TBI Army Wife

Dear Caregivers, Has your spouse being diagnosed with TBI? If so, does your spouse suffers from PTSD? How do you know what is what? This could hold the clue and key to treatment and will determine the healing process. Is TBI treatable? the answer is YES, Is PTSD treatable? the answer is YES, is the treatment the same? Most of the time NO. Why? Because some impairments are due to the brain capacity to perfomed optimally. My husband has brain injury as the result of an explosion and Iraq. Often providers attribute all the symptoms in soldiers to PTSD when in fact they can be the result of the TBI and yes TBI and PTSD ARE NOT THE SAME. PTSD and TBI share some characteristics but ARE NOT the same. Don't be shy and ask questions to providers, this is your right as a patient or a spouse or family caring for a TBI patient. So the big question is "Why are we treating TBI as PTSD?" The answer can be described with a very sophisticated financial calculation. My husband is getting n...

Dear Friends, It has been one and a half years since my husband sustained a traumatic brain injury. After so many fruitful efforts my husband will be undergoing a medical retirement from the Army. At first I was so worried because my husband did not want to retired but the reality is that most of his impairments will stay with him in some way or another so he will never be fit to return to duty. It will be a difficult transition not only because of what the process entails but for me it will feel like a separation, a divorce from the army. This may sound strange or maybe dumb but I am honest in what I feel. For me it feels like another loss, another grief, another reason that makes me sad and wonder... In the army I met wonderful friends, those to whom I shared so much. When the soldiers deployed, we the spouses were more united than ever, we had Friday nights dinner, Saturday care packages preparation and we always had something to do. It was a family, one that carries the same burden...

Happy New Year to all my friends. The beginning of a new year is most of the time the beginning of new goals that we expect to fulfill. It is common to set goals based on lived experiences so this year one of my goals is to never give up hope. Hope is the key ingredient to expect what your heart desires. My hope is that I can have happinnes, love, patience, wisdom and all those characteristics that will help me succeed in whatever should come to my life. When I think of the year 2010 it makes me wonder where did it go, it went so fast, it was so hectic, so accelerated that I barely had time to enjoy myself like I used to. This year I will try to do meaningful things that will deliver postive outcomes and that will make me happy. Things that will be new experiences during this year will be my husband’s medical retirement. I know many unexpected situations and new adjustments will come with this new change in our lives. This first quarter of the year I want to write about the medical ...

Christmastime is usually a very happy and joyful season to many. I remembered 2004 was my first Christmas by myself and I didn't have any other wishes than having my husband back home, by then he was in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The other night I was thinking about the spouses of deployed soldiers and how they are spending their Holidays and the spouses of wounded soldiers spending days and nights in a hospital next to the bed of their loved ones. "I'm blessed" is the phrase that comes to mind everyday, my situation can be much worst and it isn't. My husband has a brain injury and during this time of rush and celebration I tend to forget he cannot do things the way he used to. After a brain injury it is all about using strategies and modifying life pace and habits. This second Christmastime after his brain injury I knew that I had to plan ahead, buy most of the things online and take it slower than in the past. If we had an activity at night that means my husband nee...

Self-esteem is a key component in traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation. Self-esteem is utilize mainly in psychology and it is define as the evaluation and appraisal of a person own worth. I remember when my husband sustained the TBI and was sent home on September 2009. He was angry and very frustrated, but all that suddenly changed to be sad and with a sense of worthless. One of the characteristics that distinguished my husband was how independent and sufficient he was, he would spend days in the field or he was deployed or he was just in any given mission the army sent him. He was so proud of his soldiering skills and of his soldiers. Why am I writing about this? There is always a purpose in my blog and that is to show how it was before the injury, immediately after the injury and some later time after the injury. You will notice that things will not always have to be sad. Self-esteem is a very important component, it will determine how motivated the person will be and the chan...

Dear Friends, I hope you had a wonderful week full of good experiences. In 2002 when my husband joined the army as an active duty soldier I was so proud and I am still very proud to call myself an army wife. The military prepares and trains very hard to accomplish their mission and that is one of the reasons they are the best military system in the World. We, the spouse and family members play an important role in the life of soldiers. Broken and unhappy families will not contribute positively to the life of the service member. After my husband's injury, my role was not only as a wife but also I was the cheerleader in his time of sadness and sorrow, his shoulder to lean on when he was falling down, his good listener and his best friend. Despite my own sorrow, pain and frustration, I did it ALL because of Love and Duty. I love my husband dearly and I was ready to fulfill the commitment as a wife and more specially as an army wife. My husband's heart is to return to duty and tha...

So a few weeks ago I was in a business travel in Colorado. By the way what a beautiful city of Colorado Springs. Everything is so gorgeous, the nature, the birds, the mountains and I can keep going and going. Well, my husband went to visit me and we had a great weekend. We went hiking, yes you heard right, HIKING!!!! I was nervous but really, how do you know there is progress if you don't try it. It was not a horrible hike, it was a trail going to the top of the mountain. Just imagine going hiking with my husband who has bad balance issues and dizziness. I have to say that I am so proud of him. Yes, it took us double or triple the time it takes anybody else but we made it. I actually filmed him on video and I captured how he used strategies to keep it straight and make it to the top of the mountain and down. He does not know about the video but I will tell him, maybe he likes it and posted in his blog :) I thought about taking this video because it is not about limitations with bra...

Dear Friends, I was thinking today in how many things we as family of wounded, injured and sick loved ones have to endure. I remember when my husband was sent home a year ago how difficult it was to have him accept his situation. He was so discouraged and angry at the same time that I did not know what to say to make it right. It seems that when tragedy strikes there are no words that can make the situation right but I found those phrases of encouragement that changed ALL to the better. You do not need higher education degree to say the following phrases: "I will never know how you feel but I will walk beside you and be there for you" "I will support you and will not leave you alone we will walk together this new path" "If you let me I will be more than your ______(wife, husband etc.) I will be your best friend" "Do not fear, be courageous and lets do it together" "I Love you" These are simple but powerful phrases that can transformed a...

When my husband and I married on May 29, 2000 I knew we had a lot of things we were going to share. We dated for four and a half years and we were just a 19 and 20 years old couple of students with big aspirations. I always saw how my husband was determined, responsible, kind, intelligent and many more beautiful qualities that made me fall in love with him. One other thing, he was so funny that automatically my parents fell for him too. These 10 years have been wonderful. Why I am telling all these? well as a caregiver sometimes things can be frustrating but I always look back and know that many of the things that frustrates me now are the result of the brain injury. If I need to repeat the same thing 5 times because my husband forgot he already asked me or if as the result of impulsivity he does something I did not think was right, those are the moments I have to remind myself that I am wearing the shoes of a caregiver. Sometimes I meet spouses that say, "I was not expecting this...