Brain Injury Awareness

March is Brain Injury Awareness month. This is an awareness that means so much to me.

Let me share my story.

On July 22, 2015 I watched my husband do his normal routine. He got ready for work, kissed me goodbye, I watched him walk out our back door, and I watched him drive out of our driveway until I couldn’t see tail lights anymore. He headed to work and I headed back to bed until the kids woke up.

Four hours later, I received the worst phone call I had ever received. My husband was in a logging accident and was being life flighted to a trauma unit at a nearby hospital. I didn’t know the extent of his injury, but I knew it was not good. Soon after arriving I learned he had suffered a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). There was swelling on the brain, which led to him having a six hour surgery to remove his right bone flap (right side of skull). He stayed in a coma for three and a half weeks. For those couple of weeks he did not do a thing.  After that we were headed to Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Shepherd Center is a rehabilitation facility that specializes in brain and spinal injuries. With intense rehab and medical treatment the teams of doctors and nurses go above and beyond to help the patient and their families gain back their normal life the best they can. When I arrived at this facility I was in awe. I knew I was about to get a wake up call in my life about what my husband was about to face on this journey. I had no clue what to expect from this injury except for what I read on the internet, but I also knew that no two patients were the same. I didn’t want to accept it, so therefore I would always brush wanting to know more bout it off with, “that will never be Derek. He will overcome this and be back to his normal self in no time.” That was far from this truth. Little did I know, that this brain injury was far bigger than I could control and it was about to take over me.

As time went by it became harder and stressful on me, I can’t even imagine my husband. He couldn’t walk or stand. He couldn’t talk or eat. He did have a feeding tube. If he did anything, he would move his arms and feet just a little bit. He went through so many surgeries. My husband got his bone flap put back in. He had numerous of shunts placed and removed. Some brain injury victims has to have a shunt, not all but, some do. It’s just a small tube placed in the brain to help the spinal fluid get to a different location to be reabsorbed.

Truth of the matter is, when the brain is injured the whole body seems to find it complicated to function properly.

I did tons of research on this injury, but nothing compared to the actual life I was living now. I begin going to support groups that Shepherd offered. It helped me so much. In a world where I thought I was alone, I found others dealing with the same thing at these support meetings. Things soon changed and I eventually stopped going. I would hear others share their stories and then I’d watch them leave. It became too much for me. The last couple of weeks that I went I became so frustrated. Each new meeting I’d hear a new family tell their horrific accident and I’d hear an old family share their discharge date. I honestly believe I went through ten different groups of new people before I finally quit. Some had to stay for three months, some for six, and well then there was my husband who seem to always have to leave his mark everywhere he went and well we ended up staying there for ten and a half months. Each time I shared our story in those meetings it was always the same. Two steps forward and five steps back. That’s when I really knew that no two injuries are the same.

Time passed on. I saw him struggle to take steps with assistances. Things got to a point once that I could feed him ice chips. He never had actual real food, but he did have a little taste of chocolate pudding. He eventually started talking some. It wasn’t full blown sentences, it was a word or two. He couldn’t sit up in the bed on his own, but he could sit in his wheelchair strapped in. My husband couldn’t shower himself or brush his teeth, however on some occasions during therapy he would try his best.  His long term memory was amazing, but his short term memory wasn’t even close to good.

Everyday normal life for him seemed far passed us. It seemed as if it was nowhere in sight.

My husband was on one side of this and I was on the other side. He went through it and I seen it. He fought through this physically and I cheered him on. There are things that my husband had no recollection of, but I do because I saw it.  He was like a baby all over again. A TBI patient is like a toddler, an adolescent teen, and a person with alzheimer’s melted down and made into one body. Now don’t take this as me throwing disrespect, that is far from what I am trying to do. My perspective is to try to put into words for the ones who hasn’t walked this life to get a better understanding of how a brain injury reacts on a person and their bodies. Again not all TBI patients are the same. I seen that first hand at Shepherd. Some of those families didn’t have to go through what I went through with my husband and vice versa.

As it is the month of brain injury awareness I encourage you to learn about this injury. I’ll go a step further and I’ll encourage you to reach out to a family who has experienced this. I can assure you they will be more than glad to give you information on what they went through and answer any questions. If they are like me, they will be eager to teach you about this life. Sit down and spend time with a brain injury patient. Your eyes will be opened about life and your heart will be full.

I celebrate Brain Injury Awareness Month in memory of my sweet husband Derek Bass. July 19, 1989- June 20, 2016