This important book provides a firsthand account of a university professor who experienced traumatic brain injury. It tells the story of Michael Arthur, who had recently accepted a position as vice principal of a new high school. After only two weeks on the job, he was involved in a car accident while driving through an intersection in northern Utah. Through his personal account, he takes the reader into the dark interworkings of his mind as he tries to cope with his new reality. He provides insight into how he learned how to process information and even speak without stumbling on his words while also sharing how his significant relationships suffered as he tried to navigate the restless seas of doubt while trying to circumvent his unyielding symptoms. The book is about finding optimism and gaining insight into the struggles of the brain-injured patient and about trying to understand the perspectives of loved ones who can’t quite grasp the idea of an invisible injury. From the sudden onset of garbled speech to the challenges of processing information, the changing dynamic of the author’s life is highlighted to help family members and healthcare workers better understand.
Whether you are recovering from a traumatic brain injury or supporting someone with a TBI, this collection of 101 inspiring and encouraging stories by others like you will uplift and encourage you on your healing journey. With a traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurring every 18.5 seconds in this country - concussions the most common - chances are you have been touched in some way by this experience. TBIs occur due to accidents and sports, and are also common in returning soldiers. The personal stories in this book, by TBI survivors and those who love and support them, will help and encourage you and your family on your road to recovery.
With the contribution from more than one hundred CNS neurotrauma experts, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account on the latest developments in the area of neurotrauma including biomarker studies, experimental models, diagnostic methods, and neurotherapeutic intervention strategies in brain injury research. It discusses neurotrauma mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and neurocognitive and neurobehavioral deficits. Also included are medical interventions and recent neurotherapeutics used in the area of brain injury that have been translated to the area of rehabilitation research. In addition, a section is devoted to models of milder CNS injury, including sports injuries.
After years of speaking and writing bestsellers on the value of having a positive attitude, motivational speaker Zig Ziglar is faced with putting his words into action after a fall leaves him with a head injury. In Embrace the Struggle, Ziglar shares a personal account of his accident and offers encouragement through his firsthand experience of overcoming his most difficult challenge. One of the leading stars in the “positive thinking” movement, Zig Ziglar has made a career out of telling people how to have a positive attitude, no matter what their circumstances are. But when a fall down a stairway onto a marble floor leaves him with a head injury, he is challenged with how to put the principles he’d been speaking about into practice. Ziglar’s willingness to be transparent has him back writing and speaking with renewed energy before audiences in the tens of thousands to show that life on life’s terms is still well worth living. Embrace the Struggle affirms the validity of the principles Ziglar has held true his entire life and includes not only his account of living positively through difficult circumstances; it also includes heartwarming stories of real people who encouraged him with how they put into practice these vital principles.
When all seems lost, where can you find hope? Katherine and Jay Wolf married right after college and sought adventure far from home in Los Angeles, CA. As they pursued their dreams--she as a model and he as a lawyer--they planted their lives in the city and their church community. Their son, James, came along unexpectedly in the fall of 2007, and just six months later, everything changed in a moment for this young family. On April 21, 2008, as James slept in the other room, Katherine collapsed, suffering a massive brain stem stroke without warning. Miraculously, Jay came home in time and called for help. Katherine was immediately rushed into brain surgery, though her chance of survival was slim. As the sun rose the next morning, the surgeon proclaimed that Katherine had survived the removal of part of her brain, though her future recovery was uncertain. Yet in that moment, there was a spark of hope. Through forty days on life support in the ICU and nearly two years in full-time brain rehab, that small spark of hope was fanned into flame. Hope Heals documents Katherine and Jay's journey as they struggled to regain Katherine's quality of life and as she relearned to talk, eat, and walk. As Katherine returned home with a severely disabled body but a completely renewed purpose, she and Jay committed to celebrating this gift of a second chance by embracing life fully, even though that life looked very different than they could have ever imagined. As you uncover Katherine and Jay's remarkable story, you'll be encouraged to: Find lasting hope in the midst of struggle Embrace the unexpected Welcome God's miracles into your everyday life In the midst of continuing hardships, both in body and mind, Katherine and Jay found what we all long to find: a hope that heals the most broken place--our souls. Let Hope Heals be your guide along the way. Praise for Hope Heals: "As I read this book, tears streamed from my eyes even as joy flooded my heart. Jay and Katherine are a raw yet refreshing testimony to the unshakable trustworthiness of God amidst the unimaginable trials of life. This book reminds all of us where hope can be found in a world where none of us know what the next day holds." --David Platt, author of the New York Times bestseller Radical and president of the International Mission Board "Hope Heals is a beautiful, true story that illustrates the love and protection God has for us even in the darkest times of our lives. Katherine and Jay's dedication to each other and the Lord through their most devastating season is inspiring. This book will help your heart believe that He sees, He knows, He cares, and He is still working miracles today!" --Lysa TerKeurst, New York Times bestselling author and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries
In these personal reflections on his thirty years of clinical work with victims of genocide, torture, and abuse in the United States, Cambodia, Bosnia, and other parts of the world, Richard Mollica describes the surprising capacity of traumatized people to heal themselves. Here is how Neil Boothby, Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, describes the book: "Mollica provides a wealth of ethnographic and clinical evidence that suggests the human capacity to heal is innate--that the 'survival instinct' extends beyond the physical to include the psychological as well. He enables us to see how recovery from 'traumatic life events' needs to be viewed primarily as a 'mystery' to be listened to and explored, rather than solely as a 'problem' to be identified and solved. Healing involves a quest for meaning--with all of its emotional, cultural, religious, spiritual and existential attendants--even when bio-chemical reactions are also operative." Healing Invisible Wounds reveals how trauma survivors, through the telling of their stories, teach all of us how to deal with the tragic events of everyday life. Mollica's important discovery that humiliation--an instrument of violence that also leads to anger and despair--can be transformed through his therapeutic project into solace and redemption is a remarkable new contribution to survivors and clinicians. This book reveals how in every society we have to move away from viewing trauma survivors as "broken people" and "outcasts" to seeing them as courageous people actively contributing to larger social goals. When violence occurs, there is damage not only to individuals but to entire societies, and to the world. Through the journey of self-healing that survivors make, they enable the rest of us not only as individuals but as entire communities to recover from injury in a violent world.
"Padman made me smile, chuckle, laugh out loud, cry and all theemotions in between..." --Diana Stroud, Amazon.com In this collection of personal essays, Mark Elswick offers humorousepisodes about being a man and father. Whether it's his daughter sendinghim to the store to buy those... well, things that transforms him into"Padman"; his realization that at forty-two, he is slowly turning into anold man; or his reaction to his middle school aged daughter dating a"man" two years older than her, readers--male and female alike--willfind themselves cracking smiles when they aren't busy laughing out loud. Elswick also has a serious side to him. Interspersed with the comicaltales are heartfelt looks into the lives of people who experience a TraumaticBrain Incident (TBI) injury, including his own story of being in alife-threatening car accident that left doctors predicting he would be avegetable for the rest of his life. With compassion and insight, while retaininghis sense of humor, Elswick writes to raise awareness about TBI;a portion of Padman: A Dad's Guide to Buying... Those, and Other Tales'proceeds will go to TBI research. Acclaim for Elswick's Padman "I am officially announcing my own support for Mark Elswick, thewriter who won his own battle with TBI and is now giving back of himselfto those who are continuing or just beginning theirs. Padman offersan 'edutaining' read on a subject that is anything but humorous. And itunderscores the importance of embracing now the devastation of TBIamong the general public, as well as in the face of our affected troops returninghome." --Joseph Yurt, Reader Views "Mark Elswick's style of humor will be appreciated by any male readeras he pokes fun at himself and the feminine world that he often perceivesto be threatening his masculinity. Plus, what's better than helping a goodcause (Traumatic Brain Injury research) while getting some laughs!" --Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, author of the award-winning Narrow LivesHumor: Topic - Marriage & Family Learn more at MarkElswick.com Available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions From the Reflections of America Series at Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
After her mother took her own life, Wendy Parmley learned firsthand the heartache, despair, and loneliness that accompanies suicide loss. Reinvent your definition of saved, perfect, and forgiveness as you read this true narrative of a woman opening her heart years after her mother's suicide and learn how to overcome any loss in your own life.
From head trauma to scientific wonder—a “deeply absorbing . . . fascinating” true story of acquired savant syndrome (Entertainment Weekly). Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett had never made it past pre-algebra. But a violent mugging forever altered the way his brain worked. It turned an ordinary math-averse student into an extraordinary young man with a unique gift to see the world as no one else does: water pours from the faucet in crystalline patterns, numbers call to mind distinct geometric shapes, and intricate fractal patterns emerge from the movement of tree branches, revealing the intrinsic mathematical designs hidden in the objects around us. As his ability to understand physics skyrocketed, the “accidental genius” developed the astonishing ability to draw the complex geometric shapes he saw everywhere. Overcoming huge setbacks and embracing his new mind, Padgett “gained a vision of the world that is as beautiful as it is challenging.” Along the way he fell in love, found joy in numbers, and spent plenty of time having his head examined (The New York Times Book Review). Illustrated with Jason’s stunning, mathematically precise artwork, his singular story reveals the wondrous potential of the human brain, and “an incredible phenomenon which points toward dormant potential—a little Rain Man perhaps—within us all” (Darold A. Treffert, MD, author of Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant). “A tale worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! . . . This memoir sends a hopeful message to families touched by brain injury, autism, or neurological damage from strokes.” —Booklist “How extraordinary it is to contemplate the bizarre gifts that might lie within all of us.” —People
