Gray Matters

Gray Matters - Brain Injury: The Inside Perspective
Heidi Lerner

Imagine this: the sun’s shining and you’re crossing at the light. Out of nowhere, a car comes racing through the red light and…WHACK! You go flying through the air and land on the sidewalk. Your head hits the concrete. Immediately, you go into a comatose state… When you come to, what are things like? What are YOU like? Have you ever thought of such things?

Silent Epidemic

What would it be like to have a brain injury? It is a dilemma for brain injury survivors that others simply don’t have a clue what they are going through. People don’t comprehend the devastation or how comprehensive the affects are in a survivor’s every day world. This lack of awareness is often a strong factor that drives survivors further and further into isolation. This hovering vacancy of knowledge is the “silence” in which brain injury spreads, hence the “Silent Epidemic”.

Gray Matters remedies the Silent Epidemic

Heidi Lerner introduces an intriguing book of poetry, Gray Matters, Brain Injury: The Inside Perspective, in which she offers an introspective, resourceful and sometimes humorous view of what it is like to suffer a near-fatal blow to the head and live with its complications. Ms. Lerner was in a car wreck twenty years ago, where she sustained a severe Traumatic Brain Injury. Ten years after her injury, she earned her Masters degree in Special Education specifically for survivors of brain injury. Gray Matters gives its readers a non-clinical, but professionally based sense of what a brain injury entails. Readers walk away with a personal sense of what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a brain injury survivor.

The author brings a smile to her readers’ faces; she touches on serious issues, but not in a distressing tone. She believes that laughter can be “emotional medicine”. The aim is to help survivors see objectively the problems they’re going through and glimpse the lighter side of these otherwise troublesome issues. Such insight and humor can cause attitudes to adjust, leading to acceptance and a better coping with problems brought about by brain injury.

The chapters of the book consist of Brain Injury, Sequelae, Rehabilitation and The Brain. Sequelae (i.e. meaning symptoms) is a particularly educational chapter where poems masterfully articulate many of the symptoms of brain injury. The last chapters are Academia, Nature’s Touch and Circle of Support. Academia is regarding Cognitive Rehab through schooling, Nature’s Touch is about how the ocean serves in recreational therapy. Lastly, Circle of Support illustrates the therapy of support groups.

Audience of Gray Matters

The target audience is multi-faceted. The primary aim is to educate those personally affected by injury to the brain. This includes survivors, their friends and family members as well as caregivers and other therapeutic professionals. The aim is to be an intellectual, psychological and emotional support. The secondary purpose is to educate the general community about what it’s like to have an insult and compromise to our master organ, for those who have been spared the drama of brain injury.

Ms. Lerner has been most distressed to see how professionals in the field of rehab have such an un-personalized, book-knowledge of brain injury. They should know that they are not treating information, they are treating people!!! In a review in the Journal of Neurosciences Nursing, Marie Lasater states “Gray Matters will give survivors of TBI hope and reassurance that they are not alone in their rehabilitation process. It will help family members understand the thought process of the brain injured patient. It will also guide the health care provider in giving optimal rehabilitative care.”

In the sickness of silence, we are called to a new frontier of awareness regarding brain injury:

In the field of rehabilitation,
Brain injury is often termed the “Silent Epidemic”
Silence hovers around the lack of awareness,
Allows for infectious growth.

But for a brain injury survivor,
The epidemic is far from quiet.
It is PERVASIVE / COMPREHENSIVE / UNDENIABLE,
Life gets off skew,
GOT TO GET A BALANCE!
Organic dysfunction,
24-7… dealing!
Rehabilitation is a full time job.

Lets break the curse of silence!
You need to know on the inside
What it’s like to walk in my shoes.
Pick up my book,
Listen to my rhyme,
I’ll have you captivated in no time!

This is a call to awareness…
Pass on the word of what you hear,
We are breaking the silence
Thanks to your receptive ear.

We’re opening the gates,
Enter and you can feel.
IT’S OK TO CARE,
Because empathy heals!
Melt those stones in there,
Love rebounds,
When it’s found.

We’re paving the way for knowledge,
We are the pioneers…

Gray Matters!

Contact info:

Heidi Lerner
Brain Injury Advocate, Peer Support Specialist, Published Author
www.graymatters4u.com
braininjuryadvocacy@roadrunner.com

I want you to picture this - One summer day, the sun is shining.  You’re walking  along the road and you come to a traffic light.  It flashes walk and you cross the road.  A car comes speeding through the red light and sends you flying onto the sidewalk.  Your head hits the concrete and you immediately go into a comatose state, where you remain for days, even weeks…  What will it be like when when you open your eyes?  What will you be like?  …Have you ever thought about these things?

Yes, there is truth to that we don’t realize what we’ve got until it’s gone, but I aim at giving my readers a sense of what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a brain injury survivor.   Have you ever felt your brain was all tied up in knots?  We all have rocks in the road that we stumble upon.  My point is to come to use those challenges to make us strong!  Gray Matters is not a heavy book, it is provocative, light hearted, inspirational, and even fun.

You can purchase my book by pressing on the leaf on my home page.  Pass a link to me onto someone who has  been through more trying experiences or knows somebody that has. For some, it may be a saving grace.

Paved Paradise

I guess Joni Mitchell
was pretty right on,
When she said
that we’ll never know
what we’ve got
until it’s gone.

Does that mean
we don’t usually appreciate our A, B or C
until they’re taken from us?
I ask - does this have to be true?
Can you possibly imagine
that this has happened to you…?

In the flash of a moment,
the picture perfect sky
cracks into millions of tiny pixels.
The sun boils, blisters,
Pops and oozes dry.

The sedatory crash of the ocean waves
Turns to high-pitched wails.
Shock sets in,
Melody siphons into monotone,
Life’s intimacies are dulled,
Processing slows,
Everything changes

In a blink of circumstance.
Pains cringe out of unknown places,
Emotions turn up their volume,
How you are now is not the same
as how you once were.
Now deal with it!

Smoke comes out of the tractor’s exhaust…
Your paradise has been paved
and they’re installing a parking lot.

In time,
You’ll be looking for a parking space,
and you’ll never know
what was once there in that place.
Worse yet and what’s a scare,
You will not know what could have been there!

At first,
You probably don’t realize
what you cannot do.
Just try to not let it get to you!

Brain injury flattens out our many capabilities,
Even ones that beforehand, we were not aware.
I guess some of us must learn these things the hard way -
The question remains…
Must we go through loss
To appreciate what was once there?

I’m calling to attention -
In you, I’m trying to cause a rustle,
So that you can exercise your empathy muscle!

To the unimpaired,
This is aimed,
So ignorance of this loss
will cease.
Knowledge births tolerance,
Acceptance…
For survivors deserve
To be granted their peace.

A clear portrait is being painted
of what we’ve got…
So don’t belittle others,
Because what you can do,
they cannot.
Please…
Don’t pave paradise and put up a parking lot!
(Joni Mitchell, 1970)

I continue on my journey of the treasure hunt.  Seeking the jewel in the response to my cover letter and resume.  I’m joining in with the others on their treasure hunts.  It’s getting crowded on this path!

Some good news…  I sent my resume to the man in charge of the grant with the Department of Defense, Dr. Murray Stein.  They are researching interventions for soldiers with mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Though there are no paying positions for someone “with my skill set”, he did refer me to be a member of the Consumer Advisory Board.  What I would have to offer them is a sensitivity and understanding to what a brain injury survivor goes through.  I will be applying to the board to see if they want me to be a member.  I will report what happens when it happens.
Meanwhile, I will stay positive and optimistic.  All does work together for good, for those that love G-d.

I am in a job search now and have been stressed about it. I have decided to take care of myself as my top regard. I am trying to remedy a back problem and it is important to my well-being to participate in certain sports and another game I play. I Swing and Zydeco dance, surf-kayak and I play a Chinese tile game called Mah Jonng.

Searching for work is a very stressful. The work I do is so beneficial for brain injury survivors. Why is it that adminisrations that do the hiring for health organizations don’t really have any sense of the individuals’ benefits from individualized healing work?

I have had stressers, job loss, a car wreck, an injured back…

Today is a good day, though. My back has reached a point where I can get back to what makes me feel good, kayak surfing!

I get to Swamis early in the morning to meet the guys I go out on the water with (all on waveskis). I’m saying to myself “Am I crazy? It’s freezing !!! (i.e. that is San Diego cold Because I had hurt my back in previous months, the gentlemen I surf with offered to carry my boat down and up the 140 steps to get out to the Swamis and Boneyards breaks. All I had to do was gear up and go down to the water and jump in my boat and paddle out to the surf. I was treated like a Princess of the Ocean!

After being out on the water for about 45 minutes, the exhillaration masked the stiffening of my fingers and hands. Then the sun broke out and the fun was accompanied by comfort.

So the previous weeks I have been wondering to myself if I’d be able to do an Eskimo Roll to save myself. So I get out to Swamis and in a calm break, I try a practice roll. In case you don’t know what an Eskimo roll, I supply you with visuals…

Eskimo Roll.MPG

I came up from my roll… Like riding a bike… My confidence was reassured… I see a set coming in and turn and start paddling. I caught my first wave (in almost a half of a year).

I dropped right into a 360… AND HEIDI’S BACK!!!!!!!

San Onofre and Swamis, surfing USA!

More tomorrow at San Onofre!!!

Uohhhhh!

I’m coming up for air. Sorry I have been under water for so long, I’ve been all caught up in the affairs of the world… Dealing with brain injury survivors at work. G-d love them!
Unfortunately, I lost my position the end of last year. The grant funding got used up and not replaced. I have some time to put into this now.  I still carry on with the Gray Matters Brain Injury Support Group. I actually just came from the group tonight. We met in La Jolla tonight.

Gray Matters…

of the people,

by the people,

and for the people.

All, survivors of brain injury!

Sorry I haven’t posted in some time, I got the job I was waiting for!  So I have been getting acquainted with my new position and it is a day full.  That’s why they call it full-time!

I am now the Peer Support Specialist at Access to Independence in San Diego.  I am primarily working with people who have sustained brain and spinal chord injuries.

I am starting a mentoring program which is cross-disability.  So I match people up that have the same or similar disabilities; one has been down the road with the disability with someone who has more newly acquired the injury or disability.  Mentors use their disabling experience to help guide another person who is walking a similar path.