Caregivers Role in TBI Recovery: Jeremiah Part Nine
Jeremiah and discussed the caregivers role in TBI and how important it is to recovery. In Jeremiah’s case it was a lot of people around him that took the caregivers role in TBI recovery that helped him through.
Jeremiah Depended on the Caregivers Role in TBI Recovery to Help Him Get There
Jeremiah explained the only way to overcome the frustration and fatigue of brain injury recovery was through desire. Yet the problem with relying on a survivor’s innate desire is that motivation is one of the areas most likely impacted by TBI. Frontal lobe injuries particularly impact the brain’s motivation centers and the capacity to follow through. I asked Jeremiah how he found the desire and the follow through, in light of his organic injury to that part of his brain:
Well I, I, I knew that there were a lot of caring people. This is very important for people too- it’s hard to understand what others giving to you just in care and saying that they care inspires you. But it inspires you greatly. Just as somebody who critiques you or tells you bad things that hurt your feelings can drive you the opposite way, can affect you, but it’s very important in recovery so much so that you have good people who will tell you good things about yourself – that they care about you and give you that desire within yourself.
Because your own self has a good desire to live, and probably everyone’s does, but it’s so important to stress to others (and this is one of the things that, that I am trying to promote myself for brain-injured, to help brain-injured people) is the importance of caregivers and people who are friends with people and people who want to help people. It’s very important to let them know that and keep that in their mind.
Was there a specific caregivers role in TBI recovery that helped in your rehabilitation?
Well they would encourage you of course. They’re, the good caregivers, generally caregivers are good people and do good things, and so I’ll, I’ll mostly stress on how much importance it was that I would hear good comments.
The number one comment was, to hear that they, they just cared that you got better. To hear that others cared, to know that people sent a card, or especially when it handwritten card, you know, or a child writes, very important.
But like to hear from my wife. My wife was with me, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for, for a couple years – always at the hospital every single day.
Jeremiah’s wife was one who took on the caregivers role in TBI recovery but he was very lucky to have others who also took on the caregivers role in TBI recovery.
Next in Part Ten Protecting and Preserving the Caregiver
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