Elizabeth Bock
I didn’t know what a traumatic brain injury was when I awoke from my thirty-six day coma. I didn’t remember who I was, either. I rebuilt myself, having been retaught how to use a fork, how to walk… into this second chance I have at life
March is brain injury awareness month. 2.8 million people in the United States have a traumatic brain injury every year. One every 11 seconds. 2% of Americans are living with a disability that results from TBI.
For 42 years, I climbed up the economic pyramid to become one of another 2% of Americans.
I am, now, one of both.
Maybe you are like me who had never heard of traumatic brain injury. Only one in three Americans have. There is a silent epidemic of this invisible injury. My hope, in you reading this, is that you don’t learn of it the way I did… waking up from a coma in a hospital.
Maybe, like me, your eyes have caught headlines about the concussions and head injuries of rough n’ tumble athletes. My eyes just passed those over and quickly carried onto the business sections. This doesn’t impact me, I reasoned.
Well, it took another kind of impact for me to wake up. The reality is that you know someone that has one. Me. You also know a number of others, too. It’s a matter of whether they have faded from your life or are open about theirs. I wasn’t until recently.
I remember returning home after six months, from the two hospitals and an inpatient rehabilitation clinic, to attend additional rehabs closer to home, and saw a friend who said, “gosh, I’d never know that you had your accident just by looking at you.” I didn’t want to disturb the quiet blanket of appearances, with “okay, but who are you?”
In many ways, my invisible injury has become invisible to myself. My new normal has become… well, normal, almost three years later. Until… my senses remind me that I have a brain injury. Present tense, not past tense. I don’t know what I don’t know, like everyone, but I am also keenly aware that I don’t remember much of what I used to know. It’s normal to now wear an eye-patch when I drive. Also, when I shoot up and move away from sensory disturbances: the sudden and immediate need to protect myself.
Our grey matter is what receives and processes sensory information and cushions the white matter in our brains. Mine is not as shock absorbent as it once was, blood having flown through, like a tributary, saturating and eroding delicate cranial tissue.
I will never jump a horse again. That is a choice. I do ride, though. That is another choice. Horses have always been my greatest love. And, I’ve recently learned, horseback riding is a leading cause of brain injury. I didn’t know this before my accident. I learned this the hard way.
God is funny. I used to think that the word “sensitive” was a synonym for “weak”. This thought, the formation of pre-existing neural connections, was further reinforced by my years in the cauldron working in the hedge fund industry, which further embedded this belief system.
Until I fell from my beloved horse.
I am reborn, refined, purified, shaped and strengthened by a different crucible to now have no choice in being… sensitive. Really, really sensitive.
I am different. I am not able to walk back into my old life. And, yet, I choose to think of my accident as the best thing that has ever happened for me.
Perhaps for the 20 years that I was immersed, swam with a different crowd, I had a different kind of invisible injury. I didn’t realize that I was a junkie. That I was strung out “working hard, playing hard”.
There is an old story, ascribed to the Cherokee, about the battle between the good wolf and the bad wolf inside each one of us… the wolf that wins is the one that we feed. We’re all consciously, or unconsciously, walking along the razor’s edge between the two, with all the shades of gray in between… the company we keep determines the gradation.
Neural synchrony is the coordinated firing of neurons between individuals. Neuroplasticity shows that the human brain can and does change: neurons that fire together, wire together. Science has proven what Greek philosophers and artists have intuited for centuries, that we are, in fact, the company that we keep: there is now EEG proof showing convergence and coupling.
I have learned, again the hard way, that no two brains are alike, no two brain injuries are alike, no two brain injury recoveries are alike. I am one of the 2.8 million Americans in 2023 that experienced a TBI, one of the 2% of Americans that have a resulting disability. One of the lucky 2%. I have a second chance at life.
I will walk slowly, this time, and softly… holding the handrails.
*For the inexperienced parents of young riders, please know that ponies are dangerous. Your angels can be seriously hurt. It’s not a question of if, but when, they will break a wrist, arm, neck. or noggin.
*Please buy a safe helmet: www.helmet.ccbeam.vt.edu/equestrian-helmet-ratings.html
*Please find wise counsel as your little one continues onwards with horsemanship.
*Young children and adolescents are most affected by TBI.
*Reach out to someone you know with a brain injury. Once one leaves hospital and returns home, the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral effects become even more noticeable. That is when we need our friends. When we feel most alone. Please don’t disappear, because it makes YOU feel uncomfortable. This is when we need you most.
*Depression is a common and significant complication affecting 50% of those with TBI.
*TBI is associated with a high risk of suicide and suicidal ideation. I ideated ending my life for over a year. I also lived amongst people with spinal cord and severe traumatic brain injuries for a year. I was one of the few women there. Men suffer more severe brain injuries; women suffer an equal amount of mild and moderate brain injuries. No one could tell me when or if or how much I would recover. Post TBI, people struggle to participate in work and homelife: they have a decreased quality of life and a sense of hopelessness. We are afflicted with problems procession emotions, our dashed hopes, our senses of who we are, impulse control, and getting stuck in thought patterns. Thank you to the many angels that have walked with me into this second chance I have at life.
*I am hurt by how many people knew and chose not to reach out, whether that’s because they didn’t know what to do or what a brain injury even meant. I liken TBI to drowning invisibly… would you walk by a human gasping for breath in water and not lend a hand or throw a rope? I want brain injury awareness to become more widely known. February was breast cancer awareness month. How many pink ribbons did you see? 300,000 women develop breast cancer in the US every year. Almost 3 million people per year sustain a TBI. March is TBI awareness month: how many green ribbons did you see? Please find and wear one, or, at least, share my story.
*Craig Hospital is the world-renowned hospital for spinal cord and brain injury where I awoke @craighospital
*Love Your Brain improves the quality of life for people affected by brain injury @loveyourbrain
*It’s never too late to change your life. Pay attention to your feelings. How you FEEL and what you FEEL. Not what you THINK. Little, by little, it will change your SENSE-ory experience, your perception, your reality, in this, your one precious life.