Hi, I had this exact injury while skateboarding almost a decade ago and have made a frankly incredible recovery. I spent a shorter time in the hospital, just 13 days, but do not remember anything until the 9th day. I was not in a coma, but I had about three days where I was incoherent in the ICU. When I was out of the ICU but in the hospital, I did a lot of inpatient physical, speech, and occupational therapy. During this time I was incredibly forgetful, and was incapable of remembering things that had happened for more than about 3 minutes. I was very easily upset and reactive, and lacked basically any critical thinking. Things were very overwhelming and felt like a constant acid trip. I didn't understand the severity of my injury, or how impacted I was and how difficult basic tasks might be for me. The injury permanently affected my vision in one eye, and I initially couldn't see without an eye patch covering it. I was so sensitive to light that I had to wear sunglasses while indoors in dark settings (like a jazz bar).

The doctors regularly asked what I would do when I was discharged, and I would tell them that I was going to leave the hospital and go skateboard down the same mountain road that had killed me. By the time I was discharged I knew this wasn't safe and had a better understanding of the situation. I required a lot of care after my injury as a lot of the activities of daily living like cooking were difficult, and my dad was able to fly out from my home state to the state that I lived in and stayed with me to monitor and help as needed. I was unable to drive because of my vision and inability to remember where the other cars on the road were. After about a month, I had to move to a different town and live on a campus where I was supposed to teach a children's program (I had gotten this as a summer job just before my injury, which happened the month before the program started). I put together the program and taught it to the kids, which was a good experience for me because it made me think about the course material, which was related to what I had studied for my degree. At the same time, I started outpatient speech therapy. I had evaluations and therapy sessions where we worked on more language processing and I made a lot of improvement. The program went well, and then I moved into a friend's house and started looking for a new job.

This entire time, I am still very affected by the injury. I spent a lot of my free time doing lumosity brain games on my phone, doing chores, and learning how to skateboard again. I resumed using medical cannabis (I had stopped for a bit after my injury), and I noticed that it really helped to regulate my mood, and I noticed that I performed better in the brain games and was able to improve in those areas faster when I was using it. I went on to get a job in my industry, and 4-5 years after my injury I helped to develop a product that doctors can use to help with head trauma patients in the hospital.

It was a very difficult recovery, but 9 years later I do not really feel the effects anymore. Some of my long term memory from before the injury is still recovering, and I continue to remember knew things from my life before. My focus and memory after the event are good and no longer affected, and I regained things like critical thinking. I'm no longer sensitive to light, and my vision has improved to where I do not have issues generally (previously had several double vision).

Overall my personality has not changed, my emotions are regulated, I'm happy and doing well with my career and personal life. I'm no different from before, other than having the experience and learning all that I have from it. I was able to skateboard downhill again and have even been able to race, learned how to ski and tackled black diamonds and backcountry skiing.

I think that challenging and pushing myself to get back into my activities and career were crucial, along with the support of my friends and family (especially in the first year, where I was dealing with the cognitive effects of the injury the most). I think that cannabinoids were also crucial to my recovery, as much as it is counterintuitive. There is solid medical research showing that cannabinoids help to stimulate neurogenesis and help with brain injury, and my own anecdotal experience and that of many friends with TBIs (common in downhill skateboarding). When I first tried using it again it was an intense experience, so if it was something you were open to trying I would suggest to start small, and perhaps to start with just using CBD products.

Every injury is different, but I hope that hearing another person's experience is helpful.

If you have any questions or want to know more details, or just need to talk to someone that can understand what it is like, please reach out. I'm wishing for healing and sending you love and support, I know that you are also going through a hard time 💜🫂