Bruce H. Ramsay’s Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor Story
The three aspects of my life before my brain injury involved my family, my education and my work. I had a very rich life with my family and friends before my injury. I’ve always been engaged with what our children did. And my personal life was heavily oriented toward my own education and work. My life did not revolve around clubs or hobbies and I did not often have “down time”. I’ve learned that brain injuries are not the same for everyone and represent a unique experience for all. My own Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurred seven years ago, on 23 June 2004. No one knows exactly how I sustained my TBI – possibilities include tripping and falling while I was jogging, or being knocked down by a vehicle or person. Today I feel absolutely great. Yes, my TBI presents challenges to me. The most serious one is how tired I become throughout almost every day. To ameliorate my lethargy, I go to bed reasonably early each day and I rely on a nap or naps to make it through most days.
The path I’ve taken to reestablish myself in my life has relied heavily on my immediate family and the people I’ve come to know and respect who have taken care of me. My trust in my family and friends has allowed my life to get going again. One crucial aspect of my on-going recovery is my use of Oculearn software (Uniform Resource Locator (URL) as of 010212: http://www.oculearntbi.com/). I have met my 2011 resolution of playing Oculearn every day.
My resolution was to demonstrate that as a Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor I could follow through and work at a task for a long period of time and derive improvements in my cognition based on the purpose for which this program was developed:
“The critical path in rehabilitating victims of traumatic brain injury (TBI) involves cognitive development, the sequential process by which humans obtain the ability to use logical reasoning. The ability to think and solve problems is a major element in one’s capacity to handle daily activities independently and to be employed as a productive individual. By definition, individuals with traumatic brain injuries have difficulty in cognition. Five core cognitive functions are critically important to the rehabilitation of TBI victims: memory, attention, spatial awareness, spatial knowledge, and problem-solving.”
The path I’m now taking to reenergize my life involves taking advantage of what I’ve learned about TBI and my own response to this event. I know that it is never too late to try and improve myself. My long term memory is OK more or less. I can rely in part on my previous education of graduate work in physical geography at Rutgers University, environmental science at Johns Hopkins University, and United States history at the University of Maryland. I remain with the “learning bug” and continue to take courses on compact discs (CDs).
The three important aspects of my life before I suffered my TBI were my family, education, and how I made my living. Since my brain injury, I’ve come to rely even more heavily on my wife and, although our children have entered their own lives, they remain active in my affairs. One of the biggest changes I’ve undergone due to my TBI revolves around making a living. I needed to retire on disability from the federal government as I was no longer able to complete the tasks I’d worked on before. However, this event, my retirement, has opened a whole new world for me to explore! I found out that I love to paint! And people seem to appreciate the works that I’ve done, based on what they say and what they buy. And it’s not only people who know I’ve suffered a brain injury, but those who don’t as well.
The aspirations, hopes and dreams I have now are as follows.
•Aspirations: I wish our children to acquire a profession which they enjoy and remain interested. For myself, I aspire to re-instantiate some of the abilities I had before my accident, e.g., analysis of data.
•Hopes: I hope I am able to repay my spouse, Ellen, for all of the support she has given to me both before and especially after my injury.
•Dreams: I dream of becoming a world-renown painter whose work hangs in the National Gallery of Art (URL as of 010112: http://www.nga.gov/).
What was it like for me to gain treatment for my brain injury? It’s been a situation where EVERYTHING that was made and created to help someone who was injured functioned exactly as it was INTENDED! Nothing went wrong. All of the medical staff from physicians to the janitorial staff worked to my own benefit, but the primary care I was given and the one known quantity was my wife, Ellen. She made sure I received the appropriate care when I needed to receive that care … to give me a second chance at life and an opportunity to make something of myself.
It is difficult for me to answer the question about gaining treatment for my brain injury, because one of the more serious effects of my injury was both anterograde amnesia (i.e., impaired ability to learn new information) and retrograde amnesia (i.e., impaired ability to recall past events and previously familiar information). Consequently I have no conscious memory about the treatment I was given. Only stories from people who shared my treatment as a loved one or a medical professional are available. This effect has also made it a challenge for me to achieve the tasks I did before my injury.
The most important person to me, second only to Ellen and our children, who gave me outstanding advice, is Marion Levine, Vocational Rehabilitation Coordinator at the National Rehabilitation Hospital. The most important suggestion she made to establish my own support “structure” after having worked for the federal government for 31 years. This was crucial to my dealing with the vicissitudes of retirement and has made all the difference to me in establishing my own sphere in this world!
There are several strategies I use to live life as a brain injury survivor. I always carry a notebook with me to jot down key pieces of information such as when or where I’m expected to go. I’m never afraid to ask questions. One strategy I’ve carried over from before my injury to the present is never to say no to an opportunity to improve myself, physically or mentally.
My ability to deal with my emotions and personal relationships during my on-going recovery has been improved by the support provided by Marion Levine, Dr. William Garmoe, Neuropsychologist, Dr. Michael Yochelson, Neurologist, and Dr. Jessica Clark, Neuropsychology Fellow, all of the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH). There are a host of other people from the various hospitals I was in who also deserves mention, but I have no specific recollection of who they are… but THANK YOU!
Yes I was fortunate to finally understand what my injury meant to my cognitive ability, stimulated by the insightful comments made by a co-worker at the University of Maryland in June 2006. We had been discussing the projects each of us was working on, and my friend and colleague pointed out to me a better way of solving the physical science problem I was working on. At that moment I realized I’d been looking at the problem in the wrong way and that I needed to change the focus of my project.
My “new normal” has several components. First, in discussions with Ellen, we know to never postpone something we really want to do because you never know what “misstep” may occur in your life and make it very trying to achieve your objective afterwards. I have kept a notebook both prior to my injury and especially afterwards to jot down things that occur that I want to keep track of. I’ve also always been a “student” taking courses wherever I could to improve myself. I’m still able to take courses but I’ve reverted to taking courses on CD or Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) rather than in a more conventional class. This allows me to pause and rewind the lectures as needed.
My word of wisdom for TBI Survivors like myself comes from those TBI Survivors I’ve listened to and come to know at the NRH TBI Support Group. The most important thing I’ve learned from them is to NEVER GIVE UP! I know it also helps to have a smart caregiver who loves you very much and will stick by you no matter the “side-roads” life takes you on, like my Ellen!