Recently, we decided to go for a drive to appreciate the holiday lights. We stopped at a nearby Sonic to buy dinner. As we were making our way through the drive thru we noticed that 2 or 3 flood lights on the Sonic building were blinking on and off in a random pattern. I noticed them nearly immediately but also acknowledged that they were not that bad, annoying but okay for the brief time we’d be in line. This was the case until we were skirting the side of the building and still 3 cars back from the pick up window. By the time we made it to the second car back, and pretty much right next to one of the flickering lights John began to complain that it was really messing with him. It was bad enough that it may have been a treacherous situation for someone with epilepsy. It was the right sort of random on-off pattern and just visible from the peripheral vision that anyone with a TBI would likely struggle.
John tried to close his eyes, put his hand on the side of his face, and roll up the window but nothing helped. I was trying to think of how to resolve the issue but still get our food in the most non-obnoxious way possible for us and the Sonic employees. Nothing was really coming to mind though and we were boxed in by vehicles around us. We were finally able to pull forward completely and enough away from the lights so they were no longer a major problem.
We got to the window and John asked to speak with a manager. John kindly let the manager know how bad the lights were, why there were for him, and to please fix them. The manager let us know that a work order had been placed but hadn’t been addressed yet. He handled it well. It was just one of those unfortunate situations that none of us really had a lot of control over.
It’s instances like this that nearly derail our plans for a nice family evening outing. John was able to pull through but if we had been there much longer, we very likely would have had to go back home due to John becoming symptomatic. It could have even reached the point where I would have needed to drive us home, which has happened a couple of times in the past.
Fortunately, this time, we got our food and left and had a lovely evening out together.
TBI Spouse (and Others) 