Voice of Brain Injury Begins after Coma Emergence

By Attorney Gordon Johnson

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Disconnect between Diagnosing Doctors and Long Term Recovery After Head Trauma

The brain injury must be diagnosed by a medical doctor.   Yet often that doctor has little or no experience with the long term symptoms of brain injury, because most brain injury survivors don’t get the long term treatment from one doctor. For example, the neurosurgeon who is the one making the initial diagnosis in a severe brain injury, but once the patient has emerged from a coma, the neurosurgeon may never see the patient again.  Likewise, in a mild traumatic brain injury, the initial diagnosis is likely made by the ER doctor, but in most cases, that is the only time the survivor will see that doctor. Thus, rarely have those given the responsibility to diagnose TBI,the voice of brain injury of a TBI survivor.  They are even less likely to have heard what the family members and co-workers say about the long term consequences and disability that arise after a brain injury.

Voices of Brain Injury Began at Brain Injury Support Groups

To fill this gap, we have started the TBI Voices project, the voice of brain injury. To help get out the word and to find an effective way to recruit survivors to volunteer to be interviewed, we brought Lethan Candlish’s performance of “Who Am I Again?” to brain injury support groups. Lethan Candlish is a severe brain injury survivor and a professional story teller. “Who Am I Again?“ is a story teller’s perspective on surviving coma and severe brain injury , both in his voice of brain injury and in the voice of those of his family, friends and others who shared his rehabilitation journey.

Archive of Coma and Coma Recovery Stories

It is hoped that tbivoices.com will fill the void of the missing TBI story. Through the TBI Voices initiative, we will provide an internet archive of brain injury voices. The goal is to create a comprehensive and consistent treatment of the subjective aspects of TBI. Each story will include the voice of the survivor, those who knew the survivor before and after the injury, the context injury and the nature of the treatment and disability. If this archive can become a chorus of voices, the voice of brain injury, it may influence the diagnosis and treatment of brain injury in a way that current research – that is based upon objective measurement of an injury that is exceedingly hard to measure and almost impossible to quantify – cannot.

To see Lethan’s full Performance, Click Here.

• Craig’s Voice of Brain Injury: Out of Coma Emerges Leading TBI Advocate

• Michael’s Voice of Brain Injury: Head On Collision Leaves College Student in Coma

• Quinn’s Voice of Brain Injury: Preventable Brain Injury Has Secondary Consequences

• Kelly’s Voice of Brain Injury: Horse Bridling Error Caused Subdural Hematoma

• TJ’s Voice of Brain Injury: High Speed Wreck Ejection Causes Severe Brain Injury

• Rita’s Voice of Brain Injury: Pedestrian Suffers Catastrophic Brain Injury

• Steven’s Voice of Brain Injury: Severe Brain Injury Survivor Rescued from Despair

• Otto’s Vocie of Brain Injury: Nancy’s Skull Fracture Wasn’t Only Head Injury in Family Pickup

• Nancy’s Voice of Brain Injury: Winter Wreck Leaves 9 Year Old Girl With Skull Fracture

• DJ’s Voice of Brain Injury – Hurricane Seas Left DJ with Severe Brain Injury

• Mike’s Voice of Brain Injury: Standing by Your Man After Severe Brain Injury

• Lethan’s Voice of Brain Injury: A Revisit to the Themes of Severe Brain Injury

• Kevin’s Voice of Brain Injury: An Island of High Functioning in a Sea of Severe Brain Injury

And More Voices of Brain Injury:

• Jeremiah: The Continuing Brain Injury Recovery from the Severest of Impacts

• Ian: A Missed Turn Results in Severe Brain Injury

• Helena: The Music Never Left After Severe Brain Injury But Getting the Rest Back was Harder

• Gina: A Survivors Tale of Adaptation and Success after Severe Brain Injury

• Fred: A Miracle Recovery from Severe Brain Injury Brings Hope

• Elizabeth: Milder Second TBI Leaves a Lifetime of Disability

• Doug: An Ignored Warning Results in Coma after Severe Brain Injury

• Chris: DUI Results in a Year of Coma and Treatment After Severe Brain Injury

• Betty – Severe Brain Injury Changes Ambitious College Girl to Coma Survivor

• Angela – TBI Starts in an Instant – The Stories of Brain Injury

TBI Voices on Youtube

All of the videos that are part of TBI Voices are are loaded on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/tbivoices Please visit us there.

TBI Voices is the creation of Gordon Johnson, an attorney, from Wisconsin, who has dedicated his career to education about brain injury and advocacy for brain injury survivors. His advocacy has not only included representing TBI survivors in court for more than 20 years, but creating some of the web’s most read materials on brain injury, including waiting.com and tbilaw.com.

Attorney Gordon Johnson