The Last Hippie

Jordan Borgerding Real World Case Study of Brain Injury The Last Hippie is the story of a young male, Greg F., who suffers profound cognitive alterations and brain damage as a result of a midline tumor. Greg F. was born and grew in the 1950s, in a comfortable household in Queens, with both parents. He used to be a gifted boy, with an ambition for songwriting. With time, Greg started to question the principles and conventions of his life with parents; a teenager in the late sixties, he developed some kind of hatred toward conventional life and wanted to rebel against the standards in his society. His relationships with parents gradually deteriorated; he dropped out of school and left home, in search for spiritual enlightenment. He turned to drugs, which had to inspire him, turn him on, and lead him down his path toward higher consciousness. However, drugs could not create and encode a doctrine of Greg's life; for this reason, he decided to join the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
In 1971, Greg began to experience serious problems with his health. Gradual loss of sight was the first and, probably, most important neurological symptom. Gregg's sight was getting dimmer, but he no longer complained; rather, he seemed to be growing more spiritual day by day. He no longer cared about his food or appetites. He was in a state of continuous daze. A strange smile on his face never left him. He stopped going out and was discouraged from any further contacts with the outside world. Unfortunately, it was not until 1975 that Greg's parents were allowed to see their son. By the time they could see their son, he would have had no further interest in surrounding reality. He would have been completely disoriented and totally blind. Upon his admission to the hospital, Greg was transferred to neurosurgery - brain imaging detected an enormous midline tumor that had destroyed his pituitary gland, the adjacent optic chiasm, and had extended on both sides