My Story: Right after New Year’s in 2019, I survived a subarachnoid hemorrhage. I woke in a rehab facility three weeks later with no idea of where I was or what had happened. I would learn later that this is typical. While my balance was sketchy, I still had most of my motor functions. The biggest loss, for me, was what had always been an exceptional memory. Now I struggled with my short-term memory. My wife tells the story of my father in law sitting with me and watching the news, after each commercial break I would react to the headline story as if I hadn’t heard it already. After being released from the rehab hospital, weeks of at-home nursing care and rehab got me to a place to start outpatient therapy with Community Rehab Care.

My Work with CRC: Physical, occupational, and speech, I was lucky to have a place so close to home to help with these things. We started working on my balance, and I managed to go from using a cane to walking home about two miles unassisted. Occupational therapy helped me with my organizational and fine motor skills. My hand writing is still terrible, but not as bad as it was right after the rupture but I continue to improve. Speech therapy continues to be an ongoing help with how I communicate with others and deal with challenges at work. I kind of wish they would change the name to cognitive support but I don’t have that kind of pull.

Strategies and Areas of Ongoing Work: I continue to struggle with certain things such as losing keys that I just put down five minutes ago, but the things that are most helpful are the routines that we have worked to build. One strategy is having a designated place to put my keys, wallet and glasses when I come home.

My Story: Hi my names Pete and my story begins at birth when I had a shunt put in my head due to structural complications. I was re-injured on a school bus at the age of 8 and I'm completely blind in one eye.

Biggest Accomplishment: My biggest accomplishment is meeting all the milestones (developmental and otherwise) that people thought I would not be able to reach when in fact I did and exceeded many expectations. I went to college and completed a degree, I live and work independently, I have passions that include cooking and writing. I'm an essential worker during this time of COVID, as I work at the Big Y.

Biggest challenges: Reading social cues and properly understanding these. Maintaining a healthier lifestyle by eating healthier and working out. Working at a grocery store during a pandemic. Often there is a lack of knowledge from the general public about brain injury and blindness and the use of blanket definitions which don't help to define them either.

On February 23, 2017, I got into a snowmobile accident and hit a tree. In the accident, I hit my head really hard and was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. After the accident I was rushed to the hospital. At the hospital they gave me all that I needed to be medically stable. After the hospital we were referred to attend Community Rehab Care.

When I first came to CRC I needed to work on multiple activities. In PT, I had to practice my balance, coordination, and sports training. In OT, I worked on my vision, safety, independence in home, and academics. In ST, I worked on grammar, spelling, reading, memory, attention, problem solving, and task accuracy.

Thanks to Community Rehab Care, I am now back to running, hanging out with friends and family, staying home alone, playing the saxophone, reading at grade level, and now I am feeling back to my old self.

I started my injury journey with a motorcycle accident 2 years ago. I was in a head-on collision with an SUV, and miraculously I am here. I’m just glad to be doing all the stuff that I’m doing.

My therapy journey started when after 6 months of being lost with my cognitive function, I figured out something was wrong, and I began seeking out medical help and community support. I then went to inpatient rehab and did some good work there. After about 6 months there, we decided that I needed more. I needed something that was more interactive, and I also needed occupational therapy. I came here to CRC and worked with PT, OT, and speech therapy.

I’ve learned and I’m continuing to learn how to maintain my life a bit better, to be more balanced and healthy, and to learn tools and strategies for time management, task management, scheduling, and personal management and care.

How I do that, is I use my mobile device to do a lot of scheduling, setting my calendar, and setting tasks with reminders. I just try to be humble, and not tell myself “I’ll remember it later”. I can just operate at a higher level if I don’t have to keep those things in my brain.

I’ve made great strides here, and I have ongoing support from them. I really love it here. They really set me up with a plan for my discharge.

I’m trying to make healthy decisions and set healthy limits and boundaries so that I don’t disrupt my cognitive function. I’m super glad to be here and I’m very proud of my progress and I know that people here are proud of me. All the supports I have in the community have seen the progress, and I have too. I’m very appreciative.

Thank you, Community Rehab Care!

Travis

“I’ve learned and I’m continuing to learn how to maintain my life a bit better, to be more balanced and healthy, and to learn tools and strategies for time management, task management, scheduling, and personal management and care.”

I am a forty-two year old Vocational High School Teacher and I have been married to my wife for nine years. We have three-year-old twins. I worked as an Auto Body Technician for almost 25 years before deciding to try teaching, I started in January 2010 at Lynn Tech and the next summer I got a job at my Alma Mater, Shawsheen Valley Technical High School, and began teaching there in September of 2010. I was so excited to be there and giving back to the school that has given me so much. I was there for two months when I suffered my stroke.

It was Saturday, October 30th, 2010, just two days after the second birthday of my twins. During the normal bedtime routine, teeth brushing lessons and giving them five more minutes of Disney, I just sat down and everything just stopped. It seemed as though I was looking through a fish bowl. Without the ability to speak, move or react as one of my children asked to sit on my lap, I felt something was wrong but also losing self-awareness and drifting. When my wife tried several times to get my attention she noticed the telltale sign of a stroke. The drooped face and drooling prompted her to call 911. They responded within four minutes and rushed me to the hospital. They were able to identify and treat the clot, all we had to do was wait and see what damage had been done. At this point, I couldn’t tell the doctors my own name, I couldn’t say my kids’ names, could not read, using nonsense words, and comprehension was nonexistent. Coupled with weakness on my right side, it was devastating.

Over the next week, the doctors found the cause, a major birth defect in my heart. The doctors were shocked that this was not a fatal event, and that I had not had any prior issues before in life. On November 25, 2010, I had open-heart surgery, which successfully corrected the defect. Now I had to get better. Where should I go? My MRI showed sizable brain damage on my left side, the language area, and I was suffering from potential profound Aphasia. I received speech therapy as an inpatient at rehab, and at home after open-heart surgery. When I was fit for travel we had to decide where I would go for outpatient treatment.

CRC was highly recommended. Starting in January with speech, occupational and physical therapy - I never looked back. Five days a week there and hard work at home on the weekends; I started noticing advances in the word choices and comprehension. Some tasks seemed trivial, but I never said no. It was not easy, there were times when I was frustrated and angry.

The staff at CRC never let me lose sight of what was important, getting my life back! We had monthly family meetings and after a few months they asked me what I wanted out of my recovery, I said I want to teach again. My treatment was tailored to my goal. The next thing I knew I was standing in front of a group presenting my own prepared lesson plans. The next family meeting we set my next goal, returning to work, and on May 21st, 2011, I started teaching full time!

My life is mine to live, thanks to an incredible wife, doctors, and the fantastic therapists at CRC.