Welcome!   Let me introduce myself.  I am Christina Bongiorni and I am 29 years old.  I was involved in a serious accident when I was 16 years old.  I choose to share this story with you.

 

Morning came, as it did every day, as I made my way to school.  I had many things on my mind that day:  a meeting in the morning, a group project to work on, research for the article I was writing and the usual cheerleading practice later in the evening.  As I arrived in the parking lot, I was right on schedule and needed only to cross the street.  Despite my heedful glances I made before crossing the street, the oncoming car failed to see me.  I was hit by the car and in that single moment:  my life changed forever.

 

By God’s grace, I am still alive, after waking up to a long road of rehabilitation.  My above obligations were put on hold, as therapy took over my life.  Everything is different now.  I had to relearn how to do simple things that I had learned years ago.  Because the injury altered my sense of balance and stability, I had to re-learn how to walk.  Plastic braces or AFOs were made for my feet, keeping them always in the flexed position.   This aided me with the ever so important placement of my foot, during the task of walking.  With this assistance, I could focus on my balance, etc. 

 

My brain injury also caused substantial tightening of my left arm.  Initially, doctors used Botox injections to loosen the muscles.  To this day, 13 years later, my left arm is still somewhat tight.  My left arm will always be tighter and slower to move.  The tightness in this arm affects the fluidity of my walking, in terms of the swinging of arms.  When using my left arm, I find that I must concentrate on the task at hand, as a way of trying to speed up the motion. 

 

Life with a traumatic brain injury proves to be challenging in another way too.  Given the section of the brain injured, everything in my life prior to the accident (knowledge and experience) was untouched.  All the relationships I have with my mother, sister, best friend and English teacher in school remain in my memory, just as they were before.  My short term memory however, suffered the brunt of the injury.  This makes meeting people challenging.  It now takes longer to recognize and connect faces to a name.

 

Along with the problem of new names, new information also proves to be difficult to recall.  This made school work extremely hard to manage and absorb.  It took me longer to complete assignments and I had to study longer to be able to retain new information.  The part of the brain that was injured handles the entry and retrieval of this kind of new information, of which made learning possible.  The ability to recall this new information that was taught is what prolonged my college education.

 

As an effect of my brain injury and short term memory lapses, a lot more planning goes into my day.  My planner has become my new “right hand.”  If a meeting/plan/occasion is not recorded in my planner, with highlighted text, there is no guarantee that I will be there.  This is my way of scheduling the parts of my day, always having it to refer back to; in written form of course.

 

Living life today with a traumatic brain injury is constant effort and work.  The obvious disadvantage of this injury is the extra effort it requires to remember something or recognize someone.  If someone tells me about the traffic downtown, I might forget it by the time I am in the car and on my way.  Due to the location of the brain injury, these are the struggles I deal with.

 

I have needed to learn different ways of doing things, ultimately adapting the way I live my life day to day.  I have chosen to embrace these challenges that I face and move forward in life, even when being difficult at times.  My perseverance ultimately fuels my recovery, which is why I keep this attitude.