Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury

SPEAK OUT! Itty-Bitty GIANT Steps

presented by

Donna O’Donnell Figurski

SPEAK OUT! Itty-Bitty Giant Steps will provide a venue for brain-injury survivors and caregivers to shout out their accomplishments of the week.

If you have an Itty-Bitty Giant Step and you would like to share it, just send an email to me at neelyf@aol.com.

If you are on Facebook, you can simply send a Private Message to me. It need only be a sentence or two. I’ll gather the accomplishments and post them with your name on my blog approximately once a week. (If you do not want your lastname to be posted, please tell me in your email or Private Message.)

I hope we have millions of Itty-Bitty Giant Steps.

Here is this week’s Itty-Bitty GIANT Steps

Penny Byler (survivor) … So, today, I took off my leg brace and climbed the side of a small cliff. Yes, I MADE IT ON MY OWN! It was fun. I’m glad I did it. My leg, on the other hand, is refusing to listen to me now. It doesn’t want to support ANY of my weight. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.

Dave Figurski (survivor) … My trike has changed my life! Cat Brubaker, who rode alongside Dan Zimmerman on a 5,390-mile cross-country trek, introduced me to the Catrike 700, which both she and Dan have. Cat and Donna encouraged me, and I bought the same model in April 2015. I ride three days a week, fifteen miles each ride. The recumbent trike is perfect for me because I have a balance problem. When I ride, I feel perfectly normal. (The day I did my first ride was the first time in ten years that I was outside alone!) I recently passed 2500 miles.

I have much farther to go before I equal the mileage done by Dan and Cat on their cross-country ride. But, I’m having fun, and I don’t intend to stop.

Ric Johnson – Brain Injury Survivor

Ric Johnson (survivor) … I spent twelve hours (in two days) in my back and front yards to aerate both, and then I spread compost on both. I’m not going to count all the holes my shovel and I dug, but there must be more than 200. Hard work, but I did it!

Alex Manning (survivor) … I got a little emotional today. At the end of April 2015, a skateboarding accident left me in a coma that permanently changed my life. Health professionals thought I might not survive through the night.

Alex Manning – Brain Injury Survivor

Despite my coma only lasting a day, I didn’t remember anything for three weeks, and I forgot mostly everything from my prior 23 years. In the hospital, I accepted that I might not return to living independently. Returning to independence was such a struggle; I never thought I’d be capable of something like this. I’m staying by myself in Sydney this week. I know a grand total of three people in this country, and they’re far away! They’re located in Melbourne and outside of Brisbane. Independence doesn’t get much more independent than this. TBI (traumatic brain injury) is not the end. It’s just a new beginning!

YOU did it!

Congratulations to contributors!

(Clip Art compliments of Bing.)

(Photos compliments of contributors.)

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