Brain Injury Coma Help for Families

Coma, What Now? Brain Injury Coma Help

By Gordon S. Johnson, Jr., Esq.

Call me at 800-992-9447

Brain Injury Coma Help is needed most when the phone rings and you learn that someone you love or care about is in a coma.  The vague scary shadow of coma, something never before more than a movie plot, is now YOUR crisis.  Our hope here is to help you deal with the emerging situation, help you to deal with this new harsh reality and to give you a compass to lead you and your loved one to safety.

My first coma web pages were authored by a member of my staff that had been where you are now, the spouse of a person in a coma. The story of her nightmare, hits as hard today as the first time I read it in 1996.  Click here for the Spouse Coma Nightmare. As Becca and I wrote http://waiting.com, our community of web advocates for brain injury grew from two to dozens and then thousands.  Becca knew what the waiting was like, the answers she had needed in the middle of the night, the support she craved but could not find.

As her co-author, I tried to help her with the technical questions, connect her to others who had similar experiences and allow her free reign to use her artistic gifts to make this page something that would not only help you, but help her.  As I embark on this renewed challenge to provide Brain Injury Coma Help, my goal is to share the lessons I have learned from the many I have listened to since The Coma Waiting Page went online.  Further, as my TBI Voices project actually recorded the voices of more than 30 brain injured people, you do not just have to read my words, but can listen and watch those of the others.  See our TBI Voices Youtube channel to watch.

While my mission of advocacy hasn’t changed since the 1990’s,  Brain Injury Help is different because it is more of a collected wisdom.  My challenge in doing this page is to provide a guiding hand, so that I can show you more than tell you.  While long lessons usually take on the feel of a textbook, it is my hope that this page can be read as a story. We learn, we pay attention better, we feel more from the story than the lecture.  Lethan Candlish’s  tour de force Who Am I Again, has shown me just how much more.

Our focus is to create this resource in a way that you can get the information you need right now, yet be able to come back later for more details you may crave on any given issue.  While each coma story is unique, Brain Injury Coma Help, shares common lessons.  Thus, I have started on the most common themes, and then provided links for expanded topics, if you are driven to learn more.

Brain Injury Coma Help’s starting points:

• The coma vigil;
• Understanding Severe Brain Injury;
• Comprehending the needs of the recovered survivor.

Being the Caregiver to a Brain Injury Coma Survivor

While men wait too, more is typically demanded of women at this time.  Our lives begin with mom as the primary nurturers, the guide in learning how to behave.  For the survivor who awakes from a coma, some of what he or she went through as child will be repeated.  Even if you are a wife and not a mom, you may have to play the mother role, because behavior if not all cognitive skills will have to be remolded.  How well the caregiver deals with these astonishing needs, will dictate the quality of recovery for the coma survivor. It will also directly impact the quality of life for the balance of you and your family.

I will next focus on the stories of three Moms, taken from our TBI Voices Initiative    All three Moms went through the coma waiting; all three persons survived severe brain injury.  Each coma posed unique challenges, yet common themes appeared.

Chris is the story of a 15 year old girl pedestrian struck and run over by a drunk driver. For the Chris story, click here. 

Nancy survived a head-on collision when she was nine. For the Nancy’s story, click here.

Rita was a successful woman, when run over in a hit and run accident.   For Rita’s story, click here.

Nancy’s recovery was good, Rita’s bleak, with Chris somewhere in the middle.  Yet, each mom’s first days have many common challenges.  We think their words can help those whose waiting is just beginning.

Next –  Fighting and Believing in Brain Injury Coma Emergence

Gordon Johnson

Attorney Gordon Johnson is one of the nations leading brain injury advocates. He is Past-Chair of the TBILG, a national group of more than 150 brain injury advocates. He has spoken at numerous brain injury seminars and is the author of some of the most read brain injury web pages on the internet.

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