TBI Support & Awareness
Educate, advocate, and support those affected by brain injury.
A helmet is not just an accessory, it's a necessity.
Your head is precious, protect it.
Every nine seconds, someone in the United States sustains a brain injury. This means that millions of people develop brain injuries each year.
“Never think it can’t happen to you.”
Part of what makes healing so hard is the deep ache left behind after the brain injury. These include the initial diagnosis, starting over, the recovery process, etc.
Loss envelopes us with an aching grief that comes in unpredictable waves. It’s hard to know if you’re getting better when a string of good days suddenly gives way to a string of days of an unexpected emotional crash. You feel angrier than ever over the unfairness of it all. The wounds seem raw, confusing, and unhealed, but I’ve discovered those days don’t have to be setbacks. They can be evidence you’re moving through the hardest parts of healing. The new tears over old wounds are proof you’re tending to your emotions. You’re processing the grief. You’re wrestling well with ache in your soul.
Emotions are evidence you aren’t dead inside, and that there is life under the surface. These feelings shouldn’t be dictators of how we live, but they are great indicators of what still needs to be worked through. In order to heal from the pain we must deal with the pain. That aching is proof there’s a beautiful remaking in process. Don’t give up my fellow brain injury survivors!
Share your thoughts…
Four-year-old Maia Correia was riding in a child’s seat on the back of her father Jadd’s bicycle on Lakeshore Avenue on August 6, wearing a helmet and strapped in with a belt. The ride was like any other until they neared Hanover Avenue. A man sitting in a parked car by the lake suddenly opened the driver’s side door without looking and hit the pair, knocking them into oncoming traffic.
Jadd and Maia tumbled onto the road. Cars stopped, and passersby helped them up. But Maia hit her head on the concrete and was not acting normally. Someone called 911. Paramedics showed up, but seeing Maia did not have too many scratches, they cleared her to go home.
Over the next few hours, Maia vomited, a known sign of a brain injury, said her aunt Sheila McCracken. Her parents spoke to a medical representative from Kaiser over the phone to perform cognitive tests. When she didn’t vomit again and appeared to improve, McCracken said the hospital told the parents to keep an eye on her. At nightfall, Jadd slept near Maia. Around 10:20 a.m. the following day, Maia fell unconscious. “Police, firefighters, and paramedics arrived. They took her to Children’s Hospital,” McCracken told The Oaklandside. “Her dad went with her. When we got there, they had already rushed her to emergency surgery. On arrival, imagery showed a blood clot had formed between the brain and her skull.”
The doctors wanted to remove the clot and part of the skull to lessen the chances of her brain swelling. The surgery seemed to work, but within two days Maia went into a coma, said McCracken. On Thursday, doctors told the family “there was no hope left,” as they could not control the swelling and the blood had moved into her brain stem. Maia’s parents decided to disconnect her from life support.
“The Maia they knew was gone. She would never be able to receive our love anymore and wouldn’t be able to love us,” McCracken said.
Maia passed away on Saturday, August 12.
I’ll begin… Mine occurred in 1992.
Since your TBI, do you find yourself or loved one with TBI unable to know when to stop talking?
(Share your experiences, advice and tips.)
Brain injury is an invisible injury, which is why awareness is so important. The unseen struggles are often the hardest ones for a brain injury survivor.
When you see a brain injury survivor, keep in mind what you DON'T see.
At first glance, you don't see a headache. You don't see the feeling of overstimulation or extreme fatigue. You don't see memory loss, confusion, or vertigo. You don't see the days of recovery.
Never assume anything... just because YOU can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.
Brain Injury Survivors are some of the strongest, most amazing, most brave and insightful individuals. Many Brain Injury survivors spend the rest of their life trying to regain what had been lost because of their injury. They are forced to deal with the physical and behavioral affects of the damage to their brain.
They sometimes feel that they are abandoned by a society that sees them as" fine". They are sometimes isolated by family, friends, co-workers and others who have no idea the extent of the challenges that they live with daily.
We must change the way the World perceives Brain Injury by continuing to raise awareness and by educating others!