Brain Injury Support Group
Traumatic brain injury occurs when a sudden trauma causes brain damage. TBI can result from a closed head injury or a penetrating head injury. Symptoms of a TBI can be mild, moderate, or severe, depending on the extent of the damage to the brain. Outcome can be anything from complete recovery to permanent disability or death. A coma can also affect a child's brain.
Hello Everyone
Just looking for some help with what to do and what to expect.
This is my story:
My daughter was an amazing nurse at the age of 22 and working a great job loving it. She felt accomplished and got along great with her co-workers. She, in fact worked in a nursing home watching after my Mom. She earned enough money to buy herself a brand new car. She and her boyfriend at the time were involved in a car accident, he wouldn't let her drive. He drove her into a truck after running a stop sign. She was airlifted to a hospital in Toronto and had to undergo a craniodomy (they cut her skull ear to ear to make room for the brain to swell). She died and they brought her back to life. We were told to prepare for her funeral as she would likely not make it the night. They told us that if she made it through 48 hrs it would still be critical and may not make it. They told us if she made it through 72 hours she would make it. Our loving nurse made it through. Later came the news that she would be a vegetable and she would never walk or talk again. IF she ever spoke it would be in about 8 months. Eight months she started to talk! Well after many grueling months our daughter is doing amazing. She is walking with nordic poles only small distances like from the door of the house to the car. She has an acquired brain injury. She is mostly good except when it comes to something she does not want to do. For example for many months of therapy it took us forever to touch her hand. She lets us touch her hand now but not for very long. She has a verbal fit about getting out of bed. She freaks out in the shower. She has been known to be so mad she will throw what she has in her hand whether it be a brush or a sponge. We talk calmly with her. She constantly obsesses about my husband and I. Whether we are in the room or not she is calling out to us constantly. She has taken up the F word. It is most uncomfortable in public places because on the outside she looks like this beautiful 25 year young lady with the F word once she becomes aggravated. I have sat here three and a half years watching this young woman from a vegetated state turn into this great grateful young lady but who has these fits from time to time. I am having such a hard time getting used to sitting here when all she wants to do (when her therapists have gone home for the day) is sit in her "comfy" chair and watch tv. Her conversations watching tv are appropriate and laughs in all the right places. Am I selfish in wanting a life for her, how long will it take? Will she ever get married? She talks about not having a boyfriend, I know this bothers her. We do the best we can with getting her out socially, like to movies. I contact her college nursing friends who we get together with once every two months. I find if I don't do the organizing it doesnt get done which also frustrates me. People told me her friends would all walk away. Does she have to wait until she is better and out in the social world to make new friends? Will this ever happen. I feel so stuck in a rut which makes me feel guilty when it is she that is going through so much! We are her number one supporter. Some days I just wonder will life for us all get any better?
Please let me know if you have had similar experiences and what I can do as a Mom to try to help her along. Reading on here helps me realize what it is like to be her. I feel bad now that I at times get frustrated with this brain injury! I wish I had my little girl back. I miss her so much....dang....crying again....do the tears ever stop?
Just looking for some help with what to do and what to expect.
This is my story:
My daughter was an amazing nurse at the age of 22 and working a great job loving it. She felt accomplished and got along great with her co-workers. She, in fact worked in a nursing home watching after my Mom. She earned enough money to buy herself a brand new car. She and her boyfriend at the time were involved in a car accident, he wouldn't let her drive. He drove her into a truck after running a stop sign. She was airlifted to a hospital in Toronto and had to undergo a craniodomy (they cut her skull ear to ear to make room for the brain to swell). She died and they brought her back to life. We were told to prepare for her funeral as she would likely not make it the night. They told us that if she made it through 48 hrs it would still be critical and may not make it. They told us if she made it through 72 hours she would make it. Our loving nurse made it through. Later came the news that she would be a vegetable and she would never walk or talk again. IF she ever spoke it would be in about 8 months. Eight months she started to talk! Well after many grueling months our daughter is doing amazing. She is walking with nordic poles only small distances like from the door of the house to the car. She has an acquired brain injury. She is mostly good except when it comes to something she does not want to do. For example for many months of therapy it took us forever to touch her hand. She lets us touch her hand now but not for very long. She has a verbal fit about getting out of bed. She freaks out in the shower. She has been known to be so mad she will throw what she has in her hand whether it be a brush or a sponge. We talk calmly with her. She constantly obsesses about my husband and I. Whether we are in the room or not she is calling out to us constantly. She has taken up the F word. It is most uncomfortable in public places because on the outside she looks like this beautiful 25 year young lady with the F word once she becomes aggravated. I have sat here three and a half years watching this young woman from a vegetated state turn into this great grateful young lady but who has these fits from time to time. I am having such a hard time getting used to sitting here when all she wants to do (when her therapists have gone home for the day) is sit in her "comfy" chair and watch tv. Her conversations watching tv are appropriate and laughs in all the right places. Am I selfish in wanting a life for her, how long will it take? Will she ever get married? She talks about not having a boyfriend, I know this bothers her. We do the best we can with getting her out socially, like to movies. I contact her college nursing friends who we get together with once every two months. I find if I don't do the organizing it doesnt get done which also frustrates me. People told me her friends would all walk away. Does she have to wait until she is better and out in the social world to make new friends? Will this ever happen. I feel so stuck in a rut which makes me feel guilty when it is she that is going through so much! We are her number one supporter. Some days I just wonder will life for us all get any better?
Please let me know if you have had similar experiences and what I can do as a Mom to try to help her along. Reading on here helps me realize what it is like to be her. I feel bad now that I at times get frustrated with this brain injury! I wish I had my little girl back. I miss her so much....dang....crying again....do the tears ever stop?
No matter what, always and forever, we are loved ...
Here's a post we have just added to Stan's site today ...
February 27, 2013, Louise Travis and Bill Rueger had their book published. The book is about Louise Travis' son Stan Travis III who is in his twenty-seventh (on February 27!) year of recovery as a brain injury survivor. Stan Travis' story is remarkable for so many reasons. He died twice in 1986. He had a total of seven surgeries and had part of his temporal lobe removed. Two of the surgeries were on his leg. He shattered his femur and had a twelve-inch stainless steel plate put in that had thirteen screws and two bolts (a rod is sometimes used but would not suffice given Stan's state.). Stan completely lost his entire right side, his speech, and had to relearn everything. He was in a coma for eight weeks and in the trauma and intensive care unit at a suburban Philadelphia hospital. He had pneumonia three times, as well as bruised lungs, one broken shoulder, one dislocated shoulder, one broken arm, and multiple facial bone fractures. He spent five and a half months at a brain injury program in Malvern, Pennsylvania.
Today, Stan Travis is blind in his left eye and has twenty-five percent of his total vision. Stan Travis contracted Hepatitis C which he has been healed of. In his fifteenth year, approaching the year during which the average brain injury survivor begins to plateau, Stan began having hundreds of seizures. Stan Travis was beginning to die again. From the beginning, the doctors thought he might be lifeless ... He had other plans.
Five years after his crash, Stan was water skiing again (on one ski - his O'Brien). Stan took up bowling and in 2011 he bowled a perfect game! On March 6, 2012, he came close to bowling another one! He still takes twenty-four pills a day to maintain ...
... Expanded and clarified, here is The Stan Travis Story. A story of inspiration, motivation, and education ... and the love, support, and trust of family, friends, and community.
With love,
Bill, Louise, Doc, and Stan