was fairly new on the job, as he drove myself, my Dad and I to town, he asked my Dad if he should stop at the stoplight on the way to the hospital? My Father said No, Blow through it! We got to the hospital and my family doctor and the hospital doctors all said that I have suffered from a Severe Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI! They loaded me into the Life Flight helicopter and I started my quick trip to Casper WY! I was life flighted to Casper Wyoming and my parents and grandparents and my brother all started driving to Casper Wyoming to the hospital. When they were driving through Lysite, a town of about 100 people, the phone in my grandparents Cadillac rang. It was my brain surgeon from Casper Hospital calling my family. This is Dr Hollifield, Joe's Brain Surgeon, if we don't operate now, Joe will die!