Conversations with Brain Injury

Stories about Conversations after Brain Injury

The following are stories of real life survivors of brain injury.  Clicking on the titles will take you to their actual story.

Lethan – Heel Toe, Heel Toe

For the survivor of severe brain injury, it is not just walking that has to be relearned. There is a need to go slow, to heel to toe so much of life. Memory, conversation, shopping  they all work better when done step by step  heel toe, heel toe. Speech is more complicated, less universal, yet it is like walking, something learned as a child that is much more difficult to learn with an injured brain versus a developing brain.

Nancy – Parting Thoughts for Other’s

Nancy’s Mom describes recommendations from Nancy’s Neuro-psychologist: “When we came on board he was very surprised that we hadn’t had an assessment done. He also had a different approach to discharging or exposing that patient to the family again via videos, conversations. We did have a phone tree that happened. The kids called Maria every night between 6:00 and 7:00. They were given a phone card. Kids would go home and call Nancy and chat with her on the phone so that she could get used to their voices again.Dr. Theye wanted updates visually. Visual and voice recognition to go along with that. Also with the family members as well, he wanted to make sure that these kids were being educated and understanding why she was maybe a delay on the telephone. I would have to tell her what to say on the telephone a lot of the times. She just couldn’t carry on a conversation. It wasn’t clicking yet. And just for everybody to understand and he explained it perfectly. It’s like a wire cut in half with the ends frayed. Those ends are trying to find their connection point or another relay area for the connection to happen.  For that impulse to go through some neuron somewhere else that’ll all connect.  And it’s trying to heal itself but it doesn’t know how yet.