When my seventeen-year-old son, Daniel, sustained a severe brain injury in a car crash, we didn’t know if he would survive – or if he did what kind of recovery he would have. After a five week coma, the physicians weren’t optimistic about his future. They told us that in addition to his right-sided hemiparesis (weakness on the right side of his body), they were concerned about his language skills. They predicted significant impairment in Daniel’s receptive language skills (his ability to understand what was said to him) and his expressive language skills (his ability to express himself either verbally or in writing).

Daniel’s friends were regular visitors. They brought in music tapes, hung posters to decorate his hospital room, and told him stories school, hockey and summer camp. They started playing games with him. The first was Tic Tac Toe.

A mother and two siblings reveal how a child and brother’s traumatic brain injury touches every single member of a family. Her son, Paul, who is the survivor of a severe brain injury gives his point of view of how his parents and siblings reacted and supported him.

The physical trauma of brain injury is an emotional trauma for the family. Each member reacts differently and each members grieves and adjusts in his/her own way. Relationships change as children grow up and the survivor recovers.

I was no more than two the first time my father was operated on for his brain tumor. By the ripe old age of five, I was a pro for his third and most major operation – the one that saved his life at the sacrifice of his lifestyle and his identity.

After the first few years of a “normal childhood” there were suddenly no more games, no long car rides, no going to work with him on Saturdays, no friend to confide in anymore. Just slow and painful recuperation that even a toddler could feel.

My younger brother was born just about the time of my father’s most major surgery. For the first two years, his development paralleled dad’s recovery. Then my brother surpassed him. As the middle child, my sister got lost.