“Chanting Saved My Life: Irene & George on TBI Recovery”

Bill (Host):

Because a lot of people do not survive TBIs, I want to start here. Irene, can you tell the audience how this event happened in your life? How did it occur?

Irene:

I’m very glad to be on your podcast and to be able to talk about it, because you’re right—many people don’t understand what a traumatic brain injury really looks like. It’s one of those invisible injuries, and most people are honestly perplexed by it.

For me, it happened seven years ago to the day—November 19th. I had a catastrophic fall in the parking lot on my way to work. I slipped on black ice, fell face-first, and hit my head on the ground. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was unconscious for a while. When I finally woke up, I went inside thinking, “That was a nasty fall,” but assuming I was still okay. I wasn’t.

Bill:

You said you quickly realized you were not okay. What was happening that made you notice something was different—about your thinking, your perception, your life?

Irene:

It was a difficult time already. I was struggling at work, dealing with health issues. I had an appointment that very afternoon to start the process for bariatric surgery. And we were moving to a new office building.

And that new building… honestly, I believe that’s how this happened. At the old building, they salted the parking lot well. At the new one—they didn’t. I stepped onto a patch of ice and fell. If we were still at our old building, someone would have seen me. But at this new site, no one saw a thing.

When I got inside, my boss thought I was late just because I overslept or something. Meanwhile, I had been lying unconscious in the parking lot.

Bill:

So you were outside on the ground, alone? No one came out to help?

Irene:

No one. Not a single person saw me fall or helped me. That was terrifying in hindsight.

Bill:

And this was in Detroit?

Irene:

In Southfield, our neighboring city. And it was cold. We had something unusual that day—freezing fog. The roads and the parking lots were coated. I had ice on my windshield when I left home. But I didn’t expect the ground itself to be a sheet of black ice.

Bill:

So you go inside, trying to function, trying to push through. What happened next?

Irene:

I went to the ladies’ room to regroup and ended up just crying. Everything hurt. My head hurt. My body hurt. Something inside me said, “This is not normal.” But I kept thinking, “I’ve got to get to work.” You don’t expect that one step—one fall—can change your life instantly. But it did.

Bill:

The symptoms—when did they start showing up fully?

Irene:

The next day. That’s when it hit me—this is serious. My entire body was in pain. My mind felt off. I couldn’t think straight.

Bill:

And you were in IT, right? A systems and business analyst?

Irene:

Yes, I was. But I never went back to work. Not once. The TBI took me out of the workforce completely. After the ER visit, I started seeing doctors, and eventually I saw a neurologist. Everything changed after that fall.

#TBI #TraumaticBrainInjury #StrokeAndTBI #BrainInjuryAwareness #HealingJourney #Buddhism #NamMyohoRengeKyo #Chanting