by Jinianne Lutz

Created on: June 08, 2009

Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI, is a term most people are not familiar with. However, it's a term that has become all-too-familiar to my husband and me. On December 12, 2008, we received a phone call no parent should ever have to hear. Our son was in an auto accident and was in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital 40 miles from home. We were unprepared for the scene in the ICU. There was our son, Jeff, on life support (respirator), in a coma, with tubes in both arms, some sort of device sticking out of his head, and medical equipment beeping steadily.

The doctor entered the room about ten minutes after we arrived. He informed us that our son had suffered a traumatic brain injury and was heavily medicated to reduce the swelling on the brain. The doctor would make no prognosis of Jeff's recovery. Externally, there was little to show our son had been in an accident. He has a black eye and a bruise on one knee. His main injuries were internal and life-threatening.

We prayed for Jeff's healing. We notified family and friends. Within days, prayers were lifted to God's ears from places as far away as Australia.

We researched brain injuries. Injuries can be slight or severe, permanently damaging or only fairly debilitating, and take months before a true prognosis can be made. Brain injuries are like a spilled filing cabinet. Before an injury, every piece of information we know is filed alphabetically, and our minds can instantaneously access the information we need. Then enters the brain injury culprit and all of our information (or sheets of paper) are spewed out on the floor in heaps and piles. We stand there, disoriented and confused, unable to decide how to clean up the mess. Over a period of time, our brains begin to reassemble the information as memories and emotions slowly return.

We found terms like "Rancho Levels" and began to read about them and ask the doctor for clarification. Lower levels indicate severe conditions. As a patient begins to heal, he will move up those levels until, hopefully, he will be able to resume his life and place in society.

Seeing a person in a coma is nothing like what is portrayed on television. There is no sudden waking up and everything is okay and back to normal.

After two weeks, Jeff began to awaken from the coma. After one month, Jeff was moved out of ICU into an intensive rehabilitation facility. He was still fairly unaware of us or his surroundings. His external injuries had long since healed, and his brain was still

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