“Spend a day with me…walk a mile in my shoes.” Amid the changing landscape of professionals, programs and agencies, families are the constant in the life of a person with a brain injury. Yet too few people realize what it is like, day to day, unless they are a family member.

Grieving is a deep sadness that we try to avoid, it is an anguish in your heart that words really can’t touch or describe. But, I know from experience that grieving is necessary and must be embraced when there has been a loss in your life.

“Grieve what you lost…. So you can celebrate what you have.”
Her child’s traumatic brain injury led Denise Boggs to look at the emotional recovery that must accompany physical recovery. She believes that survivors go through a process of emotional development after a traumatic brain injury that is necessary to develop a new sense of self and to form healthy relationships. For children and adolescents, this emotional recovery is critical for them to become independent and self-reliant adults. She uses examples from her son’s brain injury and recovery to illustrate the process of emotional recovery.

Grieving a loss after a death, catastrophic injury, chronic illness or transitional loss is a hard, long, and difficult process. When a family member survives a traumatic brain injury, there are still losses to grieve as life will not be the same again. Avoiding the emotional pain that comes with grieving can delay and complicate the healing process.

There is no way to the other side of grief except to go through it. Take time to heal – for however long that takes! You are worth it!

Each loss and every aspect of the loss can be a source of pain and must be grieved. Each loss needs to be worked through individually and yes, this takes time.

Can someone tell me?
Where is my son is he lost for ever?
How come he can not talk to me,
what is his purpose now?
If he is here then how come he does
Not know me?

Her son’s brain injury left Tracy Spracklen’s son severely disabled with physical and communication impairments. She expresses a mother’s grief, anguish and despair as it alternates with hope and joy at small gains. Her son’s survival makes her question the meaning of life and her search for answers continues in her role as caregiver and loving mother.

There are many types of death with brain injury. With my son, Derek, it was the death of physical pain and suffering. That’s the “blessing” you often hear preachers talk about. But, in my opinion, no violent death is a blessing! Not in the hearts and minds of those who must endure the darkness of their own private hell!

Whether it is the death of a loved one or the other deaths that many victims of brain injury must face, I still cannot see the blessing in that.

It is our duty, as advocates, to shed a brighter light on the darkness of ignorance and the often-devastating effects of brain injury. Stories such as mine show some of the horrors that brain injury can have, not only upon the victim but upon their family and loved ones.

The single most important element to successfully surviving a brain injury is learning to live with the many impairments—physical, cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioral—that accompany a major insult to the brain.

My wife Jessica’s automobile accident caused irreparable damage to her brain. A split second of inattention permanently transformed her in many ways. For Jessica to recover successfully from her injury, the most important thing she needed to do was to recognize and learn to live with her new impairments.

Married just nine months, her husband’s brain injury left Barbara Stahura feeling shocked, fearful and anxious about his survival and their future. Watching him in coma she questioned whether he would survive. Once medically stable, there were new concerns once he spoke as the severity of his brain injury became apparent.

She wanted to look inside Ken’s brain, to see what the scanning machines could not, to find his lost self. Would Ken’s brain heal? How much? When? No one could provide the answers. There was nothing to do but move through the days.

My brother didn’t die the night of his car crash that resulted in a severe brain injury. I still have my brother here in body, but only in spirit. He is not the same brother. He’s a new brother that I have to learn to love now.

I wonder sometimes what it would have been like if he had died in his accident. We mourn and grieve for the brother we lost but others don’t understand because he survived. Brain injury is like a death but the person is still there.

Geoff had a large brain tumor pressing against his brain stem. How does a family learn to pick up the pieces after the traumatic events of a brain tumor and brain stem strokes to a child? How does a family watch as the son and brother they knew lie weeks on end in the ICU and then a nursing home? The prognosis was bleak at best.
Families survive by never giving up hope. They survive by allowing each person to deal with their emotions in their own way. They survive by trusting in the human spirit they know exists in us all. And they survive in knowing Miracles CAN and DO happen.