Indeed life does change forever, worse yet it can change in the blink of any eye.  In a matters or mere seconds a accident can occur and with it TBI's.

   That is what happened to my 3 oldest grandchildren.  On Sept 1 of 2002 their mom was crossing the east bound side of a 4 lane road.  A Jeep Cherokee pulling a camper slammed in to the side of her small car.  The Jeep was going about 75 miles an hour.

    The kids were then Krysti-7 Matt-5 and Megan-5.  Megan and Matt were air lifted to a University hospital that had a PICU, Krysti went into emergence surgery-her spleen was cut into 3  pieces and she was bleeding to death in the ER, in addition to her brain injury.

     Megan had facial cuts that took a plastic surgeon almost 6 hours to sew up.  She has severe TBI, because her left frontal lobe is injured, her cerabellum[?], and another spot[can't remember where, just it's on her left side. ]

      Both of the girls are have problems in school, and with emotional control.  Megan having in more severe injury has more out bursts and a harder time learning.  She has problems remembering many things, including when she has ate, she is now FINALLY in special education classes.    The school system here did not want to accept her problems and bus her to a different school.

        Matt did not have a bruise or scratch on the outside.  However his brain looks like Swiss cheese on am MRI.  He can not talk, has seizuries  that 3 different meds can not totally control or stop.  However he is good at communicating a lot of how he feels.  Also good at figuring out how to do things  WHEN  HE wants to.  He also has a smile that lights up a person's soul.  We mostly have to feed him through a tube (MIC-KY buttons when he will leave them in)   Before the seizuries     got so bad he was walking, and doing better at talking, but the parts of the brain that control speech are very badly injured.  Currently he has a nurse come in 3 hours a day 5 days a week.

         My daughter also now has another son who will be 2 years old on the 10th of this month.  To say the least she has her hands full.  She works part time [at least partly to get her out around people] and I baby-set for her.

          I have no idea how old your parents are, but I am 52, and I am the one working at getting Chris to try alternate things.  Presently we give Mat some herbs and supplements.  I'd like to get her to take him to an herbalist, but so far have not gotten her to.  Goes to show how every one is different.  And yes parents often want to influence desions at times to much so.  In my case though I try to find out all I can, where as Chris has a sort of strange disinterest.  It started as denial, but has become some thing different.  She finally accepts the extent of Megan's injuries, but can't deal with her.  Accepts Matt's problems but wants to protect rather than push him to make progress.  Our roles are reversed in many ways.

A very flustuating situation in many ways.  I do what I can and have learned to let the rest go, and pray she will make more progress in understanding the kids needs.

             I think you are doing a wonderful job of things, as are many of the others I read about on here.  I can't spell to well.  Sorry