My TBI Survivor Story

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My TBI Survivor Story - Bobby V
The Day My Life Changed Forever - August 15, 1995

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August 15, 1995, the day my life and my world changed forever. Unless you are a TBI Survivor and have experienced a Brain Injury first hand, you will never be able to understand the headache and heartaches that accompany such an injury for the remainder of your natural life. Everyone looks at you and says, "You look fine to me, what really is the problem?" The problem is that my brain does not work or function as it did before the accident. When I came home from the hospital, my wife had a new husband and my children had a new father. I wasn't in a wheelchair or have a limb missing. The scars I received in the automobile accident are not visible, but the disability is just as real as having lost a limb or being confined to a wheelchair. People just don't understand, and they never will. How do you explain to them that things which are "obvious" to others are not obvious to you? How do you explain that you cannot find the right words, or that you "do not" remember something which happened last week? How do you explain why it takes you twice as long to do something compared to someone else, or you get so frustrated about doing something that the task becomes "literally" impossible? How do you explain that some of the switches and plug-ins which make the brain work have been disconnected or damaged.

My wife owns rental properties and I help here clean them when a renter moves out. In March of 2001, she told me to go to one of her properties and begin cleaning, as she had some errands to run. I went to the property, walked in the front door, and sat on the floor in the middle of the living room and started to cry. A 50 year old man crying because all he could see was a task that, in his mind, was virtually impossible. When my wife finally arrived at the house, she gave me specific tasks to perform. First, take a garbage bag and go around the house and pick up all of the trash and loose items laying around. Next she had me wash the light fixtures in the kitchen. Then she had me clean out the drawers in the kitchen. By now you get the picture. If I only had one specific task to focus all of my attention and efforts on, I was able to perform that task. However, when I saw the big picture (shampoo carpets, wash the walls, mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, clean the kitchen, etc.) my mind couldn't handle the many tasks it was seeing.

Now, before my accident, I worked in Medicaid Reimbursement for the largest non-profit nursing home chain in the United States. I could understand different Medicaid Principles in 26 different states. I could keep five or ten different balls in the air at the same time.

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	August 15, 1995, the day my life and my world changed forever. Unless you are a TBI Survivor and have experienced a Brain Injury first hand, you will never be able to understand the headache and heartaches that accompany such an injury for the remainder of your natural life. Everyone looks at you and says, "You look fine to me, what really is the problem?" The problem is that my brain does not work or function as it did before the accident. When I came home from the hospital, my wife had a new husband and my children had a new father. I wasn't in a wheelchair or have a limb missing. The scars I received in the automobile accident are not visible, but the disability is just as real as having lost a limb or being confined to a wheelchair. People just don't understand, and they never will. How do you explain to them that things which are "obvious" to others are not obvious to you? How do you explain that you cannot find the right words, or that you "do not" remember something which happened last week? How do you explain why it takes you twice as long to do something compared to someone else, or you get so frustrated about doing something that the task becomes "literally" impossible? How do you explain that some of the switches and plug-ins which make the brain work have been disconnected or damaged.
	My wife owns rental properties and I help here clean them when a renter moves out. In March of 2001, she told me to go to one of her properties and begin cleaning, as she had some errands to run. I went to the property, walked in the front door, and sat on the floor in the middle of the living room and started to cry. A 50 year old man crying because all he could see was a task that, in his mind, was virtually impossible. When my wife finally arrived at the house, she gave me specific tasks to perform. First, take a garbage bag and go around the house and pick up all of the trash and loose items laying around. Next she had me wash the light fixtures in the kitchen. Then she had me clean out the drawers in the kitchen. By now you get the picture. If I only had one specific task to focus all of my attention and efforts on, I was able to perform that task. However, when I saw the big picture (shampoo carpets, wash the walls, mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, clean the kitchen, etc.) my mind couldn't handle the many tasks it was seeing.
	Now, before my accident, I worked in Medicaid Reimbursement for the largest non-profit nursing home chain in the United States. I could understand different Medicaid Principles in 26 different states. I could keep five or ten different balls in the air at the same time.