A traumatic brain injury changed the life of Terry Morgan. He went from feeling like a million dollars as pastor of a large church and leading a full active life and career to feeling worthless. The fall that resulted in his brain injury changed his entire life – and that of his family. But as a brain injury survivor, it also resulted in his reevaluating what’s important in life. He now see there is a positive side to brain injury once you survive the physical and emotional trauma and rebuild your life.

Gwendolyn Gibbons believes she is lucky to be a survivor of traumatic brain injury (TBI). She feels lucky to be alive. Despite being visually impaired in her right eye and having a few memory problems, she still enjoys life and many of the things she did when she was young, like going to parades. Meeting other survivors at a clubhouse for social activities is an important part of her life. She is still marching at the head of the parade of life.

Poem by a survivor of brain injury uses humor to show how changes in memory, organization and problem solving affect daily life. Mary Margaret Yeaton knows the frustration of living with traumatic brain injury but shows how humor can be coping mechanism for survival.

Does anyone know where I left my brain this time?
Yesterday they put it back in my skull
But it must have run away while I was asleep
Because I can’t find it today

There was nothing mild about the effects of Diana Lund’s brain injury on her life. While she looked normal to others, her difficulty with memory, organization and problem solving meant she struggled to get through each day. Work became impossible. When the damage from a traumatic brain injury is not a visible disability, it is hard for friends, family and coworkers to recognize the cognitive losses.

After the aneurysms ruptured in her brain, Mary Margaret Yeaton went home to new terrors as she forgot how to do the basic activities of getting through the day. After her brain injury simple tasks like showering, making a cup of coffee and taking medications seemed impossibly difficult. With a friend’s help she found using a color coding system gave her the cues and compensatory strategies she needed to help her memory and organization.

Carole Starr writes about things she learned since her traumatic brain injury. Asking for and receiving help are not signs of weakness but strength. You can be a strong person and still have weak moments and get scared after a brain injury. Determination, motivation and refusal to give up will always win out. Working toward goals is a step forward. Survival means taking care of yourself and doing what your brain and body need to continue to recover.

Just because you have a brain injury doesn’t mean that you should not be able to live a full life with all the risks and chances for success and for failure. Beverly Bryant talks about how people treated her as “less than” a whole person after her brain injury. No one truly understands traumatic brain injury unless you have to live with one – then you know all too well what it means as you try to rebuild your life.

I’m a survivor of an acquired brain injury. My seizures changed my life. I’m also a daughter, a retired military wife, a mother, a registered nurse, and an advocate for persons with disabilities. I’m a caregiver who has now experienced life on both sides of the fence for brain injury.
I understand now what I had only observed before about what it means to live with a brain injury. There is the anger, fear, frustration, and uncertainty that come with a sudden illness or disability. There is that sudden loss of independence, the onset of financial difficulties due to job loss, and the depression that accompany them both. Brain injury changed my life in many ways.

As a TBI survivor, Kimberly Carnevale knows what it means to need assistance and accommodations for physical and cognitive impairments. As a trainer of service dogs, she trains business about the rights of people with disabilities and handicaps for accommodations. Recently, she’s gained a new and unexpected clientele – business owners who believe that their establishment had been visited by (and in many cases, damaged by) “imposter” service dogs. This is the canine version of illegally parking in a handicapped parking space.

Traumatic brain injury can be invisible to casual observers. Just because a person doesn’t show outward signs of disability, it doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t have challenges. After my brain injury, my life went on overload. I look okay but my appearance hides the internal storm that rages inside my injured brain. I struggle through the day trying to get my daughter out the door to preschool and doing the day to day tasks of finding my purse, paying the bills, doing the shopping.