My recovery from a TBI & Stroke

I recently posted a question box on Instagram and asked what you all would like to read on my blog. Someone responded and said “your recovery journey”. I assumed this meant recovery from my disordered relationship with food and exercise. I messaged her and she said she meant more of my recovery from my car accident in which I experienced a traumatic brain injury and a stroke along with many broken bones. I have spoken about this journey on a podcast, if you are interested in hearing more details about the accident and my recovery—I will link that episode from the Making Headway Podcast HERE (this links to Spotify).

This is really difficult to write about because I have so much I could say and so many different routes I could take this post. I’ll tell a brief version of the story of my car accident, so you’ll know the back story a bit. I was a freshman in college, 19 years old, and loving life. The first semester of college I was not loving life, I was very homesick and didn’t like college. Second semester I turned over a new leaf, made some friends, and was really enjoying myself…maybe a little too much! March 29, 2007 I was on the way back from renting dresses for a fraternity party with a friend and I fell asleep at the wheel going 65 MPH on cruise control. We flipped four times, landing on my side each time. I sustained four broken vertebrae in my spine, broke my left wrist, left thumb, right hand, left arm, collarbone, laceration to my head and ear, punctured my lung, had a stroke and a traumatic brain injury. Needless to say, this event changed my life forever.

The recovery process was not linear and definitely had many ups and downs. The physical recovery was difficult (as to be expected with broken bones), however I am going to focus on the mental aspect of recovery as I feel this is often overlooked. When someone is physically hurt, people tend to focus on the physical…which makes sense, but I don’t think enough emphasis is put on the mental load it takes on your body/mind/spirit—everything. A brain injury is an “invisible injury” meaning no one may be able to “tell” anything is wrong from looking at you, but they have no idea.

After being in the hospital for a few weeks in Mississippi, I came home to my parents house and stayed in a hospital bed in the den of my childhood home. My mom quit her job to take care of me. I was not able to bathe or dress myself & wasn’t able to drive for several months after the accident. My brain injury & stroke affected my ability to organize my thoughts, my impulsivity, focus, attention, executive functioning and I struggled to regulate my emotions. If you would have asked me a month after my accident if I had any of the above symptoms, I would have denied them. I was in major denial & I didn’t believe anything was wrong with me (mentally). When someone has a brain injury, it is hard to reason with that person…they do not think anything is wrong with them. Our brains are so complex and each brain injury is very different depending on the region of the brain effected and it will vary person to person in general as we are all so different.

I remember when my mom told me I was not going to be able to go back to college in August of 2007 in Mississippi. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t go back…I had planned on living with a few of my new friends in an apartment off campus and was so excited. She said that the doctor’s said I wasn’t well enough to go back. It was clear to anyone else that I couldn’t live on my own at that point, however, I was still in denial. I remember being so upset that day…but looking back now, I know it was what needed to happen.

I spent the summer of 2007 going to therapy appointments…I was in physical, occupational and speech therapy for several months. My mom drove me to all of my appointments. Physical and occupational therapy were both painful at times, but they were so necessary to my physical recovery. I went to PT for my neck and to OT for my arm/hand/wrist. I remember being in speech therapy and thinking it was “silly” and that I didn’t need speech therapy because I was able to “speak just fine”. Well, little did I know, at that point in my life, that speech therapy is much more than that. I definitely needed speech therapy. It helped me be able to organize my thoughts, slow down, helped with impulsivity and more. I am so thankful for all of my therapists during my recovery—therapy changed my life…it gave me my independence back.

In 2009, I ran the Music City Half Marathon with my mom. I was physically much better by this point in my recovery. However, mentally, I was still struggling. In 2008, I went to therapy (talk therapy) and was put on anti-depressants as I was very withdrawn and spent most of the day in my bed and avoiding answering the phone/engaging with anyone. I had lost interest in things I was previously interested in & struggled to feel any happiness whatsoever. I was on anti-depressants for about a year and when I started running, my depression began to lift. I ended up getting off of anti-depressants and started regularly exercising again because I was able to at this point—it is a huge reason why I am such a believer in the power of exercise for mental health.

I continued therapy, began to exercise regularly again and fed my body with more nutritious foods. I began to feel much better, yet I was still far from “healed” mentally. I was really struggling with follow through, planning, sticking to tasks, my emotions were all over the place and I was very impulsive. I was put on a stimulant to help with these things & the first one I was put on was way too stimulating, it caused heart palpitations and drastic weight loss. So I switched to a different one that worked for me. (I am not going to name the names of the medication because that’s not important and everyone needs are different). My point in telling you about the medications I was on—I believe that sometimes you do need to be on medication and that is OKAY! I am now off all medication. I have been off of the anti-depressants since 2009 and the stimulants since 2017. I was on the stimulants for 7 years. For me, that’s what I needed and I am thankful to be off of them now. They were no longer serving me anymore and I was able to figure out how to live my life without them. Could I have lived those 7 years without them and survived? Sure. However, I was able to go back to school during that time and become a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant and I believe the medication helped me be able to concentrate and organize my thoughts post brain injury and stroke that would have been a real struggle otherwise. I went back to school to pursue that degree in 2015. I had no idea what occupational therapy was before my accident. After going through what I went through and the impact it had on my life, I wanted to do that for other people.

But, let me back track a bit. I want to talk about the struggles I went through & some of the things that helped me get through it. It was not a short journey — the mental recovery for me took about 5 years. I was never the same again after my accident. I was a “new version” of me. When you have a brain injury and a stroke, your brain is different. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s good to realize that you won’t be the exact same person again. At age 19, I had the independence I was just gaining, stripped away instantly. As as I have previously in this post, at first I was in denial, after denial came anger. I was angry that this had happened and angry that I wasn’t in college with my friends living the life that I had “planned”. My relationship with anger is interesting and until this event, I always stuffed my anger. I was always eternally optimistic (almost annoyingly so) and didn’t like to feel anger, so I would immediately flip it in my head to something positive. Anger was uncomfortable for me and I did not know how to deal with it. Honestly, I don’t think I truly allowed myself to feel fully angry about my accident until years later. I was still flipping to positivity to protect myself from feeling uncomfortable things. After the angry, came the depression. My depression didn’t start until about a year after my accident. Everyone deals with depression differently and for the first few months of depression, I did not look forward to any part of my day, except sleeping and being in my bed by myself, talking to no one. I really don’t have any advice/tips for this first phase of depression. Except for to feel. Resisting feelings isn’t helpful and in my opinion prolongs the feeling. Let it wash over you and feel it. We have to feel feelings in order to process them. Once this first few months of depression passed and I was on medication, it started to get a bit better. Something that helped me, was going outside. Walking in fresh air. Doing something that used to be enjoyable to you, even if it doesn’t feel as enjoyable in the moment. One small thing each day. Finally after depression, came acceptance…I’d say I did not reach this point until around 2012. So this small paragraph sounds like I went through all 4 phases (denial, anger, depression, acceptance) very quickly, but it definitely wasn’t fast and I went in and out of the phases several times. There isn’t one “right way” to heal and everyone’s journey is uniquely there own. You can’t “do it wrong”, the only thing you could do to “do it wrong” is to completely and utterly give up on yourself and stop trying all together. One moment, one hour at a time. Remember, you are not alone and it is NOT WEAK to reach out for help. Another thing I’d like to mention that is so helpful is your support system and the people you choose to surround yourself with—I am very fortunate to have a family that supported me through this and still do to this day. I met a friend in 2008 that had been through a life changing car accident when she was a teen that helped me so much to not feel so alone. She has been such a big influence in my life and we call each other “sisters”. My husband has also been very supportive and has seen me through so many phases of life—we started dating in 2010 before I was fully recovered mentally. He’s been so steady through the last 12 years and for that I am thankful.

Fast forward to today, I’ll be 35 next week & I have come to realize the “healing” journey doesn’t really have an end. We are always changing and growing and healing. I am the strongest and healthiest I’ve ever been. I am now a full time Personal Trainer and Health Coach and still work PRN as a COTA at Skyline Medical Center. I believe that health starts on your insides and that includes your brain. Our brain runs the show! If you do not take care of your brain, your health will suffer. I stopped drinking alcohol 8ish months ago and have no plans to drink again. I am a big believer in the power of therapy and taking care of your mental health in general through journaling/meditation/whatever tools work for you. I believe that exercise and nutrition and sleep are three of the most important things that you can focus on each day to be the best version of you! If anything I spoke about in this post resonated with you and you want to talk, always feel free to reach out. If you’d like me to write another post and expand on anything I said here, please let me know!

I am most active on Instagram, you can find me @saratuckerhowe