Women tell how they grew into their new selves after brain injury

Bobbie Larsen's life changed three years ago when she fell 8 feet onto a concrete floor, fracturing her skull on the left side.

"I went to the emergency room, and they sent me home and said I had a concussion," Larsen, of Cody, Wyo, said. "I had a hard time walking, and my speech was affected. I had a hard time remembering, I couldn't taste things, I was dizzy, and I threw up all the time ... I couldn't stand up to function, sit on the toilet or take a shower."

Most symptoms didn't go away as she'd thought they would. They dragged on for weeks, then months, then a year. Meanwhile, people, including some in the medical community, started wondering if Larsen was really as sick as she said she was. Maybe, they suggested, she was imagining it. She looked normal; wasn't she?

"It was a year and a half before I found out there was something wrong with me," she said. "You couldn't see my injuries; they were all inside. I thought I was depressed. No one would listen to me."

During the worst times, she thought of taking her own life to make life easier for her family. Kathy Good, also of Cody, knows what it's like to have your life turned upside down. Good's heart stopped twice on an operating table in 1997.

"My husband had to think about where he wanted me to be buried," Good said.

Good came through it, but when she finally woke up, she wasn't the person she had been before. Her sleep and moods were affected. She was depressed. She found it difficult to motivate herself to do anything. She couldn't concentrate. At times, she felt suicidal.

"I had changed," she said. "I knew it, but nobody else did. I kept asking, 'Where did Kathy go?'"

Always a stickler for organization, she now had a hard time organizing anything - her work, her home, her life. Unaware that she had suffered a brain injury, Good said she tried to hide her symptoms. She always had loved her job as a teacher, but she now found it torturously difficult to organize her thoughts and to keep up with her work. She was tense and on guard all the time, lest someone realize how much she struggled to keep it all together.

"I lived in fear that my principal would find out I didn't know what I was doing and fire me," she said.

Good blames that stress largely for the stroke she suffered in 2004 and the stroke for further damaging her brain. Her struggles intensified, and, though she returned to work in 2005, Good eventually realized she would have to give up the teaching profession she loved. She retired in 2007.

Through different paths, both women eventually were led to neuropsychologist Dan Cossaboon, who gave them a series of tests that revealed the extent of their brain injuries.

By that point, "I was willing to do anything," Good said. "It turned out there were lots of deficits in my brain."

Finally, after torturous months and years of not knowing what was wrong or why they were experiencing symptoms, Larsen and Good had the answers they had sought.

"The consequences of my brain injury were validated," Good said. "I had thought I was lazy."

That validation was both comforting and terrifying for both women. They now had an explanation for the things they had experienced, but they also were forced to realize that they likely never would regain everything they had lost.

"I went through the grief process," Larsen said. "I wasn't going to get me back."

Dr. Cossaboon told them he led a group each week that might help them cope with their emotions and learn ways to compensate for the effects of their brain injuries.

Good was quick with her response: "I don't do groups."

Eventually, though, he convinced both women, and they began to see things from different perspectives. True, they would never be the same as they had been, but they could grow and reach their full potential.

"You don't heal to what you were; you heal to what you're going to become," Good said.

They learned coping skills, such as writing things down to help them remember them, always parking in the same row so they can find their car, or wearing ear plugs in noisy social gatherings to avoid panic.

When Good is trying to find a word that eludes her, she's learned to "walk around the tree" and think of it from all sides. Eventually, she'll find it. They watched comedies to help them learn to laugh again. They also learned to accept some of their inadequacies.

Larsen said she's learned to laugh at herself when she does something a little different, such as putting an empty bottle in the refrigerator. She used to be embarrassed and frustrated.

Good and Larsen now run a support group to share those coping skills with others suffering from brain injuries. Both women said they appreciate the support of their husbands, who have gone through everything right along with them.

"We are not the people they married," Good said. "Yet (my husband) has traveled this trip with me. There isn't a day goes by that he hasn't helped me."

Both women also have found that their interests, and their priorities, have changed.

"My life before, I thought I had it together," said Larsen, who is a wife and mother of four children. "I found out after my traumatic brain injury that I didn't. My family was being torn apart."

Larsen said she learned to slow down, to focus on her family and to say no rather than take on too many obligations.

"That 'smell the roses' thing is really true," she said.

She also realized she loves to learn.

"My brain is a sponge now," she said. "There is so much I want to learn."

Good discovered a hidden talent for poetry, though she'd never written poems before. She uses that gift to encourage her self and inspire others.

Larsen said she loves the person she is becoming.

"I am who I am supposed to be," she said. "If this hadn't happened, I would have lost my family ... My husband always tells me, I'm glad you're not normal. Normal is sheep following sheep."'