Spending the time that I do with these individuals has taught me many things. The first and most important thing is that no matter what we have been through in life, everyone has goals and dreams for what they want there life to be. A person with a brain injury is a person first. Very often, I see the the incredible determination and resilience that the individuals I work with display. No matter what they have been through, they don't give up. By no means am I saying this is easy. Coming to terms with how a brain injury has influenced your life and the lives of those around you is not something that happens quickly. It is a process that requires great strength of character and can put even the closest of families to the test.
Another important thing I have learned is that brain injury does not descriminate. It can happen to any one at any time without notice. The causes of brain injury are as veried as the individuals themselves. Car accidents, brain cancer, stroke, falls, drug overdose, encephalitis, illness, acts of violence, work accidents, etc. The list goes on and on. The one thing that every one with a brain injury has in common is that they never planned on having a brain injuy. What this means is that is very likely that at some point in life, each of us will know someone with a brain injury. In the state of Nebraska alone, there are over 40,000 individuals with brain injury. Many individuals and their families may think that once they experience a brain injury, returning to work may not be possible. Not only is it possible, but I have personally worked with individuals who are not only working, but thriving at work in spite of their brain injury.
From my experiences, I have learned that no two brain injuries as the same. Sometimes people in the field say that if you've seen one brain injury, you've seen one brain injury. This means that although individuals with brain injuries can experience some common effects, they can very greatly from person to person. Just because one person has progressed to a certain level of fuctioning, doesn't mean that someone else with a similar brain injury experience will be at the same level. We must accept each person for who they are as an individual and where they are at in their own pesonal journey.
In working with individuals with brain injury, I have learned that we can look to each new day as a new opportunity. I have heard from individuals that I work with that they are just focussing on taking things day by day. For those of us who work with or care for individual with brain injury it is important that we do not get caught up in feeling that progress is happening too slow. We must look forward to each day as a new opportunity and try to put the past behind us. Individuals with memory problems may not even remember what happened yesterday, and so we need to make sure we are letting go of what may have happened then and focus on where we are now. This is probably the hardest thing to do and it takes great patience and understanding.
Finally, the most exciting part of working with individuals with brain injury is seeing the mind-boggling complexity of the human brain. It was once widely believed that the brain's capacity for recovery was limited to a certain period of time. We now know that there isn't really a time limit on when relearning can occur. What matters most is that we continually get out of our comfort zone and challenge and stretch our brains to their limit.
In future blog posts, I hope to share the stories of some of the individuals with brain injury that I have worked with. Even though I feel that I have learned a lot from the individuals I work with, I know that I have much more to learn and share. Let's get to work!
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