AM I BRAIN DAMAGED? Memoir of Return to Life after My Head Injury.
At one point during my recovery, I remember telling or being told that I was alive because God wanted me to be. To this day I am sure I was kept alive to serve others and utilize what I have been through to help people. I have used this mantra through the years of recuperation and professionally as an Occupational Therapist. When something has become hard to handle, or difficult to learn, or perform professionally, I have known God is behind me, and his plan for me is, to help others.
-Lori Faitel
February 2, 2008
How do I explain something I don’t even understand?”
I was in a car accident while driving to work one day. I was registered dead, then in a coma. My mind grew from that of an unborn child to the adult body that surrounded my brain in a matter of 6 years.
I have written this book based on the memoirs I kept from the time I could write again, I think I was mentally about 4 or 5 years old, I kept memoirs until after I tested with a normal brain function and began college.
I cannot begin to explain what I went through, nor can I give accounts from those I am closest to. My husband, Adam, has requested to never read, hear, or see details about this book. My parents have both told me how proud and happy they are with who I am today. They also have expressed how the memories of their minutes, hours, days, months and years continue to haunt them.
I am basically the same person today that I was prior to the closed head injury. A lot of detailed aspects to my personality, demeanor, and temperament have changed. In the long run, I feel all the changes have enriched the person I am today. I like me, and I truly have a compassion for others, that was not in my character prior to the injury.
Today, I am a practicing Certified Occupational Therapist who dreams of becoming a writer. In these memoirs you will read my most intimate and private parts of my life. I have known since the late 1980’s that I would eventually have the courage to delve into my memoirs. I hope this book opens the eyes of the general public about the lives of the head injured and also supports the head injured and their loved ones.
My years of recovery changed not only my life, but many of those around me. I see this as a very significant piece of art. Allow me to invite you to my private world, share with my happiness, sadness, confusion, my return to normal life and ultimately me today.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! TRUST JESUS NOW
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Lori, Your article has touched my heart. I was raised in a dysfunctional home, and 8 months after accepting that God could love me became a quadriplegic. I pray our memoir will bless others.
Berta
