From TBI Survivor to TBI Specialist
Laura, a Certified Brain Injury Specialist and TBI survivor, shares her journey of recovery from a traumatic accident that severely impacted her life and career. Her dedication to rehabilitation and experience on "both sides of the table" has driven her to support and educate others through her work, presentations, and volunteer efforts. Despite challenges, she advocates for a growth mindset and compensatory strategies to help others navigate their own recovery paths.
As Christmas 2012 approached, I was busy juggling my clinical fellowship in Speech-Language Pathology, commitments with my church, and hobbies of running and playing several musical instruments. On December 19th, 2012, I was a buckled passenger in a minivan en route to my grandmother’s funeral when we slammed into an 18-wheeler semitruck parked on the shoulder of the interstate. By providential coincidence, two nurses stopped to help and saved my life. Thankfully, everyone survived, though I sustained the most severe injuries, including a Moderate-Severe Diffuse Axonal Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and broken Cervical Spinal Vertebrae 1 and 2.
After ninety-two days inpatient, none of which I remember, I was discharged home in a wheelchair. This phase was filled with grief and uncertainty about ever returning to work as a Speech Pathologist, running, or playing my musical instruments. My short-term memory was severely impacted, leading to a perpetual state of grief as I re-discovered my losses every time I awoke from my frequent naps. My grieving intensified with the return of my cognitive abilities, a dichotomy I referred to as “the double-edged sword of cognitive progress.”
Dedicated to my rehabilitation, I volunteered hundreds of hours in several speech pathology departments. Inspired by my firsthand experience of being on the other side of the speech pathology table, I began giving presentations to medical facilities and graduate speech pathology programs.
However, the accident's injuries were not my only losses. The National Speech Pathology Association's decision not to extend the two-year deadline for completing my clinical fellowship devastated me. This decision meant retaking the national certifying praxis exam and repeating the clinical fellowship, all while navigating life with a newly acquired brain injury.
I joined the community of brain injury survivors, often referred to simply as “Survivors” due to the appalling recovery statistics. I struggled with the cognitive skills of executive function. When explaining executive dysfunction to brain injury survivors and their care partners, I describe it as encompassing all the skills necessary to plan, host, and analyze the success of a large dinner party. These skills include planning, sequencing, selective, sustained, and divided attention, memory, and problem-solving, among other abilities. While I will always experience the effects of my brain injury, I choose to view them with a growth mindset—something I encourage in other survivors. Rather than adopting a fixed mindset, such as “I’ll never be able to do this activity again,” I advocate for discovering compensatory strategies to continue activities despite disabilities.
Because of the journey I have navigated as a Survivor, I am uniquely equipped to support, empathize, and educate. From survivor to specialist, I have the insights to guide you back to a sound mind and hopeful future.