Minnesota Traumatic Brain Injury
The road to recovery after a traumatic brain injury, may never end. Using the word recovery in the same sentence with traumatic brain injury, might be a little misleading, but then definitions of recovery can vary. The only thing that varies much more, would be traumatic brain injuries themselves.
A traumatic brain injury can effect any or many parts of the brain. Because every patient is different, it’s hard to find camaraderie, to lean on one another for your similarities, since you may not have any. This goes for your family members and caregivers as well. For many, a family member is reading this right now, because the patient cannot.
There are three key pieces of advice to be followed by anyone effected by a traumatic brain injury. They are; Accept Help, Believe With Caution & Embrace the New Person.
- Accept Help ~ Depending on the level of the injury and the personalities involved, it’s easy to try to handle everything, to be shy, to think you’ll be okay and things will get better. In some ways they might, but in many ways, they will get worse and the offers for help may be gone by then. Store up your energy, your favors, your food. Let your neighbor babysit, join your sister for lunch and when people say to call them, to let them know, do it! You’re not always okay when you think you are.
- Believe With Caution ~ Doctors are brilliant, teachers mean well and Google can sometimes be useful. But none of it is certain. None of it. The brain is the most unknown part of the human body and doctors, many doctors do not know what a TBI is. Most of the best special ed teachers in the world have zero training on traumatic brain injuries, while their entire curriculum are counter-productive in teaching a child with a TBI and useless if you can’t understand that child’s behavior to begin with. Most people in the world have never heard of a TBI. Even now, as it is getting some attention, if you aren’t an athlete or a soldier, your case is still not interesting enough. Contacting an attorney for your injuries is the only sure bet.
- Embrace the New Person ~ Whether YOU have the TBI, or you love someone who does, look in the mirror, or look at the person, get to know them anew and accept. The old person, is never coming back.
Things happen every day with a TBI, that have never happened before. You will come up with your own recipe for survival.