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Health & Fitness

Brain Injury Awareness: The Fall & Riding Roller-Coasters

Brain Injury Awareness: The Fall & Riding Roller-Coasters

 March is brain injury awareness month, intended to bring awareness to the issues related to brain injuries big and small. This is an important issue that I, unfortunately, know all too well.

It was 2:30am when my phone went off in late Fall 2012. I was on the way home from Six Flags Great Adventure in hours of traffic. My mother was calling and I was confused why she would be calling me so late. I almost didn’t answer, but I did. “Daddy’s in the hospital, he fell and probably has a concussion. You don’t have to come, but if you feel like you need to, you can.” He fell? I was angry thinking taking him to the hospital was silly and dramatic. I almost didn’t go, but I did.

I was unaware that the first few steps through the emergency room doors would forever flip my world upside down and completely change my life. The hallway was full of people in scrubs and white coats and I instantly became dizzy from the scent of latex gloves and stethoscopes, a smell I would inevitably become all too familiar with.

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“The fall has caused a severe traumatic brain injury, if we don’t operate now he will die,” the surgeon explained so bluntly, “I’m not sure he will make it through the surgery, but we will do the best we can to try to save him.” My legs gave out and I couldn’t see straight. He was going to die? He just fell. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that my father’s brain was so badly injured.

After the surgery, my father was in a coma for the next month. When he woke up, he didn’t wake up. He was totally unresponsive, and in a vegetative-like state. It has been the never-ending roller-coaster ride that coincidentally started the night I was trying my hardest to leave the busy amusement park. Countless conversations of his care turned my role from youngest daughter to care-giver, and he is currently in a special-care facility in upstate New York.

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The severity of an invisible injury is hard to grasp, but any kind of brain injury, big or small, is extremely serious. Without seeing a broken bone or excessive bleeding, it’s easy to assume a simple sports injury or fall is something to “walk off”, but absolutely nothing to do with the head and brain should be taken lightly.

Brain injuries are a long and windy road, and no injury is the same. The month of March is brain injury awareness, and I hope sharing my Dad’s story will encourage the knowledge of the severity and devastation of these types of injuries. Not just for the injured individual, but for the family of care-givers as well.

My father’s TBI has changed who I am and how I see the world. Hope has become the most precious word, and there is not an 11:11 that goes by each day that I don’t wish for my Dad to come back to me. There is no telling what the future will bring, but I have never been more proud to be my father’s daughter.

 By Hilary Rosen.  Hilary is a graduate student in the School Counseling Program at LIU Hudson’s Rockland Campus. She will graduate in May.

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