Before Traumatic Brain Injury: Who Was this TBI Survivor

Before Traumatic Brain Injury: Craig Part Four  

Craig shares with us on who he was before traumatic brain injury and the dramatic changes in his life from before traumatic brain injury to after.

At three weeks they think you’re stable enough to go home? 

Yes.

But you don’t stay there? 

Yeah, I couldn’t.  Cognitively I didn’t feel… I didn’t even know who I was. I’d look in the mirror – I didn’t recognize who I was. I didn’t realize who my family was,  which disintegrated in a quick amount of time.

Were you married before traumatic brain injury, at the time of the accident? 

I was.

And are you still married? 

Am not.

How long did you stay married after the accident? 

We didn’t get divorced for 18 months, but we weren’t together more than a couple months.

What did your wife tell you about the time, what she observed about you during that period in the first month or so after that? 

She really didn’t.  It was so much on her that she did everything she could just to stay away.  It was that drastic of a change.

Okay, let’s talk about who Craig was before traumatic brain injury.  So before you got hurt, you were married with kids? 

Two kids.

How long had you been married? 

Nine years.

What did you do for a living before traumatic brain injury? 

I was a behaviorist for DHS.  I did positive behavior supports for persons with developmental disabilities and I was an administrator for a small company.  We served about 60 people, residential services.

Did you go to college? 

I did.

You have a degree? 

I have several.  I was actually graduated three weeks with my latest degree.  It was based in theology with Calvin University and I was a pastor for eight years after that and that was going to be my, that was my vision to save the world and, uh.

Is it Calvin in Grand Rapids, Michigan? 

Actually Calvin, there everywhere, but they’re actually based out of India.  They’re the oldest Christian church on the planet.

So in addition to doing the pastor, you had worked as a behaviorist? 

Behaviorist for residential placement.

Do you have a degree in that? 

I have certifications.  My actual degree was in chemistry, which is pre all that and somewhere along the line, God said you’re going to do this and evidently I was interpreting it wrong.

So where’d you get your chemistry degree? 

USC.  I was in California for ten years.

And did you ever work in the scientific field? 

I did.  I worked for a company called Super Hawk International for about seven years.  Not everything, not what I wanted to do with my life.

When did you get to Spokane? 

I was raised here and so, right at 17 when I graduated, I wanted out of this place for a while and said I’d never come back and ended up back here.

And you got married when you were what, mid 20s? 

Yes.

What did your wife do? 

She’s a physical therapist.

So she had a pretty good sense of some of the things that you were probably going to go through after you got hurt? 

Clueless.  She was clueless.

Next in Part Five –  Daughter and Niece had Mild TBI