“The Human Spirit Cannot Be Discounted.”

“I have learned on my journey that the human spirit cannot be discounted. The human spirit is something the doctors can't quantify. It is something they can't give a statistic on. But it is an amazing and incredible thing. You cannot beat someone down who wants to triumph."

That is Lee Woodruff speaking - from experience.  She is the wife of Bob Woodruff, the now famous journalist who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2006 while in Iraq. She and Bob wrote a book last year about their life, their crisis and their recovery as a family.  The book is titled "In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing" and it quickly became a best seller and a “best book of 2007.”

When Lee spoke of the strength of the human spirit, she was speaking to an audience of more than 600 people, and as the recipient of the 2008 Woman of Courage Award bestowed upon her by the Domestic Violence Crisis Center in Stamford, CT.  Her connection to domestic violence with brain injury was highlighted in her talk by way of a little known fact: that roughly 11% of the 1.5 million traumatic brain injuries per year are caused by domestic violence.

Ms. Woodruff’s words and this news story really hit us close to home.  We see the triumph of the human spirit every day here. But it isn’t every day one of CareMerdian’s patients also publishes a book about their own journey through TBI.

In his book, Life After Near-Death, Matt Stepien tells his frightening and compelling story of a rare virus that lead to a brain hemorrhage, three weeks in a coma, and a life completely transformed by this crisis.

Matt describes the book as an autobiography detailing the trials and transformations following severe brain injury.  Toni Bethke at our Santiago Canyon facility where Matt was a patient in 2005 describes it as an amazing and heartwarming story of Matthew's courageous efforts and achievements after a near fatal brain hemorrhage.

Matt’s recovery took more than 2 years, but he is now living independently at home much to the joy of his wife, children and six grandchildren. Matt is employed as a civil engineer.  He lives with permanent neurological damage to his right leg and to the center of the brain affecting his balance.  That is the legacy of his brain injury, but as you will see in his book, he is discovering talents he didn’t – and perhaps wouldn’t otherwise - know he had.

Lee Woodruff likely summed up Matt’s feelings as well when she said at that awards luncheon earlier this week,

"How do you get through any crisis without an amazing network of friends who drop everything and will do whatever is needed? To any one of you who thought about my family in Rye, N.Y., or said a prayer, I want to thank you all. Because I firmly believe that you all brought him back to us. It really does take a village in a situation like this.”

Matt congratulations on your book – and most assuredly on your own triumphs.  You inspire those in your “village.”  You have certainly inspired us.

Matt’s book is published by BIGRED and is available for $14.95 on the web here.

Sesame Workshop Initiative Helps Young Children Cope with Catastrophic Injuries and Military Deployments.

Scan the media landscape and you’ll find literally hundreds of stories published per day about traumatic injury. The immense attention being given to brain injury in particular, is fueled by the large numbers of veterans who are experiencing some form of TBI due to their deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The stories are often filled with the great hope surrounding treatments, research and funding.

But someone very unique leap up out of that landscape today – Elmo.  Yes, that little red Elmo, along with his Spanish-speaking Sesame Street friend, Rosita.

Sesame Workshop, the non profit organization behind the generation-traversing television show Sesame Street, today launched Talk, Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes, a colorful multimedia, bilingual “kit” aimed at helping young children in military families cope with catastrophic injury and the changes it brings into their young worlds.  The kit includes downloadable posters, videos, music, magazines and adult resource guides. Specific topics separated for children and adults; cover homecomings, deployments and “changes.”

The initiative is actually phase II of Sesame Workshop’s military outreach program, and aims to help young children between the ages of two and five who are experiencing the effects of injury, deployments and the changes in parents returning from the front lines. The success of the first phase of the TLC project, which was called Talk, Listen, Connect: Helping Families During Military Deployment was so successful Sesame Workshop enthusiastically launched its second phase.

The TLC kit is designed specifically for families now living with war-related injuries and for the purpose of helping caregivers build a sense of stability and resiliency during times of separation and change.   According to the Workshop, its goals are:

•    Reduce the level of anxiety children may experience during homecomings after multiple deployments
•    Help parents with ways to cope with multiple deployments
•    Help young children gain an age-appropriate understanding of a parent’s injury by including them and the entire family in the rehabilitation process
•    Reassure children that they are loved and secure and that together with their families, they can learn new ways of being there for one another and having hope for the future

Sesame Workshop will produce and distribute 500,000 DVD kits at no cost to families, schools, caregivers and facilitators.  The TLC web site also contains much of the DVD material.  The DVD kits include videos, print materials and postcards, all featuring the loved Muppet characters.  The initiative serves the estimated 700,000 children between two and five who have a parent in the military. An enhanced TLC web site is also planned for unveiling this coming Fall.

While this initiative was created with some of the unique issues military families face in mind, we believe any family facing the challenges of separation and changes due to catastrophic injury will benefit from this wonderful project.  We salute Sesame Workshop and their partners!

The TLC website is located here.