Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to a brain injury survivor who has written this guest post on his recommendation of steps to recovery from traumatic brain injury.
About the author:
Greaibel Gomez is part-time writer currently living in Quebec, Canada. He works as a barista in a coffee shop. In his free time, he often reads books about health, lifestyle, and just about anything he finds interesting. During the weekends Greaibel plays outdoor games such as basketball and frisbee.
A Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when a jolt, blow or other head injuries such as sports injuries, falls, and road traffic accidents cause damage to the brain. These so bad enough that people accidentally involved in an incident should go to the hospital for medication to avoid severe brain damage.
Traumatic brain injury can affect our psychological and physical activities in our day to day life. It affects how we live. We can’t do the activities we love because we are afraid that it might happen again unexpectedly. But, how did I recover from traumatic brain injury?
Traumatic Brain Injury Symptoms
Before going to the steps to recovery, I will run down some of the symptoms depending on the severity of the head injury. TBI symptoms include the following:
- Headache
- Loss of consciousness
- Vomiting
- Dizziness or balance problems
- Cognitive difficulties
- Confusion
- Dilated pupils
I experienced these symptoms after an incident when a teenager accidentally hit me in the head with a ball. It made me collapse in the alley. Luckily, somebody was there to help and sent me to the hospital.
Medications and Treatments
I was worried because I was suffering from many symptoms after the accident. So, I stayed in the hospital to undergo a Computerized Tomography (CT) scan. Unfortunately, the result showed I had skull fractures due to the ball that hit my head.
I decided to go through surgical treatment to repair and remove the damaged tissue. I’m thankful the surgery was successful. I was prescribed with medications such as sedation, diuretics, pain reliever, and anti-seizure medications.
I spent a Month in Rehabilitation
After the surgery, I went to rehabilitation for a full recovery. I suffered from psychological and physical problems. The rehab helped me to recover fast from the incident. During the first phase of therapy, it was hard to adjust because there were therapies that I needed to do.
I want to say thanks to the assistance of a brain injury lawyer from Sun Pacific Law. They assisted me with my case by handling all the legal work for me. This meant I got a formal settlement which has been essential to helping with my recovery. Without them, it takes a long process to settle things.
Games help my recovery
After the surgery and rehab, I often stay at home, and it’s quite boring, so I decided to search for games as a form of therapy to aid brain injury recovery. Here are my three suggested games for brain injury recovery phase.
- Card Games. I often play card games and electronic-based games to help me identify the numbers, colors, shapes, and images. Card games include Go Fish, Spider, Solitaire, and Free Cell.
- Sudoku. An injured person like me finds it comfortable yet hard. At least it helps me to organize numbers. After of couple days of playing, I can form another version of the game.
- Tetris. Luckily, my nephew gave his game console and let me play Tetris. I find it therapeutic about lining up those little pieces.
It’s not wrong to play games as I stated above, but pick those games that will help you to aid brain injury. Different ones may work better for you.
Read books and watch movies
Aside from playing games, I often read books before sleeping at night. It makes me practice my cognitive skills and to get better in comprehending phrases. When I read books, I keep a dictionary close by too, to help me with the words that are not familiar to me.
Sometimes, I prefer to watch movies such as controversial, documentary, and based on actual events to be inspired and get knowledge about the things that I didn’t know about.
Daily chores
Staying at home can be quite boring, so instead of laying all day on the bed, I find things to keep me occupied. To make myself busy, I’ll do the household chores such as washing the dishes, preparing the food for dinner, and watering plants.
Daily exercise
In the morning, after watering the plants, I’ll go out cycling and wear all the protective gear to avoid an accident that I don’t want to happen again. Breathing the fresh air while cycling is therapeutic to me. I find peace and harmony while I’m doing these things.
Takeaway
Some events are inevitable and no one likes it, but being optimist will help you. Thanks to everyone who helped me when I suffered this traumatic brain injury. At first, it’s hard to adjust and it made me want to quit, but hearing and witnessing others who survive from this kind of accident makes me inspired and hopeful.
6 replies on “Guest post: Essential Steps to Recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury”
Thank you for sharing your personal story! It has helped me and will definitely help others!
I completely agree Marina. The more we all share the better it is for us all.
I wish I had rehab as early as Greaibel did. I had to wait well over a year after I was referred to get into the concussion clinic (they have a huge backlog of patients), after I insisted that my doctor refer me several months after my injury and I was not recovering. I’m 4 years in now, and I believe that had I had more organized care right away I would have recovered better and I would be still working. My GP only has 2 PCS patients so our care isn’t the top priority when so many others have cardiac and diabetes issues…where would you put your excess time to research?…where lots of patients might benefit or where only 2 might? I feel like PCS is an “orphan” condition that doesn’t get the research and time that we need. I also believe that my Dr’s direction to rest in the dark and do nothing wasn’t correct. I wasn’t given a timeline for continuing this and thus I recall it was about 7 weeks before I started moving again. I believe that what is recommended is 1 week rest in the dark and then try to get back to “life”…did resting too long prevent me from healing well? Who knows.
Alison I completely agree with you. I’m not sure that PCS is taken seriously enough at all. Maybe it’s that word ‘syndrome’ that makes it sound like it’s psychological that makes doctors think that they can just ‘wait and see’.
My son got hurt playing football when he was 15 he is now 21
He is high functioning but struggles so much with anxiety PTSD depression suicidal thoughts
Do you do therapy online
There are registered therapists who can help with complex mental health issues like you describe who work online. Check out BetterHelp.com.