New Brain, New Me

Below is my submission story to be thought of for the award through the amazing Brain Injury Connections! This is my story in a very small nutshell!

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Hello! My name is Jessica Damico. But I am most commonly known as Jess. I am a mother of four very handsome boys, ages ranging from 11-14 years old. Two of the boys have been brought into my life by my husband, 7 years ago. Over the years we have been very active, as a family. Participating in obstacle course races, like Tough Mudders and Spartan races at least three times a year. I have also added onto my racing rack by participating in half marathons every year. So yes, having an active life is something I have enjoyed thoroughly. 

On May 2, 2022, I was working my overnight shift. The cameras showed that I suddenly fell backwards and hit my head hard on the concrete floor and started seizing. 18 minutes later, a guest came and found me at 4:30am with blood coming out of my nose and mouth. He immediately called 911. The ambulance came and rushed me to RMH where they did scans and knew that they would not be able to help. They wanted to airlift me to UVA, but it was so foggy they took me by Pegasus instead. For those who are unsure, because I was, Pegasus is an ambulance for patients in critical condition.

My husband was notified that I was being transported to UVA. He called his parents right away to come and stay with the kids and take them to school so he could go be with me. 

The scans at UVA showed that I had skull fractures and spine fractures. It showed that I also had brain hemorrhaging and brain swelling. The neurosurgeon told my husband that he would have to go in and take off the top two pieces of my skull or else I would die. Unhesitantly, my husband told him to go for it. They shaved my head and took off my top two skull pieces and added in a pressure device. 

I was in an immediate coma and was in one for about a month. Maybe a week less, but I don’t recall what happened. While I was in a coma, I had three strokes. I had a cerebellar stroke, a brainstem stroke, and a thalamic stroke. With the brainstem stroke, doctors had thought that my pons was detached. They gave their condolences to my husband and said I would never wake up and I would live off of the machines forever. They gave their condolences many times as they thought I wasn’t going to survive. Two of the doctors had said that my brain injury was the worst they had ever seen. A world of issues occurred while I was in a coma, but I’ll just give the highlights and not the lowlights. 

At one point I had an insane infection on my lungs. They had to surgically go into my side and scrape away the infection. With this procedure I had a 50/50 chance of living. Before they did the surgery, they printed off my heartbeat, rolled it up, and put them in vials for my boys and husband. My husband always has my heartbeat at his bathroom sink next to a picture of us. They successfully scraped the infection off of my lungs, and I survived! That was one of about 14 surgeries I had performed on me. 

I woke up from my coma at UVA, but I also had post-traumatic amnesia, so I don’t remember my stay at UVA at all. I was in the NNICU area during my time there. After two months at UVA, I was sent to Sheltering Arms Institute in Richmond for a month. I still had amnesia, so I don’t remember the first two weeks at Sheltering Arms. They had to rate my orientation on a Rancho scale and once I finally became orientated, I was so unbelievably confused why on earth I was there! 

I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t eat, and at one point I couldn’t breathe. I had a trache and had to have an oxygen tank with me when they wheeled me out of my room for short periods of time. 

Yes, I was in a wheelchair. I couldn’t transfer in and out of bed, in a chair, or even wheel myself. I could barely move and OT worked with me on trying to wash my face and the like. After a few weeks I worked my way up to a walker. Mainly because our house is not accessible at all. Which I’m thankful for!! We worked on me trying to walk. After a few weeks at home with my walker, I was able to start walking without it and use a trekking pole to get around. Now I don’t use anything! Just the trekking pole when I go trail walking.

I couldn’t talk either and had to use sign language and give a thumbs up or down to try and convey what I needed, wanted, or the type of pain I was in. My speech therapist added a speaking valve to my trache when she was in the room and at first I couldn’t even make a sound. Eventually I would start to squeak out a sound and then eventually I started to talk and kept talking! There was nothing that could keep me quiet. 

I couldn’t eat. I had trouble with taking bites, chewing, and swallowing. To this day I still have issues with swallowing, but it’s not as bad as it was!! I had a PEG tube to get all the nutrients I needed for each day. Eventually I worked my way up to pureed food, then to minced food, then moist food, and finally small bite-sized soft foods. Which is still where I’m at now. I can’t move past it because I can only open my mouth so far. I have facial paralysis and can’t even smile or show my teeth. I found that I’m a perfect candidate for facial reanimation and I have seen the benefits of the surgery! There is an institute in Cleveland and in LA. So we shall see where my journey goes!

A lot of these things, I’ve learned, are due to my strokes. Which only happened because of my TBI. After all, I was only 34 when this all happened and I was a very healthy person!

I still can’t remember the night of my accident or even much before then. With my thalamic stroke, my long term memory has been damaged. Believe me, that has been quite frustrating. The doctors tell me that I have to be okay with never getting those memories back, and that’s all part of the acceptance stage I’m in now. I don’t even remember my wedding day!! But at least I have so many pictures of the past to look back on. I’m so thankful I took A LOT of pictures. I’m also relearning everything. Mainly in history, right now, and also with my schooling. I was in my last semester at school, so I have to read back through my text books. I do remember all of the hands on though! Which is very helpful. I was going to school to be a Funeral Director and I still have big plans of owning my own funeral home one day. But my business plan looks different since I can’t lift anything over 10 pounds. 

With the other strokes, I’ve had to participate a lot with therapies. I’ve participated with NexJ Wellness through JMU, Sportable organization in Richmond, and different programs through NCHPAD. 

One of the other effects of my strokes is that I have severe double vision. Right now I have to wear an eye patch so I can see only one of things. But I am working with ocular surgeons to have multiple eye surgeries coming up because I do have a horizontal gaze palsy. Which means, I can’t move my eyes from left to right. So they are going to try and realign my eyes. My other ocular surgeon is going to work on finally trying to get my eyelids to close! I haven’t been able to close my eyes in over a year. So he is thinking about putting in platinum weights in my upper eyelids and suturing both of my eyelids together partially, and he feels that will help to finally close my eyes. He is worried that I could potentially damage my eye because the protective barrier is now gone. So we are going to try and regenerate it. With the double vision, I haven’t been able to drive in over a year. So I rely on my husband to take me to appointments and rely on close church friends to give me rides to bible studies and women’s events. There was a women’s event at my church that I spoke at about faith! You need faith or whatever your spiritual connection is to fully survive and improve. 

With everything that has gone on, I have definitely come to accept what has happened to me. My TBI counselor calls it, “Radical Acceptance.” Accepting what happens and then coming up with something positive to do as a result. I work with gait therapists since my balance is still off. I take naps daily as that is part of the brain healing process. I’ve learned about proper nutrition and homecook my meals with healthy brain food. I’m very mindful about what I do to make sure everything is done safely. 

Since my recovering journey at home, I have had surgery again to put my skull pieces back on. Which they aren’t my actual skull pieces as they were concerned about infection. But they are plastic composite pieces made from their lab, so all is well! So I no longer have to wear a helmet! 

With recovering physically, I really want people to know about brain injury. I want them to be educated in all matters surrounding the brain because you truly don’t know if it will ever happen to you. I’ve never even heard about TBI before I had it. I also want to educate others on strokes. How to properly recover from them. It takes a whole lot of prayer and determination! Also, practicing mindfulness is HUGE in healing. My doctors all stress that I need a positive environment. Which is EXACTLY what my husband gives me. I work with my counselor to try and stay away from things that are negative and when I can’t, how best to respond and set healthy boundaries. When my doctors stressed positivity, my family, as in my parents and sisters all left me. But we won’t get into that emotional mess! 

Overall, I’ve truly come a long way. I am so happy that I have survived this far. Research through the CDC shows that I have a 26% chance of surviving up to my 39th birthday. I’ve never longed to be 40 so much in my life! 

My husband and Jesus have both been my rock. I still have quite the journey to go in recovering, but one step at a time! I know I won’t be what I once was, but I’m creating the new me and I’m excited about that! It is my goal to run races again and to drive again, and with patience and determination I know I will get there. 

Thank you so much for reading about the highlights of my journey. If you ever want to talk more, I’m always around and love having people visit me in my home!