In an Instant - quotes

originally written May 2010

I took away SO much from Lee and Bob Woodruff's book In an instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing.  I have attached a long list of quotes that struck a chord with me - I hope you enjoy them.  Later in this blog I will discuss my journey a little more and explain just why these specific quoes freally hit home with me so stay tuned and see what is yet to come.    I hope that you can take away something real and meaningful from these quotes, I know I did.  I also feel like if given the opportunity I would totally be friends with Lee Woodruff, she is quick and smart and she gets my offbeat sense of humor, while I may offend some people sometimes I truly believe she would find me entertaining.



In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.

"The cognitive injuries a person could suffer were impossible to predict at this stage. Each brain injury is highly individual, and recovery still remains somewhat of a mystery to medical science. But the more faculties a person has going into an injury - intelligence, motivation, engagement in life, even support from family and friends - the better the prospects for recovery."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"This kind of injury...it is complicated. It takes a long time for the brain to heal; it's about patience. Always remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Healing from brain injuries can easily take up to eighteen months, even two years."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"People responded to tragedy in so many different ways. I would lead the charge with my offbeat sense of humor and somehow, by doing that, give everyone permission to laugh. Laughter would keep us sane, it would provide relief. Even laughter was a tiny way to take action."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"It was easy to hear the word injury and assume that meant it would be a matter of weeks before things knitted themselves back together. A sane person, a person whose mind was not in the zone, would have taken one look at Bob and wondered if he would survive, let alone ever function again."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Gallows humor has its roots in the quest for sanity. When the situation is so black, so dark, that grief or fear threatens to overwhelm, there is nothing like a good joke or two to resuscitate hope."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"the brain is a big hurdle. There is no way to say how much will come back."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"The magnitude of the story and how our family's experience would touch a chord. ...but with countless others who had suffered grave injuries and fought hard to recover. "  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"If you are a person who sharpens pencils for a living and you have a brain injury, you will probably not have as many neurons from your former life to help rehabilitate yourself."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.
 




"recovery from a brain injury would seem eternal. Improvement would occur at a snail's pace. If anyone believed this would be a smile healing, like breaking a leg, they needed to think again."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"If I had only known then how wonderful it was, that simplicity of life's everyday routine"  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"No matter how black the hours, light, laughter, and feeling will slowly begin to trickle back one day."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"But I also learned that the scar is always there, just below the undergarments, although the raw wound may close. And when you turn, examining yourself at the end of the day before bed, it is you who can see it best in the mirror."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"there are no shortcuts to healing. There is no circumventing the pain. To truly heal, you must walk right through the blazing core of grief and face it head on, every agonizing day. Only then can you begin to take baby steps towards recovery."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"There are no good luck charms, no talismans or deals with the devil. Misfortune and trouble can find you at any time."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.

 "characteristics common to traumatic brain injuries. many people with head injuries exhibit actions that are inappropriate: agitation, frustration, and outbursts not unlike an infant's."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.


"Abnormal behavior might simply become part of what Bob's therapists would teach me to call "the new normal"."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.


"With most brain injuries, the filter in our heads that we all use to get along in society slips. People lose their inhibitions in ways both shocking and painful for their loved ones."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.


"The brain heals in amazing ways, You can't discount that."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.


"His head wound needed to be stable to heal, and his brain was not yet ready to wake itself up. It was still rebooting; the connections inside were not yet complete."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Remember, love is in the guts and the rest is in the brain."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"emblem for life: the need to be kind to yourself every single day because you simply can't know what is next. "  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"We could finish each other's sentences and use nicknames or code words that made no sense to outsiders."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Sometimes it was easier to operate on blind faith."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"we treasured our friendship like a rainstorm in a desert."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"someone who looks effortlessly put together. one of those rare gals who women and men gravitated toward; the type of person my mother's generation would call lovely. Try as you might to find some reason to dislike her, you simply couldn't. She was intelligent, articulate, giving, and poised, with a wicked sense of humor."   In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Danger was impossible to avoid. Bad things could happen to people everywhere, no matter how safe they tried to be."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"You can take precautions in life, but they are like seat belts, they won't necessarily keep you safe."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"different ability"  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"We made it impossible for him to take himself too seriously."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I understood the strength of being in the company of women. It was powerfully good medicine."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I have heard it said that when God takes something away he gives something back."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Life is so much more interesting when there is someone you truly respect who is trying to kick your butt, who makes you rise to a higher level to compete. "It raises the level of your game."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"an explosion caused the brain to slosh around against the skull. This sheared off millions of neurons and caused damage that wouldn't be revealed until Bob woke up. Even then it could take time. Sometimes the differences were subtle - slightly impaired judgement or cognitive ability, perhaps - and sometimes they were more grave, like major personality differences. One of the greatest frustrations with a head injury is that while the person might seem just fine to others, things are profoundly changed inside."   In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Research showed that caregivers routinely reported feeling isolated and trapped."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Damage to the front of the head, or frontal lobe, often resulted in a loss of executive function. This is the part of the brain that organizes our actions without even thinking about it."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Many victims of car accidents whose head slammed into the windshield, or soldiers who had blast injuries, came home "flat" and unemotional. Sometimes the personality came back. More often than not, it didn't."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"People have a whole new appreciation for the value of life, of what it means to be spared."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Everything has to start somewhere as his brain relearns how to give commands to his body."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"It's sad," Dr. M said. "It's sad what happened to you and your children, but I've never seen one family yet who didn't rise to the occasion. People love you and will support you. People put one foot in front of the other every day. They figure out how to do this."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"On the wall opposite my bed there were blown-up photographs of my family, and just looking at them was motivating. Those pictures brought me more than happiness; they gave me a powerful will to recover. "  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Your recovery is going to be painstaking, like the way ants are bailing the tunnels, one grain at a time. But you will get there, I just know it."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Those pentagons represented the two halves of his brain. One contained the love he felt for his family and the gratitude he had for being alive; the other side was the tempest, the horrible raging fear and disorientation that lived in his brain right now, as he tried to make sense of his new world."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Every long-winded well-meaning expression of sympathy was a giant highlighting marker over the fact that I was different."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I wanted people I knew to acknowledge my pain and then move on, with the speed of a wedding receiving line. I wanted, more than anything, to be one of them again."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I saw potential head injuries everywhere."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.




"I had been on go mode, always moving forward, making decisions, not allowing myself to feel very much."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"Although I was often hard on myself and the slow pace of my progress, I could see small changes."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"As much as I loved and respected my therapists, they were not there to give me a break. It was their job to help me put it all back together, to teach me coping skills for my deficits."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"it was a matter of building the new neural connections that led to them. Much of it was time. The brain takes longer to heal than any other organ." In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.

 

"I've earned these scars," he would joke.  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"We've all endured a crisis. And we've survived to feel the miraculous force of recovery at work. What I do know is that I have been blessed. I have been very, very lucky - "  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"The exact extent of my injuries is still difficult to measure, but I see improvement everyday. With the help of intense cognitive rehabilitation, the healing powers of the human body, and the profound support of friends and family, I have come closer to my old self, little by little. But I will never be the same."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"No one can undergo a life-changing event and be the exact same person they were before it happened. I am a more grateful person now, on so many levels. I truly appreciate the depths of friendship and I'm thankful"  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I've also had to relearn how to do certain things I once took for granted."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I'd missed all these people and it was clear they'd missed me too. It felt like coming home."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I have to say that I spent very little time looking back at what was lost."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"traumatic brain injuries: diagnosing the problem is just the beginning. The real work takes place in rehab. ...needs professional cognitive rehabilitation to help connect those neurons, to work with any individual deficits, and to develop coping strategies as they heal. There is so much more to be done on this front."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.






"I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to hold my hand, praying that I would wake up and someday recover."  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, written by Lee and Bob Woodruff.

Lee Woodruff - brain injury seminar

originally written May 2010

As I have said before, the Brain Injury Program at Scripps Encinitas is fabuloso.  They called the house one day to ask if my parents and I would be interested in being interviewed and photographed by the Union Tribune newspaper when they covered a story about brain injury and the annual conference being held at Scripps La Jolla this year.  And, we were invited to attend the conference and listen to Lee Woodruff speak about brain injury and its affect on her family.  She and her husband co wrote a book and if I can get just one person to read their book and begin to understand brain injury then I will feel like my struggle has made a difference.  Please read  In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Lee and Bob Woodruff, its brilliantly written and you will have a greater understanding of Brain Injury when you have read and digested their book.



Caring for brain-injured is subject of seminar



By Keith Darcé, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER






Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 12:05 a.m.





(photo from the grocery store goes here)
Steve Schlimmer helped his daughter, Nikki, with a shopping list last week at a supermarket. Nikki Schlimmer suffered a serious brain injury during a fall last year. Her therapy sessions have been cut by her insurer. 


LA JOLLA— For Lee Woodruff, wife of the ABC News anchor who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006, the kindest act directed at her after her husband’s injuries came weeks after the explosion.
One of Bob Woodruff’s physical therapists asked Lee Woodruff how she was handling things, the author and TV news editor said yesterday in La Jolla, where she spoke to a packed room of health providers who care for brain-injured patients.
“Floodgates,” Woodruff said, recalling her reaction to the inquiry. “An entire box of tissue was gone.”
More tears came when the therapist began massaging Woodruff’s neck.
“Human touch is so important,” she said.
But doctors, nurses and other caregivers often miss opportunities to offer such simple gestures of comfort to family members of their patients, who can be stricken by depression, fear, isolation and anger over their relative’s debilitations,
Woodruff was the keynote speaker at the fifth annual Brain Injury Rehabilitation Conference sponsored by the Rehabilitation Center at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas. The two-day seminar, held at a conference center at Scripps Memorial Hospital-La Jolla, featured sessions on recent research efforts, emergency room care and sexuality after brain injuries.
Yesterday’s audience included Nikki Schlimmer, 35, who moved in with her parents in the Scripps Ranch area of San Diego in October, nearly three months after she suffered a brain injury.
Schlimmer had been working as a pastry chef at a hotel in Hawaii when she bounced out of a moving Jeep and landed on her head.
After nearly dying from the injuries, Schlimmer returned to San Diego to continue her recovery. Her speech remains stilted and her balance is uncertain. She can’t drive and she hasn’t returned to work.
“It has been difficult to watch her struggle day to day with trying to improve,” said her mother, Lana Schlimmer. “Yet she has been persistent in slow progress that is really miraculous to see.”
A major problem has been getting Nikki Schlimmer’s health insurer to continue paying for therapy sessions with professionals, Lana Schlimmer said. The daughter received care through the brain injury day treatment program at Scripps Memorial Hospital-Encinitas until the insurer cut off funding for the service.
Psychologist Nicole Andreatta told seminar attendees that the lives of family members are significantly altered when they take over the care of a brain-injured relative.
The disruption and stress can lead to increased conflicts, isolation from the outside world and divorce, said Andreatta, who directs an Escondido brain injury center for Learning Services.
Support from health care providers and community services, particularly beyond the second year after the injury occurred, could prevent many of those problems, she said.
Help can even come in the choice of words that health providers use to discuss recovery expectations, Andreatta said.
“When you start talking about the future in terms of what the person was before (the injury), it tends to be more negative,” she said. “But when you talk about moving on to better things to come, that tends to be more helpful.”
Woodruff’s personal struggles have included severe panic attacks, worries about the psychological well-being of her children and overcoming an addiction to sleeping pills, which she wrote about in one of two books about her experiences.
Recalling moments when doctors discussed her husband’s early outlook in discouraging clinical terms, Woodruff exhorted seminar attendees to offer family members reasons for remaining hopeful, no matter how dire the diagnosis for their relatives.
“You have to give me something,” she said. “Tell me the story of the patient who completely surprised you — who defied the odds.”
Woodruff’s husband returned to work as a television journalist more than a year after the roadside bomb crushed the left side of his head and sent rocks and shrapnel ripping through his face and throat. He continues to work as a full-time reporter for ABC.

Acupuncture

originally written May 2010

My orthopaedist suggested I try acupuncture and massage to help relieve the pain radiating from where I broke my clavicle.  The acupuncturist said he will try to "re-wire" me.  I have only had one appointment so far but I think it helped!  For several days following the appointment last week I was able to move my left hand better and the pain in my shoulder was not as bad as it normally is, I am so excited about this I cannot even begin to explain it to you!  Having my left hand function at a more normal pace is amazing, I didn't realize how poorly it was moving in the first place.  I knew it was slower and I've never been left handed so it was a little tough to judge but when it started moving at a more regular speed and I didn't have to focus all of my energy into making it do "normal" things I cannot tell you what a relief I feel!  Now, if we can just figure out a way for my right side to stop being so damn cold I would feel like a million bucks!

Today was my second acupuncture appointment, today he worked on my brain.  How scary is it to have someone poke needles into your brain and other places (gotta love that Chinese medicine)!?  Yes, I have several tattoos, yes, I might get a few more but let me tell you - I still have a bizarre fear/dislike of needles, go figure.

Niall tattooing me in my kitchen - weird but fun!  No, its not small but its awesome!

  My third acupuncture appointment was yesterday and once again, I love it!  I'm still hoping to see more improvement in my motor skills and hopefully the temperature on my right side will become bearable.  Justin says that acupuncture tries to teach your body to "heal itself". 

Acupuncture is a Chinese therapy that has been used for centuries. It is based on the theory that there is energy, called chi or qi, flowing through your body. Chi is thought to flow along energy pathways called meridians. Acupuncturists believe a blocking or imbalance of the flow of chi at any point on a pathway may result in illness. Chinese medicine practitioners believe acupuncture unblocks and rebalances the flow of chi to restore health

Acupuncture is considered a holistic approach to curing disorders and discomfort in the body’s system. It is the Asian way of cleansing the body from these illnesses, working its way to clear the natural flow of energy inside the body, as they are weakened or blocked by certain conditions, whether physical or psychological.

11.

Written April 2010

Someone asked me the other day "Why are you writing a blog, what are you going to write about?"  Immediately I thought "Didn't you see Julie and Julia?"  Obviously I think my story should be turned into a movie, just the way "Julie's"  was.  I would love it if my story was interesting enough to be made into a movie - but my life is actually a little boring these days.  I wake up, have breakfast and look at my day.  I might have a doctors appointment, I might have therapy. I might vounteer at the library, I might play Wi, I might walk at the lake, I might make it to the gym, it almost never changes.  Sometimes I have plans with my friends if I'm lucky but everyone has their own life and with those lives come responsibilities and schedules that don't allow them to put me in the limelight all of the time .  Which is actually a good thing because I am not comfortable when I am the center of attention, I feel most comfortable when I am a little bit on the outside, looking in.  Of course, I like to have a front row seat and be close to the center of attention because I do not want to miss anything!  Thankfully, my friends don't mind coming to pick me up and driving wherever we may be going.  I am grateful everyday that my friends are there to support me and pick up the pieces when I start to drop them.  It's amazing how lonely life can be when you don't have socialization forced on you, when you can't just hop in the car and run errands or when you don't have a job to go to everyday.  I catch myself looking back at pictures of times pre-accident when everything was just easier.  I didn't appreciate it at the time but it amazes me to think aboutt the time when I didn't have to pre-plan my every move.

Yes, things were easier awhile ago but I honestly think I like myself a little bit more now.  I think about others more, I look for the good in people, I am better at understanding hard times, I am more patient with people than I used to be.  I wish that I would have come to this epiphany on my own but I didn't, maybe that is the reason for this accident.  I am finally OK with being alone, maybe I won't find my forever with someone else and for the first time I can honestly say that no longer scares the shit out of me.