On October 27, 2002, when I was 17, I had a traumatic brain injury after car surfing. That was the day that changed my life. I have no memory of that day. The left side of my head hit the pavement. From what I was told, I was transported by ambulance to the local hospital, and then airlifted by helicopter to a hospital with a level 1 trauma center. I had immediate surgery; a craniotomy, to relieve the pressure on my brain. The next few months would be life altering. The following two years would result in an additional four brain surgeries, including the insertion of a VP shunt. I would also have three surgeries on my right eye. The frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of my brain were affected. The areas that were damaged affect personality changes, emotions, self control, attention span, impulsivity, language, understanding and expression, emotional reactions and processing, etc.
I spent just over six weeks at that hospital. I was then transferred to an acute care rehabilitation hospital, where I spent almost two months inpatient at the facility. I had to relearn everything. Starting with just being able to hold my head up. I was paralyzed on the right side of my body. I had to relearn how to hold myself up while sitting. I had to relearn language and communication skills. I could not state the name/relation of my mother who was standing in front of me. I had to relearn how to perform self care activities. One would never think or even imagine not being able to brush their teeth or hold a fork to feed themself.
I then spent almost four months at an outpatient rehab facility. Five days a week, almost 8 hours a day. Progressing more in all the same areas as I was doing at the inpatient facility. Then so much more. I attended social outings to stores. There were swim days. There were 2-3 group sessions a day. I was asked to make goals on the very first day I started at that outpatient facility. From what I was told, I said I wanted to walk. I wanted to be able to walk across the stage and receive my high school diploma. I was 17, a senior in high school. I missed all the fun activities that my friends were able to enjoy. They did allow me to walk across that stage with my class. I did achieve that goal. Though I had not officially graduated high school yet. I wouldn’t until December 2003. Thanks to being home schooled and some half day classes at the high school, I was able to actually complete the credits I needed. I also had two more months of outpatient rehab, two days a week, for occupational and speech therapy, as I still had deficits in both of those areas.
I started at a community college in January of 2004. Taking two basic classes. I would eventually go on to graduate college in 2009, with an Associates Degree, as an Occupational Therapy Assistant. I got my first job out of college at an acute care hospital. I have now been there almost 15 years. Every day, I get to experience and see things that helped me and inspired me, to go into the field and have the job that I do.
There are so many times where a person will say, “I would never know you had a head injury”. We don’t have stickers on our forehead that will tell you. We don’t always have physical deficits that can be seen. We do have other things that we have to deal with, as no two head injuries are the same. We encounter aggravation, depression, fatigue, headaches, anxiety, sleep problems, seizures, etc. We have medications that must be taken daily for the rest of our lives. Otherwise there could be additional, serious issues that may result.
Good support from family and friends proves invaluable. It means so much to have someone understand our struggles. There are cognitive and emotional shifts; sometimes what you say, or how you act, isn’t how you would usually be, or even how you used to be. Sometimes we don’t realize what we did or said. We can’t always remember those times. There are a lot of things that we don’t remember at times. There are good days and bad days. We may not know when those are. But the others who do, also know that is just how you can be sometimes now. That is now what makes you, you. I may have nearly lost my life, but it has changed me, in so many ways. I have embraced those changes. It has made me who I am today. For that, I can be thankful.
– Kasey Hamsley, 22 year TBI Survivor
