Traumatic Brain Injury is life changing.
Traumatic Brain injury is an invisible, life-altering injury for everyone involved. It’s truly unbelievable how quick your normal can change. Like one minute you’re a 42-year-old pregnant chick who's trying to stay fit and the next you’re a 42-year-old pregnant chick whose husband has a TBI (traumatic brain injury).
Why I am here and who I am:
Hey mama, I am Trish— AKA Labor Nurse Mama. I am a labor and delivery nurse with over 15 years of high-risk OB experience. I am also a mama to 7 kids and have given birth to 6. This means I am quite familiar with the postpartum period and how to navigate it. I am the online birth class educator for Calm Labor Confident Birth and The VBAC Lab birth classes and the mama expert inside our Calm Mama Society a pregnancy & postpartum membership community! I am passionate about your birth and motherhood journey! You can find me over on IG teaching over 230k mamas daily. I am passionate about your birth and motherhood journey! We make a small commission from some of the links (you dont pay any more for using our links); however some of the recommendations, we do not earn anything; we just love em and want you to know about them. Click here for our full disclosure. Thank you! In 2014, My husband and I had a tough year. The life-changing can never go back to the routine, event. Honestly, we ended 2013 with a bang too. We had a rough miscarriage in August of 2013. I was with our kids in California working on a travel assignment as a labor and delivery nurse when that plus sign showed up. About the time the kids and I embraced our little “guppy” as we named her, we lost her. It was all too shocking, as I have had five previous successful pregnancies without a hiccup. I was so angry at my ‘elderly' body for denying us this child that we suddenly wanted so badly. I felt betrayed by myself and the aging process. Mike offered to fly to me and be with me, but I said no. I think God used this season of being alone to deal with the loss, to prepare me for the dreadful season coming my way. Related Post: A Day in the Life of a Labor & Delivery Nurse This post may contain some affiliate links (which means if you purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission, but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Thank you for supporting us and helping us to keep our blog up and running! For our full disclosure read here)








God did many miracles on my husband's behalf, undeniable miracles. He spared his life. He allowed him to walk again. What you don't realize at first, is that the brain controls all things that make you human. It's who makes you, you. It tells you which coffee you like, how to walk, how you sign your name, and whom you love. Mike not being able to walk seems so trivial now after realizing that the Mike we knew no longer exists. We had no idea that the road ahead of us would be lined with difficulties and sorrow, alongside joy and triumph. We knew little at that point in our journey, about the harsh realities of life after traumatic brain injury.
In the months following the accident, Mike was ‘let go' from a job he loved and hurt by men he trusted. They called him disabled, even though his doctors cleared him for work. They doubted his abilities and his new potential. They felt he was not capable of doing the job he did before falling, we knew he was competent for the job, and it hurt deeply. They made decisions based on ideas and not facts. Mike believed that because of their outlook on his injuries that God was finished healing him. He felt that he wouldn't improve beyond where he was at that point. The fear of men and the way they treat a man who is injured is almost as damaging as the initial injury. I'm not sure if this short, little glimpse into my life has truly expressed the walk we are on. Life after traumatic brain injury is challenging, and while the support for traumatic brain injury victims is lacking, support for the family is almost non-existent. It's a lonely and long journey. But God is good, and victories will be had. You have to see the blessings in the pain, to be able to move on and travel the path laid before you. If any of you have experienced life-changing experiences, I would love to hear your stories. There’s a bunch of us, of that I’m sure. I'm including some related links that I feel might help you if you are at the beginning of life after traumatic brain injury or like me, in the midst of the struggle of loving someone with a traumatic brain injury. Either way, we all need help to survive.

Traumatic Brain Injury resources:
“Brain injury Is.” “How I survived my Husband's Brain injury.” “The Traumatized Brain”