Opinion: After 20 years in rehabilitation research, my young daughter’s traumatic brain injury transformed my mind and my career
After 20 years of work in rehabilitation research, my young daughter’s traumatic brain injury taught me something new.
In the spring of 2020, my almost 4-year-old daughter Livie sustained a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) when a tree branch fell on her head in our backyard, devastating our whole family. Returning home after five months in the hospital, the real journey began: How do we best care for and support our daughter, who cannot do any daily activities on her own, cannot walk or talk, and has become cognitively impaired?
Her mother and I were consumed with keeping her alive, modifying our home to meet her enhanced needs, identifying an army of clinicians to help a 4-year-old who did not truly understand what was happening to her, all while trying to support the rest of our family and maintain our own physical and mental health. Our two young sons lost their playmate and were simultaneously starving for parental attention. What used to be the organized chaos of caring for three young children became just chaos. Still, during what we were told was a critical recovery window after her injury, we pushed our daughter to engage in a vigorous therapy program.
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