Obviously, I survived, but my memory has needed lots of nursing to get back to good health. I have a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), sometimes just called a head injury. Awareness needs to continue to build, because nobody ever expects it to happen to them. In 2010, the CDC found that about 1.7 million people sustain a TBI each year. With so many veterans coming back from the Middle East with head injuries, it’s no longer an unusual disability. In fact, our own Charlie Norwood VA has a brain injury rehab program for veterans.
Because we’re all different people, our brains are also different. The way that a TBI affects one person can be nothing like the way it affects the next. Think about it — the brain controls not just memory, but judgment, reasoning, decision making, physical function, even sight, speech, hearing and personality. For me, memory is my deficit — I’m still the same bad singer, loud laugher and goofy dancer I’ve always been.
I remember nothing about the morning of my accident or much about the time surrounding it, but I can tell you all about this road I’ve been down since it happened. Within the last four years, I’ve gotten my own house, a new car and a volunteer job matching my journalism background.
Know that the brain injury recovery road is long and not always straight. It’s like your own personal experiment with doctors to find the right mix of medicine, therapy and personal goals. Obviously, medicine is very important, but the therapy you receive is even more crucial. You are learning to manage your new disabilities and get back to being yourself again. I still attend bi-weekly Walton Rehab therapy group meetings with other TBI survivors. It helps to compare notes and give encouragement.
My family learned that just because some doctors (and insurance companies) say that most recovery happens within the first year, that isn’t always so. I’m still continuing to improve in lots of ways — some subtle and some major.
With my brain injury, I suffered a “bleed” in the hippocampus. It’s kind of like a vault where memories are stored for safekeeping and retrieval. My memories are there, but the vault door is heavy and rusty; a cue or hint may sometimes be all that’s needed to open that door.
Post-surgery, brain swelling further complicated things by causing a small stroke in the occipital region — that’s your brain’s visual processing center. My visual rolodex of memory for faces, places and mental maps was clouded in an instant, making it necessary to develop strategies and depend on technology for assistance. My car’s GPS is a wonderful security blanket, but through the process of my recovery, I’ve also used many other cognitive tools to compensate for my rusty memory.
My first in-home occupational therapist (OT) helped me master a pretty basic task early on — grocery shopping. We went to my neighborhood grocery store and created a grocery list form that was essentially a map of the store aisles. For example, Aisle 10 is canned fruit, cookies, popcorn, crackers and applesauce. My list form has all aisle numbers with what you find on each aisle at the store. That way, when I make my grocery list at home using those headings, I know where to find it when I get there. Grocery shopping is no longer a scavenger hunt.
Another strategy we developed was how to get a handle on friends’ names and faces with a wonderful personal kind of cheat sheet — my own “Friend Notebook.” This was simply a spiral-bound notebook with one page for each friend. I could make any detailed notes about my friends on their own pages — like Kelly is married to Joe, who’s from North Carolina, and they have two children. I could put that all on her page, along with other details and a photo. It was reassuring to know that I had my own personal cheat sheet at home if I needed it. I hope you get the picture!
I think the toughest thing about this is just staying positive, patient and keeping focused that there is a grand plan for me. I’m determined to keep the faith. They say that for those who refuse to give up, the treatment results can be extremely successful. There’s nothing more motivating than that.You Might Also Like:
Getting My Head on Straight
by Laura Perry
What do you remember about your past? Many people say they don’t remember everything, but when you’re talking about the old days with a group of long-time friends, it all just comes back, doesn’t it?
Believe it or not, that’s how it is now for me, too — I just might need a reminder or two to get going. In December 2003, I was in a pretty rough car accident early one morning when my Ford Explorer slid on ice on Doug Barnard Parkway. Thankfully, I was wearing my seatbelt, but I wasn’t wearing a crash helmet.
Obviously, I survived, but my memory has needed lots of nursing to get back to good health. I have a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), sometimes just called a head injury. Awareness needs to continue to build, because nobody ever expects it to happen to them. In 2010, the CDC found that about 1.7 million people sustain a TBI each year. With so many veterans coming back from the Middle East with head injuries, it’s no longer an unusual disability. In fact, our own Charlie Norwood VA has a brain injury rehab program for veterans.
Because we’re all different people, our brains are also different. The way that a TBI affects one person can be nothing like the way it affects the next. Think about it — the brain controls not just memory, but judgment, reasoning, decision making, physical function, even sight, speech, hearing and personality. For me, memory is my deficit — I’m still the same bad singer, loud laugher and goofy dancer I’ve always been.
I remember nothing about the morning of my accident or much about the time surrounding it, but I can tell you all about this road I’ve been down since it happened. Within the last four years, I’ve gotten my own house, a new car and a volunteer job matching my journalism background.
Know that the brain injury recovery road is long and not always straight. It’s like your own personal experiment with doctors to find the right mix of medicine, therapy and personal goals. Obviously, medicine is very important, but the therapy you receive is even more crucial. You are learning to manage your new disabilities and get back to being yourself again. I still attend bi-weekly Walton Rehab therapy group meetings with other TBI survivors. It helps to compare notes and give encouragement.
My family learned that just because some doctors (and insurance companies) say that most recovery happens within the first year, that isn’t always so. I’m still continuing to improve in lots of ways — some subtle and some major.
With my brain injury, I suffered a “bleed” in the hippocampus. It’s kind of like a vault where memories are stored for safekeeping and retrieval. My memories are there, but the vault door is heavy and rusty; a cue or hint may sometimes be all that’s needed to open that door.
Post-surgery, brain swelling further complicated things by causing a small stroke in the occipital region — that’s your brain’s visual processing center. My visual rolodex of memory for faces, places and mental maps was clouded in an instant, making it necessary to develop strategies and depend on technology for assistance. My car’s GPS is a wonderful security blanket, but through the process of my recovery, I’ve also used many other cognitive tools to compensate for my rusty memory.
My first in-home occupational therapist (OT) helped me master a pretty basic task early on — grocery shopping. We went to my neighborhood grocery store and created a grocery list form that was essentially a map of the store aisles. For example, Aisle 10 is canned fruit, cookies, popcorn, crackers and applesauce. My list form has all aisle numbers with what you find on each aisle at the store. That way, when I make my grocery list at home using those headings, I know where to find it when I get there. Grocery shopping is no longer a scavenger hunt.
Another strategy we developed was how to get a handle on friends’ names and faces with a wonderful personal kind of cheat sheet — my own “Friend Notebook.” This was simply a spiral-bound notebook with one page for each friend. I could make any detailed notes about my friends on their own pages — like Kelly is married to Joe, who’s from North Carolina, and they have two children. I could put that all on her page, along with other details and a photo. It was reassuring to know that I had my own personal cheat sheet at home if I needed it. I hope you get the picture!
I think the toughest thing about this is just staying positive, patient and keeping focused that there is a grand plan for me. I’m determined to keep the faith. They say that for those who refuse to give up, the treatment results can be extremely successful. There’s nothing more motivating than that.You Might Also Like:
Obviously, I survived, but my memory has needed lots of nursing to get back to good health. I have a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), sometimes just called a head injury. Awareness needs to continue to build, because nobody ever expects it to happen to them. In 2010, the CDC found that about 1.7 million people sustain a TBI each year. With so many veterans coming back from the Middle East with head injuries, it’s no longer an unusual disability. In fact, our own Charlie Norwood VA has a brain injury rehab program for veterans.
Because we’re all different people, our brains are also different. The way that a TBI affects one person can be nothing like the way it affects the next. Think about it — the brain controls not just memory, but judgment, reasoning, decision making, physical function, even sight, speech, hearing and personality. For me, memory is my deficit — I’m still the same bad singer, loud laugher and goofy dancer I’ve always been.
I remember nothing about the morning of my accident or much about the time surrounding it, but I can tell you all about this road I’ve been down since it happened. Within the last four years, I’ve gotten my own house, a new car and a volunteer job matching my journalism background.
Know that the brain injury recovery road is long and not always straight. It’s like your own personal experiment with doctors to find the right mix of medicine, therapy and personal goals. Obviously, medicine is very important, but the therapy you receive is even more crucial. You are learning to manage your new disabilities and get back to being yourself again. I still attend bi-weekly Walton Rehab therapy group meetings with other TBI survivors. It helps to compare notes and give encouragement.
My family learned that just because some doctors (and insurance companies) say that most recovery happens within the first year, that isn’t always so. I’m still continuing to improve in lots of ways — some subtle and some major.
With my brain injury, I suffered a “bleed” in the hippocampus. It’s kind of like a vault where memories are stored for safekeeping and retrieval. My memories are there, but the vault door is heavy and rusty; a cue or hint may sometimes be all that’s needed to open that door.
Post-surgery, brain swelling further complicated things by causing a small stroke in the occipital region — that’s your brain’s visual processing center. My visual rolodex of memory for faces, places and mental maps was clouded in an instant, making it necessary to develop strategies and depend on technology for assistance. My car’s GPS is a wonderful security blanket, but through the process of my recovery, I’ve also used many other cognitive tools to compensate for my rusty memory.
My first in-home occupational therapist (OT) helped me master a pretty basic task early on — grocery shopping. We went to my neighborhood grocery store and created a grocery list form that was essentially a map of the store aisles. For example, Aisle 10 is canned fruit, cookies, popcorn, crackers and applesauce. My list form has all aisle numbers with what you find on each aisle at the store. That way, when I make my grocery list at home using those headings, I know where to find it when I get there. Grocery shopping is no longer a scavenger hunt.
Another strategy we developed was how to get a handle on friends’ names and faces with a wonderful personal kind of cheat sheet — my own “Friend Notebook.” This was simply a spiral-bound notebook with one page for each friend. I could make any detailed notes about my friends on their own pages — like Kelly is married to Joe, who’s from North Carolina, and they have two children. I could put that all on her page, along with other details and a photo. It was reassuring to know that I had my own personal cheat sheet at home if I needed it. I hope you get the picture!
I think the toughest thing about this is just staying positive, patient and keeping focused that there is a grand plan for me. I’m determined to keep the faith. They say that for those who refuse to give up, the treatment results can be extremely successful. There’s nothing more motivating than that.You Might Also Like:
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