My Husband Has a Traumatic Brain Injury

A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is damage to the brain as a result of injury. There are many ways that someone can end up with a traumatic brain injury. It is usually caused by a jolt to the head that causes the brain to collide with the inside of the skull. Because the brain is responsible for so much when it comes to our bodies, a traumatic brain injury can have serious physical and mental effects.

There are a lot of initial risks after suffering from a traumatic brain injury. These include, but are not limited to seizures, infection, and nerve damage. Long term effects depend on which areas of the brain are affected. My husband's case was likened to shaken baby syndrome in which multiple areas were affected. Long term complications include the following:

• Cognitive Problems
• Communication Problems
• Behavioral Changes
• Emotional Changes
• Sensory Problems
• Increased Risk of Developing Degenerative Brain Diseases (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Dementia)

I never knew who my husband was before his accident. When we met, he worked part time at a bike shop. He collected social security disability. He rode his bike to work every day and was adamantly against owning a car.

He had difficulty conversing with a very low, hushed voice and he often interrupted -- for fear that he might forget what he was about to say. He carried a notebook everywhere in which he wrote tiny details of his day to day life so that he wouldn't forget a thing. He was a very different person than he is today and he never imagined the possibility of a change.

It is difficult to say how much of himself he has regained over the years since his accident. However, when we first started our lives together -- there were a number of obstacles we had to learn to overcome. His memory was and continues to be one of the main struggles. Luckily, in the age of technology, there are a lot of things that have been able to make his life easier.

Routines & Schedules
We keep a networked calendar in Outlook. It helps us to remember appointments and to keep a schedule. Some amount of routine seems to be helpful. Our calendars are also linked to our Android-enabled smart phones. When we first met, he kept a tiny notebook in his pocket to remember things. The smart phone has become the high tech version of the notebook.

Exercise
He was lucky in that he was an avid cyclist before his accident. This is something he continued as part of his recovery. Exercise is very beneficial for the mind. It is something that we try to incorporate into our lives as much as possible.

Challenges
Challenging the brain is absolutely crucial in recovery. There are a number of ways to do this. One thing that we found useful in the early stages of our relationship was the game BrainAge on the Nintendo DS. Learning has also been a recurring tool in his progress. He once took a few online lessons in building a webpage -- something he never really considered before.

He is about to take a GRE prep course for his next challenge -- in hopes that he will finally be able to take his GRE (a goal he had before his accident). I believe he can do it. He has already pushed the envelope with so much.

Again, he was lucky in that he was an avid reader and lover of knowledge before his accident. Who you are before your accident has a lot to do with how much and how well you can recover from a traumatic brain injury. Today he works for a university as a field interviewer. He has great aspirations for his life. He owns two cars. He communicates clearly. He seems almost like his old self, according to family members and friends.

The success of the first and most difficult half of my husband's recovery is the direct result of a loving network of support. Support is the most important thing a person who suffers from a traumatic brain injury can have. Without it, they are left in the dark to fend for themselves without a crowd to cheer them on. No matter what level of severity a person's brain injury, they need to believe there is hope.

My mother-in-law is an amazing woman who went through a lot to help my husband through the darkness of his traumatic brain injury. Without her tenacity, it is likely that he would have ended up in a state nursing home. There he would have succumbed to the initial limitations of his brain injury. That idea makes me very sad, because there are people out there in that position today.

When we first met, he had settled into the label of having a traumatic brain injury. He never imagined that he was capable of more. How often do we do that -- accept the limitation of our labels? Obviously there were some very real limitations. But how would he have ever known that he was capable of more if he never tried?

I have to admit that, at times, he shocked me with what he was able to accomplish. There were things that he was able to do that I never imagined. But I always kept my doubts to myself. I never wanted to be the voice of doom and gloom. Looking back, I realize that it was the best thing I could have done.

As I said before, my husband is my hero. There is something deeply profound about watching a person who came so close to losing his existence transcend the boundaries of his limitations. He has always been an amazing person to me, but now I know that he is a smart, determined, and loving individual who is capable of anything he puts his mind to.

In 2010 we welcomed our son into the world. Being a father is something my husband absolutely never imagined for himself. He is, by far, the best father I have ever seen. His mother once told me about how he told her, after his accident in the hospital, "Who is going to love me now?" Now he is surrounded by love. It is love that makes our life full of so much possibility.