TBI Voices

Ejection Causes Severe Brain Injury: TJ Part One In the beginning of TJ’s story we talk about how TJ’s incurred his brain injury.  In his case ejection causes severe brain injury after a high speed wreck. It is not always the “innocent” who suffer severe brain injury.  Sometimes the survivor’s are not..
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Coma Call: TJ Part Two In part two we talk about the phone call ( the coma call) to his step-mom that tells her that her step-son has been in an accident.  She also is informed that he is in a coma that we will refer to as the ”..
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Severity of Brain Injury: TJ Part Three Waiting is never a complete void of information. Often, it is a flood of the wrong type of information, in a language that only the doctors understand, used not just by habit, but because the lingo masks the reality. The reality is that the..
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Before His Severe Brain Injury: TJ Part Four As with most survivors, even though TJ was in a near two month coma, he has near total recollection of his life before his severe brain injury.  While there is some difficulty during the period of emersion from coma, that is not retrograde..
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Waiting in the ICU After Severe Brain Injury: TJ Part Five Part Five we discussed with TJ’s step-mom about the pain of waiting in the ICU after severe brain injury and not knowing what to expect.  Whether he was going to live or die and would he come out of his coma..
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Independent Breathing After Severe Brain Injury : TJ Part Six Returning to my interview with TJ we talk about his emergence from the coma and we touch on independent breathing after severe brain injury: How long were you in a coma? Like nine weeks. You were at Beth Israel Hospital.  The..
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During Coma Emergence: TJ Part Seven No loved one who waits for someone to awake during coma emergence is qualified to have a medical opinion.  But what they do have is “observation.”  In my experience, observation trumps opinion in almost every case.  When someone is waiting and watching, they almost always notice..
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Nature of Brain Injury: TJ Part Eight   In the majority of our cases, we don’t get to see the medical records. When we began this project in 2010, I had hoped to get to see a small snippet of records, such as the discharge summary with each participant.  I..
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Physical Injuries Accompany Brain Injury: TJ Part Nine TJ talks about the other physical injuries accompany brain injury.  He had several broken bones along with some internal injuries. Did you have any other physical injuries accompany brain injury? Broke my nose, my jaw, top and bottom, three ribs, popped a lung and..
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Severe Behavioral Problems In TBI Rehab: TJ Part Ten As Michelle said earlier, they were unprepared for how challenging TJ’s neurobehavior was going to be. TJ had severe behavioral problems in TBI Rehab. When he was at Spaulding did he have any insight as to why he was there? Oh, he had..
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