December 17^th marked the one year anniversary of my brain injury. My family even celebrated it with a birthday cake, we make a lot of jokes in our house, if we didn’t we would cry even more. This past year has been a constant learning process and never ending firsts for most things.  There have been so many things that I have experienced for the first time since dealing with retrograde amnesia.  I am still amazed after one year how many things I have forgotten over the life of 46 years.  In this past year I have learned that family is the most important aspect of my life, without my wife Joan and my daughter Taylor I do not feel I would have survived this horrific accident.  They have helped me learn to cope with losing my memory and to teach me acceptance and patience.  Both have taught me how to be a husband and how to be a father by sharing stories of my past as well as describing my reactions to situations in my previous life.  Although my son Grant has not been around for much of this year I try to better understand how he struggles with his own life.  I know deep down Grant desires to be involved in our family but he seems to be fighting his inner self to allow himself to fully accept his sobriety and this causes our family much pain.

This past year I am also putting together some of the puzzle pieces as to who I am as a man, husband, father, son and business man.  This process of reinventing myself is still the hardest for me to deal with.  The thought of me ever figuring out who I once was and how I can become that person without having any memories to go on is a daunting task at best.  I have done so many things this year to try and recreate my past but it still seems like I am living someone else’s life and not my own. 

This one year anniversary has also marked many good experiences, from becoming a board member of the NFL Alumni Arizona Chapter and serving on the Board of Directors of the Brain Injury Association of Arizona.  Taking an active role in serving the community has been very rewarding to me and has also began to lay a foundation for me on what truly matters in terms of success.  With our story being aired on ABC’s Nightline in the next couple of weeks and our book deal in the works, Joan and I have realized the importance of giving back to the community and taking an active role in philanthropy.  We find it important to be able to share our story through our professional speaking as well as telling our story throughout the community to provide inspiration and hope to all who need a lift in their spirits. 

After the first three months of feeling really bad with the constant headaches and mass doses of narcotics for the pain I have learned to cope with this condition and to make the best of life under these circumstances.  I truly look forward to the year 2010 as being one of many changes in our lives as well as learning many new things and experiencing all of life’s finest.

LIVE BROADCAST: December 1, 2009 @ 9 PM ET

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Scott Bolzan has been able to fulfill the dreams of playing in the NFL as well as becoming a professional pilot and owing and operating a successful aviation company which specializes in managing corporate aircraft. . .or so he’s told.

In December of 2008 Scott suffered a brain injury from an accident that has erased the previous 46 years of his life due to profound retrograde amnesia caused by this accident. He has spent most of his time trying to rebuild his previous experiences and lessons of his previous life.

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Yesterday I attended a board meeting for the Brain Injury Association of Arizona as a prospective board member.  The meeting lasted for nearly 2 hours and at the end of the meeting I was asked to stay back and talk to the Director.  The Director who is a very kind and gentle person told me that she had something that she needed to bring up to me and discuss.  I come to find out that the reporter who did an article about my story had called her because he received a letter from a someone who wrote derogatory things about me and said that I was faking my injury to get out of pending lawsuits and he felt the need to contact this director to ask her for her opinion on whether or not she felt that she knew me enough to know if I was faking this injury.  Long story short, the director of this association had informed him that my intentions were genuine and that in no way did she feel that I was faking or trying to gain something by this injury.

 On the ride home after this meeting I suddenly started to feel embarrassed and confused as to why somebody would feel this way about me enough to write a reporter who did a story about me and my family and humiliate us in the way.  Now the hard part, I had to tell my wife what had happened after the board meeting and watch the reaction of pain and amazement that covered her face.  Not only was this person attacking me but they were also attacking my wife and children.  Joan and I talked about who this could be and Joan knew exactly who this was. 

 I am starting to realize that not everyone is going o be sympathetic to my injury and condition and that some people are going to do whatever they feel to try and hurt you more than you already are.  All I can say is that I did not ask to fall and I certainly did not ask to have a traumatic brain injury resulting in retrograde amnesia.  For anyone to think that this is some kind of free ride I am taking, my response to them is I have not earned an income in over 10 months and my family has suffered both financially and emotionally over this accident.  Being involved in a lawsuit in aviation is not a matter of if you are going to be sued it is a matter of when.  My inability to recall memories is only hurting my case in my lawsuit and in no way has it helped me or benefited me financially.  I guess I better get used to the idea that there will always be people out there who will try to hurt you and put you down when you are going through a rough time in your life.  Joan stated it best that “She is thankful that I do not remember this evil person that somehow entered our lives”.  I can only hope that this person can somehow find happiness inside of their miserable existence.

One of the questions that I get asked frequently since my accident in December of 2008 is “Do You Remember What Food Tasted Like?” my answer is NO.  When I was in the hospital my wife Joan would fill out the daily menu form that was supplied in the morning and she would order my food for the day.  I had no idea what she ordered but I did not question it in any way because my wife of 25 years knew me best.  With having retrograde amnesia I recognized types of food from watching countless hours of television but had no idea of what food tasted like.  In June of 2008 I had lap band surgery because I was very overweight and until my accident I had lost nearly 80 pounds and my diet had changed considerably since the surgery.  No longer were the days of eating large amounts of food now my meal consist of about a cup of food at each meal.   In the hospital I would eat mostly eggs in the morning, soups for lunch and chicken of some sort for dinner.  When I got home from the hospital is where I rediscovered what food tasted like. 

I can remember being at home and looking in the refrigerator and pantry and wondering what these food items were and what did they taste like.  Joan was still preparing my meals since I was in so much pain and taking pain medication every 4 hours I would eat small meals so that I would have something in my stomach each time I took pain medicine to avoid an upset stomach.  I would eat oatmeal every day in the morning because it was easy to swallow seeing that my stomach was now the size of a racquetball and the restriction required foods that are eay to swallow.  For lunches and dinners is where I would start experimenting with foods.  There were so many choices in our house from deli meats to fruit and cereals all of which I had no idea what they tasted like.  I remeber wanting to try everything I could to see what I liked and what I did not enjoy.  After the first week of being home we started going out to restaurants and I would tell Joan to order for me what I would normally order so that I knew I was getting something that I liked in the past.  We always went to the same restaurants so that I felt comfortable in my surrounding because at this time the world was still new to me. I soon realized that I still enjoyed most of the foods that I did in my previous life but I felt the need to try everything because I had not experienced it before.

Soon after I started ordering my own food at the restaurants we visited and Joan would always tell me that I would have ordered that same dish before the accident so that made me feel better, like I was still my normal self.  I did go to a Jewish deli with one of my Jewish friends and ordered liver pate and he said to me “are you sure you want to order that because that seems pretty jewish and I am not sure if you will like it”  I ordered it anyway and I must admit it was pretty tasty but I would never order it again.

So, the one thing I will always wonder is “does food taste the same to me as it did before my accident?” I may never know the answer to that question but I will enjoy trying new foods and try to expand my taste for life.

THE MAN OF 46 YEARS WHOSE LIFE WAS DELETED

Scott Bolzan unfolds a compelling, inspirational and courageous journey through his life. He shares his drive to overcome obstacles with his ingrained values and learned discipline. With a “never give up” attitude Scott has persevered through the loss of his first daughter, drug addiction of his son, career defeats and challenges as an NFL player, pilot and owner/entrepreneur of a successful private aviation company and a devastating brain injury with profound memory loss. Hear how a man maintains a marriage of 25+ years while remaining fully engaged in the lives of his two children, successfully balancing career endeavors in light of adversity. With a strong emphasis on “family first”, Scott exhibits outstanding strength to move forward through extraordinary life challenges.