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Hello! I am Michael; Michael Grego. I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was born on January 28, 1987. I was a good student, an athlete and a musician. I have a great family: Sharon and David are my parents, Daniel is my younger brother, and MyLin and Sirus are my dog and cat. On June 13, 2003, late at night I was driving home from a party. I was not drunk or using drugs. But as a relatively new driver, I was inexperienced enough that when I hit a bump and was going too fast, I lost control of the car I was driving.

My condition is called Traumatic Brain Injury. I was hospitalized for 5-6 months. When I came home I was still not breathing on my own. I could not walk, talk or eat. Lucky for me, my skills have slowly been returning with the help of my family, therapists, teachers and, most importantly, the Grace of God.

Mary Cantwell was my homebound teacher. She is a 35 year veteran of teaching Special Needs children. She began working with me in May of 2004. Since I could not talk and my only physical response was to 'point', she used pictures with me to stimulate language. She read to me, played cards with me, taught me to use an augmentative device when I could not talk, played games with me, and so much more. When I returned to school part time, Mary came to my home, worked with me on school work when I needed it and we wrote poetry together. She is my co-author, my editor, and my friend. She will help me to organize my thoughts here in this article.

Our book of poetry, A Saga of Poems, is my pride and joy. It is ‘my art’. The first third of the book focuses on the poems I wrote before my accident while I was a sophomore in high school. I was encouraged to write by my English teacher, Mr. Johnson. But I also knew that the girls thought I was quite romantic because I wrote poems. That was a great stimulus to me!

I've always enjoyed writing poetry. Now it is also an important part of my recovery both in the writing process and the expression of feelings I carry inside of me. Mary used my poetry and my writing while we worked together.

The second two thirds of the book contain poems that I wrote with Mary after my accident and while we worked together during the winter of 2004 through fall of 2006. Following the publication of this book we began working on a second book of thoughts and poetry which we want to publish next year (2008).

As you read through my book, you will be able to see a bit of my world prior to my accident and see my journey of recovery through the poetry we wrote. I’ve been told that anyone who has kept a diary as a teenager or raised a teenager can relate to the poems I wrote before 2003. I guess that they are very typical of a teenager who is beginning to explore life, love and relationships.

When we first wrote together, Mary would create a poem and ask me if that was the way I was feeling. She had great insight and sensitivity into my feelings and helped me express some of the anger I was feeling. She was also able to help me express some of the gratification and love I feel for my family. As I began to regain sensations in my body, I was in a great deal of pain. Imagine your leg falling asleep and tingling as it awakens. I was feeling these sharp pains throughout my body.

As I began communicating, by typing, my spelling was not very accurate. I spelled words phoenetically. Sometimes Mary would correct me; sometimes she did not. Mary is now in the process of writing a book with the compilation of the conversations I typed during that school year of 2004-2005 before I was able to speak again.

I’d like families of TBI patients to know that they should not give up on someone if they are in an accident and have traumatic brain injury. We do come out of our comas and we do regain skills! It is possible. And we will struggle, cause lots of heartache, change your lives as well. But we will still love you as you love us. Help us to gain our independence at home too.

I hope teachers will be patient with students who return to school after an accident and be accepting of the ‘new’ person we become. I hope they read the articles and books that are available to them to educate them in the way a TBI victim thinks, learns, responds, reacts, etc. And I hope they are able to make the necessary adjustments in their teaching methods so we are able to continue learning.

I hope therapists continue to push their clients to their limits so that they can regain skills that they have lost. In speech, language, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, daily living skills, vocational skills, academic skills…push us so we can come back as far as we are able.

I trust that doctors and other medical personnel will remember that we are human; we are people and whether we are comatose or awake, we have feelings and needs just like everyone else. With their support we will succeed.

I wish friends of those victims of TBI won’t go away and leave them or look at them as if they are alien. Our personalities change some, but we are still the same person we were before the accident…just different. Sometimes it takes adjusting their days or evenings or weekends to keep fitting us into their lives, but don’t stop…always keep coming back to us. You were friends before the accident. You can continue to be friends after the accident, just bear with us as we ‘come back’.

I am hopeful that as you read our saga of poems, that you will enjoy them as much as we did writing them.