Is there a way of finding out how "severe" a TBI is/was?? Mine was in
1998 and I have no idea how bad it was. I do know they told me I'd
have limitations in some things.


--- In Traumatic_Brain_Injury@yahoogroups.com, "sabi_sue"
<sabisue@...> wrote:
>
> Response to someone whose doctor said everyone got over it within a
> year.
>
>
> Virtually nobody I have ever spoken with "got over it" (the tbi)
> within a year. That idea is simply ridiculous (as you know and
> the "doctor" didn't, or didn't want to.)
>
> I have spoken with thousands of survivors or their loved ones on the
> braininjurynetwork help line. I've been running the hotline in Santa
> Rosa, Ca. for over ten years, and about nobody ever called in to say
> it was a year and they were totally recovered.
>
> Also, I'd say that if someone had a really, really mild tbi (a little
> concussion or something) they might have "recovered" in a few days,
> weeks or months, but they aren't us. The people I know were hurt one,
> two, five, ten, twenty, thirty or forty or even fifty years ago, and
> they still have issues, or they wouldn't be in the forum or at the
> brain injury network peer support meetings.
>
> (As an aside: This doctor might have meant that people with a mild
> tbi are recovered within one year (in some medical peoples'
> judgement). That in part defines what a mild tbi might be. It might
> be, in part, classified as a tbi from which one recovers within one
> year. However, if the recovery isn't within one year that might just
> be showing the person didn't have a mild tbi, they had a more severe,
> say classification moderate or severe tbi.)
>
> There is a difference between saying that all people are recovered
> from a tbi within one year and saying all recovery occurs within the
> first year. In the old days the doctors said that the recovery, to
> the extent there would be recovery, was complete within one year.
> However, that has proven to be wrong, as quite a few studies show. In
> other words, aspects of recovery do extend beyond one year.
>
> This sounds good on the face of it, and it is good from the vantage
> point of "getting well", but there is another result from seeing it
> that way. Lawyers for the insurance companies, etc., can now argue
> that a person isn't permanently disabled if he hasn't recovered
> within one year. They can argue that people should still be denied
> permanent benefits because there will likely be more recovery in the
> future. They can argue that the person with the tbi is not
> permanently disabled. This affects the calculation of damages,
> benefits, etc. So, all of these issues can be used both for and
> against us. rightysabi1985 (my tbi in 1985).
>
> rightysabi1985
>