rpanons | like a little hamster who stuffs a bunch of toplevels in its mouth

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I also work with some adults who are autistic, and some adults who have complex mental health needs not caused by brain injury.

could you share the coolest story of someone's recovery or improvement that you've seen? doesn't have to be in a ton of detail, i just always like hearing about unexpected recoveries or people's hard work at rehabilitation etc. paying off

also this is not a question, but thank you, nonnie, you're doing good and important work <3

Thank you! I've only been working in brain injury services for about a year, so most of my stories are second-hand because I haven't had long enough to see someone go from like... fresh out of rehab/long-term care/nursing home to becoming really independent. That said, there is a at least one particularly awesome story that I can share.

So this girl is not actually one of my clients; she and her family gave a talk at a brain injury research conference some of my clients and colleagues attended with me recently. She was only like 10 when she had her injury - it was a completely freak occurrence, a blood vessel burst and she had a brain bleed on the playground at school. The injury was so bad that her doctors thought she'd never walk, speak, swallow, or care for her bodily needs independently again. But her family and a bunch of specialists worked with her very intensively, and at this point, just 3 or 4 years later, she's able to eat basically normally, walk using a walker, and speak quite clearly. To be clear, the disability she has from her injury will never go away - there are some things you lose forever when you have an injury like this, and other things you can relearn, but only in a different way. BUT, the point is, no one thought she was ever going to recover even the ability to swallow. And now she's up there telling people all about how she beat the odds!

that's super cool, thank you for sharing! it sucks that she's had to deal with this, and through no fault of her own either, but it sounds like she's doing a great job and i'm glad she's doing better.

unrelated question: if you could pick one piece of information about brain injuries and make it so that everybody would know it, what would it be? doesn't have to be the coolest or the most important, just something that you wish everybody would just become aware of

Oh, that’s a good question. I ask my clients this same thing all the time, and I get lots of different answers.

In general, though, I think what most brain injury survivors want everyone else to know (and of course I want everyone to know it too) is that they still have feelings like other adults. Yes, they may be functioning at a level that reminds you of a kid or an elderly person, and they may not be able to articulate how they feel, but they usually still feel the worries, joys, frustrations, and pleasures that neurotypical adults feel. In particular, they usually still yearn for friendship and closeness to others, and get very lonely when they can’t interact with others. They don’t want to be treated like they have no agency or like they are just a broken body to care for - they want to be asked their opinion on things; they want you to say “hey, how are you?” to them the way you might greet anyone else; they want to be able to decide whether their adaptive equipment is plain and functional, or decorated with stickers and strings of Mardi Gras beads.

I mean, you’d think this is pretty obvious, but it’s easy for people to forget, especially around people who look very severely disabled. As a great sage once said, “objects in mirror may be more sentient than they appear!”

like a little hamster who stuffs a bunch of toplevels in its mouth

CLINICIAN WORKING WITH ADULT BRAIN INJURY SURVIVORS

Re: CLINICIAN WORKING WITH ADULT BRAIN INJURY SURVIVORS

Re: CLINICIAN WORKING WITH ADULT BRAIN INJURY SURVIVORS

ayrt

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