Marie Oswalt on overcoming TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)

Marie Oswalt describes the process of recovering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) which she suffered when she was involved in a multi-vehicle accident in 2016. She was grateful to be referred to Pacific University's Vision Therapy program, where she worked with Dr. Hannu Laukkanen (see his podcast episode from January 29, 2025). 

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Transcript

Denise: Welcome to the Healing Our Sight podcast. I'm your host, Denise Allen. Today I'm honored to speak with Marie Oswalt, a compliance specialist with the state of Oregon's paid leave department. In 2016, Marie's life was turned upside down by a traumatic brain injury from a car accident. Like so many TBI survivors, Marie faced a long and winding road to recovery, one that included unexpected visual challenges. Her journey led to vision therapy at Pacific University, where she found tools that helped her reclaim her life. Today, Marie is living independently, working and continuing to grow despite ongoing challenges. Maria, I'm so grateful to have you here to share your story.

Marie: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Denise.

Denise: I'm just delighted. I know this will be really important information for people.

Marie: Thank you. I'm excited to share, I'm excited to share about my continued journey.

Denise: Yeah, it's always a continued journey, right?

Marie: Yeah, for sure.

Denise: So, can you take us back to the day of your accident, tell us a little bit about how everything went down?

Marie: Yeah. So, I was driving into work. It's about 7 o' clock in the morning. I worked outside of McMindle, Oregon on Highway 99. And so it was very busy road, busy highway. And I was trying to turn into work into my, our driveway. And I was involved in a three-car accident. And the car that hit me was hit from behind going northbound. I was going southbound. And the car that was hit from behind was literally thrown across the highway going 60 miles an hour and hit me from the side. And he was spinning, and I was turning right, and he was spinning, spinning and coming at me like a bullet. And he lifted my car up and then slid under it and went into like the railroad track ditch next to me. Oh, wow. And it lifted my car up and my car came down in the same space and bounced like, kind of like it was dribbling.

Denise: Wow.

Marie: And so I'm in my driver's car seat and I'm going up and down but also front and back. And my head is slamming back and forth on the seat. You know, the head piece of my seat, but also slamming into the moonroof piece of my car because I had a moonroof. So, the damage, you know, is done top and back of my head. I woke up. I don't know how long it was, but I remember I was waiting to turn into the driveway of my work, and I saw a semi coming by me as it should because I was in a turning lane to go into my work when I saw the car coming. Next thing I Knew I had all the traffic stopped. Ambulances were there. Coworkers were around my car. The semi was parked up front. It had been a while. And so that was how the accident happened. And then I was to the hospital, and they're more concerned about broken bones and things. There wasn't really conversation about my head. There was like, oh, you could, you know, you could have a. You know, a headache or this and that. So, I was home for two weeks and went to work. Went back to work.

Denise: So did you have any other injuries then? Just the trajectory.

Marie: Yeah. I looked like I was fine, but in that next two weeks, things kind of started going off the rails. Wow. But I didn't know what was happening.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: So that's the accident.

Denise: So, they didn't really check out your brain right afterwards.

Marie: They didn't. They didn't do anything like that. It wasn't until I went. It was my two weeks. I'm coming back to work. I'm fine. And I go to. I drive myself to work, and I get to work and I realize I don't remember driving myself to work. And I get to work and I start throwing up.

Denise: Oh, no.

Marie: And my. My. I worked in the HR department, and my team is like, you don't look good. And I'm like, I don't feel good. And I hang up. And so an hour and a half later, they're like, you gotta go.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: So, I'm like, drive myself home. Because that's how I was. Type A personality. So, I drive myself home and I called my doctor, and she was like, there's something really wrong. You need to come in. And so that's when we. When we first started. Okay, you've got a severe concussion. She's like, your eyes are, you know, huge. You know, I could. I was standing with the slouch. I couldn't read. I couldn't. I was barely talking.

Denise: Did they. They didn't check for a concussion right after even.

Marie: No.

Denise: Crazy to me.

Marie: No. I went that day. I went to the hospital, and they gave me a. The thing. They put you. You know, you're in the big donut.

Denise: Like an MRI?

Marie: Yes. Thank you. And they're like, we don't see anything. But the top of my head started getting soft. Oh, I had. I had hit it so hard that it was, like, softening. And the back of my head, where the ocular area is, was hit so hard that the bruise was starting to show, but it hadn't shown yet. It was just showing, like, at that two week. And the top of my head got soft, and it started getting. It was the most bizarre thing. It was like a baby's head where it's soft and then it gets soft again and it got. The whole top of my head became soft. It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me in my life, ever. And so, thankfully I would. I feel like I was super. You know, this was just like the hand of the universe that she had done part of her residency within neurology. And she's like, “we have to get you into a neurologist.” Well, it was a three-month wait, but I got into a neurologist at the beginning of June. This was March, so I had to wait until actually was the end of May. 

Denise: And that whole time you really couldn't work then?

Marie: No, nope. I was off work. I was doing. My doctor sent me for physical therapy. She wanted me to just be doing, like some very passive physical therapy. It took me a couple times of going and reporting back for me to be able to verbalize that the physical therapy that I was receiving was not passive. It was like walking on a treadmill pop, you know, working on the machines and things like this, which was stimulating me as I became more knowledgeable, which was difficult to do because I didn't have a lot of function. I wasn't able to drive myself. My mother was doing all my driving for me. I was heavily medicated. So, you know, once I was able, I finally was able to verbalize what was really going on in physical therapy. My. My doctor was like, give me a minute. She stepped out of the room, she made a phone call. She came back. She's like, okay, I want you to take a couple weeks off from physical therapy. Then I want you to go back again. And I met with the director of the facility. Sue had brain injury. Physical therapy knowledge, for lack of a better word. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly.

Denise: Yeah, that makes sense.

Marie: But she seemed. She seemed to understand better what my healthcare provider, you know, what my. My doctor was saying, okay, this is what Marie needs. This is what we need to do. So, there was like more appropriate physical therapy, which I honestly, I can't really remember that early on what I was doing, but it was very passive. It was like I went twice a week. It was like very soft massage, just some stretching things that I couldn't do for myself at home.

Denise: Okay.

Marie: Type of things. Yeah. And I did that until I got to my neurologist, who then we kind of worked out A little bit of better plan.

Denise: So how long did it take to get to the better plan then?

Marie: So that was March to June. And once I saw Dr. James, who is a no-nonsense neurologist, he was like, here's the deal. You're at home, you're. You're doing nothing. And I mean nothing. And he was like, if I have to call your family members, that's what I'm going to tell you. He's like, you just, you have a major brain injury. If you don't stop, you're going to do. You're going to do severe damage that I'm afraid you're not going to be able to reverse. Which scared me.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: Which scared me. Really scared me. And. Because all I wanted to do was be what I was prior. Yeah, I'm very motivated person. I had taken this job with this company to meet some new goals and I was meeting those goals. And so this accident derailed, like everything, everything that I had been working for for years, years and years and years. And all I wanted to do is get back to that. And he said, situation. Six months, Six months in bed, in a dark room. I don't care. I don't want to hear it. This is what you have to do if you want to get better. I promise you this is going to work. And I said, okay. I said, do you really mean like in the bed, in the dark room? He's like, well, in your house. Okay. Like, he's like, I don't want you out in the yard puttering around. He's like, I want you in the house. Quiet. He's like, you've got to rest your brain. You've got to. He's. And he's the first one that talked to me about the whole I thing that Dr. Lan talked to me about at the vision therapy that I initially, eventually got to is how the eyes, the brain, this intersection. He's like, you just have to shut everything out because one thing is hooked. One thing is hooked to another thing. He's like, and, and, but. And the first, the first time that I put it together was I can't ride in a car. And sometimes to this day, I can't do this. I can't ride in a car or I can't drive the car with the radio on at the same time. Like, I couldn't do that back then.

Denise: Okay.

Marie: Okay.

Denise: Too much simulation at once.

Marie: Yeah. My brain, it would, like, I'd have to pull over. I would, I, like, where am I? I could, I didn't know Where I was at on roads that I'd been 30 years. Yeah. So that was, you know, that was. I started understanding what he was seeing. I was like, okay. He's like, you, you know, if you want to watch tv, turn the volume off. It wasn't. So, I put it on old shows I knew Gone with the Wind, you know, now Voyager, you know, what, Casablanca, you know, I bring a G, whatever, anything I knew that I could just watch. And then I also put it, like, you know, the darkest setting of the TV as well. You know, not really pleasant stuff, but at least something to, like, take your mind off of what was going on. And then you're also medicated, so you're sleeping a lot. But. But at least I was starting to get a picture of, like, what kind of. What was going on up there. I call it rattling around. I did a lot of stuff rattling around up there. I was starting to get an idea of what was rattling around up there.

Denise: Okay.

Marie: Yeah.

Denise: And then it took a while before you found out that you needed to do something for your ocular processing issue, right?

Marie: It did. I. So I was digging through my papers because I had this crazy idea, someday I'm going to write a book. If I could ever get to the point where I could read a book, maybe I could write a book. And maybe. So, I found, I found I have all my papers. And so this amazing cognitive therapist, Melinda Grady, who was just. I don't even know what I would do without her. And I saw her for 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, and 6, 19. I still struggle with math. 19 weeks. I saw her for 19 weeks, and she was the one that was like. Because I was still wearing, like, my glasses. You know how you have your glasses all set up? You're not. You work in the office. You got your glasses set up. You got progressives, you're all hip. You paid, you know, however much money for them because they work for the computer, and they're all good. And she's like, I think that those glasses are not helping you. Because she's like, they're, you know, you got progressives, and they're all this kind of thing. Plus, they were super tiny and very fashionable. But you know. You know. And she's like, yeah, yeah, right. So, she's like, go over to your eye doctor. So, I went to my eye doctor, who's amazing eye doctor, checked him out, and he's like, you're looking good and everything. And so, I asked him, I said, do you know anything about prisms? Because she had mentioned prisms, which I'd never heard of before. He's like, no, I don't know anything about that. I'm like, okay. So, I came back, and she's like, okay, I'm going to refer you over. So, I wrote here that I got a referral to the Pacific University Eye Clinic for evaluation. Visual therapy. Occipital lobe impact could cause visual triggers, nausea and vertigo. And I'm telling you, I lived on ondansetron, and so methizine. So, myth is, whatever the one with the P is, which was the only way I could sleep, and it was the in. And it gave me an inability to read, comprehend, understand, and retain. That's my notes I wrote here. I read that. I was like, oh, yeah, that's it. That was it. And so, she's the one that sent me kind of, you know, she. She sent me over there. I had to go over to this other place first. But she's basically how I got over to vision therapy. But that had been, you know, six months of kind of in the house, letting my brain rest. And then. So. So maybe. And then six months forward, and then from like January of 2017 to, like, October-ish, I was doing cognitive therapy, acupuncture, and medical massage to get my body strength enough to, like, do this vision therapy. And I remember going in and doing the evaluation, which is no joke, right?

Denise: I know they test everything.

Marie: I appreciate you saying that. I didn't know if I was going to make it. And I had to come back a second day because the nausea was so bad. So hard. So hard, but worth it, but just so hard. And I remember talking to Dr. L and I was like, I was really beating myself up, but I hadn't come sooner, which is my way. And he said, no. He said, you did. You did all of this other. Before, we would have probably had to send you to the cognitive therapy, right? And the balance and the. And the physical therapy. Because physical therapy I kind of graduated out of. I did. Because I went from, you know, the passive therapy till they got me up. They taught me to walk. They put me in the pool. They taught me the. You know, so I did all of that work before the vision therapy, which apparently, I would have had to go do that before I started the vision therapy, which I forgot about until I was reading through my notes. So that was a really important thing.

Denise: There are all these pieces you have to put in place, right? And I tapped with vestibular specialist, and it's all part of the whole Process of doing the rehabilitation of the brain. You know, it's vestibular.

Marie: That's right. And I love that you just said that word. You totally just said the word. I had forgotten. It's like I said, you. I, you know, some of this has been forgotten in my mind, but the type of therapy that I did was vestibular physical therapy. That's the type of physical therapy that I was doing. I'd forgotten that word. Thank you.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: Apologize for getting emotional.

Denise: I. Oh, no, it's because there are. There are certain triggers that get to me also, you know, and when I was telling my story for my TEDx talk last week, practicing for it, I gave my talk to my daughter. And my daughter's been on my podcast too, and she's part of my story. Right. And she was in my talk.

Marie: Yeah. And.

Denise: And I got so emotional telling it to her. Right. And I said, I don't want to get this emotional. All those triggers are there because we lived this experience. Right.

Marie: Yeah.

Denise: And we block things out. And she didn't even remember that. The experience, it was little. My other daughter that was older didn't remember it either. And I thought, okay, this, this experience triggered me to do. To make a different choice, but apparently it didn't damage my children like I thought it had. Right.

Marie: Which is. That's a true blessing.

Denise: Yeah. But it's all part of the story. Right. And so, yeah, absolutely. Go through each of the steps to get your brain to where it can do the next thing. I think that's that. Right.

Marie: That is the point. That is the point is. Is like each step is a step in itself, and you have to go with your gut. Like, what feels right at that time. If you need to take a break, take a break. It's okay to take a break. I had to learn that. I had to learn. It's okay to take a break. I'm not a good break taker. I am a better break taker now. I'm also an accommodation taker now. Was never accommodation taker in my life. With this job, I've learned to take an accommodation, and it's okay. I've also been. I don't know how I ended up with the supervisor I have now. He's amazing. But I've learned to take an accommodation, which I feel like is a win. Yeah.

Denise: That is great.

Marie: Yeah. Yeah.

Denise: So did you find it challenging to figure out what the next step was then? Because you didn't get all of those next pieces until, well, you got them when you needed them? Obviously. But it's not at the beginning of the journey. You don't know where the journey is leading because the doctors don't say, oh, now you need this until you need it. Right?

Marie: Yeah, yeah, that, that is such a great question. So you go through your therapies, you get the glasses, you kind of graduate, right? They're like, you've done your therapies, here's your glasses. Go forth, young warrior, and conquer. Right? What does that mean? Right? You know, and then you're just navigating out there, you know, how fast can you go? How far can you go? Are you failing? You know, I worked with, like I said, I worked with **** Northwest for a good, probably year, year and a half. I worked period for a good year, year and a half. This was 2018, 2019. So probably a good, probably all said, probably a good year, year and a half, I'll say in there. And so you're just, you know, you're kind of working it. So, you're kind of working with all the tools that you've, that you've gained and putting them together to see how successful you're going to be. And I was doing pretty good. I was doing pretty good. My doctors all wanted me to take on some counseling, so I did that because with the brain injury comes like all of that, that stuff and I had a lot of that stuff, so that needed to be done, so I did that.

Denise: Was that like, for the trauma of it?

Marie: Yeah, yeah. And my personal, so apparent, you know, so, yeah, so the trauma of it, I ended up with, you know, I ended up with like the PTSD piece of it. I also ended up with my personality because I had like some severe memory, that short term memory. I have long term memory loss, which became short term memory loss. Thank goodness. I was very thankful for that. And then, but also what came out of it is. And I, and my neurologist talked to me about this because he was like, when he's like what I've seen, I appreciated how he talked about things because he made it very obvious that, you know, brain injuries are all different and nobody really knows very much. And he kept saying that over and over again. And I appreciated that because I had other neurologists that were like A, B, C and D is going to happen. And I was like, so, but, but there were multiple people in, on my care team and so I always just kind of stuck with my main neurologist. But you have the guys over here and the guys over here. And I feel like the newer train of thought is, you know, we only know this much. It's not very much. And your brain injury is going to be what your brain injury is going to be. And it, you know, you can kind of help it along, but it's also going to be kind of what it's going to be on its own terms because it's your brain injury and your brain is going to heal. How your brain is going to heal.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: And I feel like if you can accept that, not that you're not that you're going to be limited, but if you can accept that your brain is going to heal as it's going to heal and you can help that along, I think that that can help propel you. That makes sense how I'm saying that.

Denise: Well, I think. Let me see if I can restate.

Marie: Yeah, please do.

Denise: I think what you're saying is that it's important to accept that first of all that you have a brain injury, that we don't exactly know how things are functioning in your brain based on the fact that you have an injury. No one's brain injury is the same. And we have to advocate for ourselves as far as coming to the solutions. Right. We don't necessarily want to sit back and say, oh, I can't do anything because I have a brain injury. Right. It's okay. I'm going to take this baby step and then I'm going to do the next step that I can do because I'm dealing with the symptoms of my brain injury. Right. And then as I get better, I'm going to take the next step and the next step until I find all the solutions that are going to help me and get to the point where I feel like I'm a real person again. Right.

Marie: Yeah. That's like spot on. It's so good. You said that. So much better. Thank you so much.

Denise: No, no, no, I wouldn't say that better. I'm just. It's good, you know?

Marie: Yeah. 100. It's a hundred percent. It's you. Yeah. I don't even need to say anything else about that. That's right there. It's right there.

Denise: So you got connection, the vision therapy program and. Yep.

Marie: It's.

Denise: Want to tell our listeners a little bit about what your first session was like, what you expected versus what you got out of it. I mean, you talked about the evaluation part, but once you're into the. What does that look like?

Marie: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I wrote down some notes. Okay. So me first. I did. I gave us some great thought. So I went weekly, and I had homework. And that vision therapy was the hardest of everything. Now that I've got the name for my pt, the vestibular physical therapy. That was hard, but VT so much harder. It would lay me up. When I would get home, it would lay me up for, like, days. But it was so great, and I actually took part in. So, I. I did the vision. Vision therapy, and there was different activities. So one activity was because they were specifically trying to get my eyes to my eye movement efficiency. Because I wouldn't, like, my eyes wouldn't track right. And I had. My right eye still hangs. Like when you look. Like if I take a picture of myself. Like if I take a selfie of myself, my right eye is off, but it's not off as much as it used to be.

Denise: Okay.

Marie: Okay. So that is significantly better. But. So one of the vision therapy techniques that we did was a white piece of paper, and it was just letters typed in a line. Let's say there was 10 rows of letters, you know, columns going down. And it was just letters. And I was just supposed to. To read them. And they were just, you know, a F, D, J, D. And I was supposed to go down and then go back to the top and then go down, and they go back up the top and go down. And part of the problem was once I got a couple rows in, then I couldn't see them anymore. They just went away.

Denise: Wow.

Marie: And so as I progressed through, it was like 35. I think I did 35 weeks. I did 35 weeks of therapy. I was there for a long time. But as I could go,  I had to go across, but I also had to be able to read down. So, the goal was to be able to actually read across the line, you know, like, and stick with the tracking. So that was.

Denise: Start with going down to get your eyes to the movement, and then you'd work over to going across. Like when you're reading.

Marie: Yeah, yeah. And it was like the. I don't even know. I bet it was six weeks before I could do, like, trying to go across. I. That first month or two, I. Maybe two, two or three lines. Maybe the going. The going up and down. Same thing. Like, it was so hard. There was something with a pencil, and that's the one I'm trying to remember. I almost. I almost sent a text to Dr. L. And I was like, what was that exercise? The pencil. And it was really hard. I hated it. I mean, I remember going in and I'd see the pencils laying There I'd be like, I hate the pencil. I hate the pencil.

Denise: Was it the one where you have a pen, a pencil, and you have to draw it into where you can see it? It's not that one is.

Marie: Might have been. Did he have to hold two of them and you had to bring them in? Yes, I feel like that's the one. Oh, I hated that. It was so, so hard because.

Denise: And then it would look like chicken scratch because. And one of them would be like all wiggly and.

Marie: Yeah, right. They would move. Yes. Oh. Oh, it makes me dizzy thinking about. Because of this eye would not. I couldn't see out of this right side. And I thought that the right side was really damaged on the left side, but when they got in there, it was really the right side. And that's when I learned that, like, the left sees the right and the right sees. I mean, I learned so much, I probably forgot more than I had learned. But it was reading like I learned so much. At the same time, there was a graduate student from Germany that was doing like a thesis study, and I found that paper and that was really hard. And she was using a device used for fixation training. And I was in the part of the program where I got to use the device and why I go upstairs and I'd stare into this box and I'd make the dots come together with my eyes. Oh, man, that.

Denise: Oh, that's intense.

Marie: That hurts so bad. I just would want to throw up. And then the homework for that was. Do you remember the 3D glasses? One's blue, one's red. And you have to. We'd have the stuff to put them together and you, you know, like when we were kids, and you'd bring them together and you could see them and like 3D version. That was like the homework.

Denise: But see, that's the thing that I could never do before vision therapy. So I never.

Marie: Yes.

Denise: So, yeah, the red-green glasses that they send you home with to do exercises at home, right?

Marie: Yeah. So, you wear the glasses and then they give you the sheets that are red green, and you have to bring them together and lay them over on each other. But when you take off the glasses, they're not really laid over on each other. They would really be kind of off centered. But because you have the glasses, you were forcing them. It was a whole weird thing. And again, I can't remember. I can't remember. But it was so hard. And I. And I cleared that as well. Part of what I'm saying is taking advantage of all of those little. Every time I had an opportunity. Yes. Yes. Do you want. Yes. Marie. Do you? Yes. I never said no. Yes. Do you want to try? Yes. Well, this is kind of crazy. You want. Yes, because why not, right? And you want to try. Exactly. I had amazing acupuncturist. She's like, do you want to try? She started. She said, she's also a Chinese medicine cow. And she was like. She started reading about TBIs. Oh, she started doing. She's like, do you want to try? Yes. She's like, I got. Yes. She's like, I have this herbal. I'm gonna. Yes. So I got into mushrooms. Not mushroom mushrooms, but like ashwagandha. And so I started doing ashwagandha tea, which, like, lifted a ton of brain fog. So that's a little different from vision therapy, but you know what I mean? Just always saying yes.

Denise: Well, it's the whole everything's related piece.

Marie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Denise: If you're looking for things that are helping different symptoms, then that's going to help a symptom, that brain that you're not getting from vision therapy. Right?

Marie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those. So those were kind of the. Those were the exercises. And that was what it was like to probably the first. Well, because I went weekly. So that first month was getting used to the exercises and the homework because you sign a little contract and you gotta go. You were in it.

Denise: Yes, absolutely.

Marie: Yes, it is.

Denise: So at what point did you feel that you were getting real improvement and you had a breakthrough that you said, okay, now this is really working for me.

Marie: So I mean, it took a while, so I really didn't feel like I was. I really didn't see. I don't know. I. I really. I thought about this question a lot and I felt I was struggling. I was struggling all through January, all through February. I think it was more towards the end of February where I was starting to feel like, okay. And it came in that block of letters because I was finally able to like get maybe a third of the way down the page. Just one day. Just one day I was able to get like a third of the way down the page. And I remember my son and daughter in law, now we're getting ready to go to Vegas to be married. And it was going to. They're getting. They got married two years after my accident to the day.

Denise: Wow.

Marie: And they're like, mom, we're going to Vegas. We're getting married. You're coming. They're going to put me on a plane. I could barely walk, didn't have my glasses yet. And they're like, you're coming. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. I was very excited. And so I was like, okay. So I kind of used that as a. Okay, let's see where I'm at with this trip. Let's see. So. So I went on the trip wasn't horrible. It really wasn't horrible. I had a great time. I came back and I think I just needed that little break from. Because I had been pushing myself really hard. I came back and all of a sudden all the pieces of my homework and my weekly therapy, vision therapy, like, all of a sudden, bam. Everything just started clicking. It was like I just needed that. A break. And I think that was the first time that I experienced taking a break and seeing that it paid off. That was the first time because I'd never taken a break since my accident. I'd never taken. I had just been going and pushing and going. And even though I'd taken that break, that, that Dr. James has said, take a break.

Denise: So you're that person who doesn't take a break ever? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, I'm that person too. And so when my. My coach said, do you need to take a day that you don't practice your talk? I'm like, okay, yeah.

Marie: Like, who are you talking to and who are you? Because you're amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Denise: And so then you get that coalescence of all the pieces, right? Everything gets to together. And then you say, oh, now this is all making sense because it is allowed everything to process.

Marie: It is. And I went in and all of a sudden it was like I read like halfway down the page and I did the pencils and there's a ball on a string. I don't know if you ever had to do the ball on the string. There's a ball on a string and they hold the ball out and you have to hit this. You have to hit the ball. It's a little ball and it has little tiny sticky notes with letters on it. Some are little, some are bigger. I hate this ball. I don't like the word hate. I never let my children use that. I dislike the ball more than I dislike the pencils.

Denise: The ball became my princess just for our listeners. And that's called a Marsden ball, I guess.

Marie: Marsden ball. Yes, it is the Marsden ball. The Marsden ball. And you know what? I love the Marsden ball because it did a ton of help for me. So I really, it's not that I dislike the Marsden Ball, it's just very difficult. So I'm grateful for the Marsden Ball.

Denise: Do you have a love hate relationship with all of these tools? It sounds.

Marie: I do. I do. So I don't dislike any of these. It's just they're so hard when you first start. But this Marsden Ball. Yes. Is the Marsden Ball. You're right. Oh, my gosh, I forgot that name. Oh.

Denise: Because when it's coming up over the names, it's. Okay.

Marie: Okay. Well, I appreciate you reminding me because I think that's just so wonderful. So it's coming back and forth and you're seeing the letters that are going past you and left and right, and all of a sudden I'm getting these letters, I start crying. And, you know, students were so great because they're so invested with you. And it was at that appointment and that was probably like the end of March. They were like, you're ready for your glasses. You're ready for your glasses, Marie. And so we ordered up my glasses and. Which was really great. And so I got my first pair of glasses. And they're very amber and I love, they're very dark amber. I still have them. And Dr. L was like, you're the smallest prism in here whatsoever, Marie. He's like, but it's, you know, I had already tried them in the mock up, like from months and months ago, and. Which is, you know, a mock up glass is really hard to walk in anyway. But I had walked in them and I could walk and I, I, I just cried the whole time walking down the hallway. And so we get my glasses made mid-April, and I'm still in vision therapy, still my 35 weeks of vision therapy. But I put on those glasses and I'm telling you, that was, that was the, that was it. I think, I honestly think it was April 18th. Like, the wheels are turning now. And I knew then that with my glasses that it was going to be a tour and I was going to have to, you know, there's a long road. I'm not a big lover of, like the journey. The road, whatever, but I don't know what other word to use.

Denise: Right.

Marie: But I knew then that I was going to be able to do it. Like, those glasses, that was it. That was my lifeline, right? Like, those glasses were my lifeline because I put on those glasses, I stood up, like, literally like Pinocchio. I stood up and I walked in a straight line for the first time. And I I cried. Every one of those doctors, those students, and my daughter was there and I was in tears because I. I knew I could drive, I could read and not just pick up. It's not about picking up a book and reading. Like, reading is like everything in our world.

Denise: Right.

Marie: When you think about reading. Right. It's everything. It's connected to everything in our world.

Denise: And some of the things that, that we don't think about that take reading are the most confusing. Right. Like when you were talking before we started (recording) about going to the grocery store, and I've heard that from other TBI or stroke patients too, that those basic everyday tasks that you have to do to survive become challenging things you can even try to do.

Marie: Yeah. I still, like, if I'm too tired and I don't even realize it, I will still err with my reading, with my eyes. I wrote this statement, I said, accepting myself for who I am now, not what I am now, because of my lack of abilities instead of my capabilities. And I didn't rewrite it or anything because I was like, that's something like, I need to remind myself of that, to accept myself for who I am now. Not because of my lack of abilities, because I always am prefacing well because. Well, because. No, I. I have many capabilities. I don't need to preface because of my lack of ability. And that's something that I think I need. That's. That's like a, you know, a to do. That's a to do for me.

Denise: The reminder that you need to post up and say, remember?

Marie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of the ongoing journeys, right?

Denise: Well, I mean, we all become who we are based on the experiences that we have, right?

Marie: Yeah. Yeah.

Denise: Now that you've had this experience, you have this wealth of knowledge to share with people who are going through similar problems, right?

Marie: Yeah.

Denise: Others who've had brain injuries. And I think that we discount the. The challenges, the severity of injury that people, you know, incur when you have that kind of a thing happen to you. And there's just a general lack of understanding about the whole problem that we want to dispel some of the misunderstandings about that. What made you keep going during this process? Because I'm sure you had to have had lots of disappointment and lots of points in time where you were ready to give up on the whole thing, right?

Marie: I did. I had a couple big setbacks. I got divorced in the middle of it all. I was adamant that my marriage would not fall to my brain injury, although I was assured by Many that it would. I was sure it wouldn't. I was adamant it wouldn't. And it did. And it did because of the brain injury on my spouse's part. And so that was a setback. Although I came to realize that it was not so much for, I mean, you know, you come to see it for what it is. I also. The initial going back to work, that initially failed the first time, and that was really hard. That was really hard. I, and I hope this doesn't sound terrible, but prior to my accident, I had never really failed. I was that person that, and I should preface this, I had never really failed professionally. So I was that person. Dangled the carrot, she gets the carrot. Give her the next project, she gets the carrot. You know, that was me. So when I said, I'm ready to go back to work, I just assumed I was going to go back to work, I was going to be fine. I even went, I was even lucky enough to have my former employment reached back to me and asked me to come back and work on some special projects, which is amazing. And I did that for, oh my gosh, like almost nine months. And I was semi successful at it. In their eyes, I was wholly successful at it. But in my eyes, what I'm hearing.

Denise: Is it wasn't the way you knew you could have done it probably prior to the accident. And so it was good enough.

Marie: Exactly. And that's what I told them. And I had to push them to understand that they're a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful employer. And my executive director at the time, I still am highly attached to her. And I literally was like. I think the words I used honestly were, I can't see taking up the wage per hour when you could be doing this with these folks because I feel like I'm not performing, you know. And of course they said all kinds of great things, which is wonderful, right? But that was the view I had of myself, right? And so it took me, you know, that was 2019. I didn't go back to work again until like the end of 2021. So, it took me a while and I went back to work again for the marketing company. I had tried a couple little things. I greet friends, you know, friends reached out. They were like, try this, try that, you know, come to work for us, do little things here. But it was all too, too much. Some of it was office work, some of it was, you know, working in food and beverage. But I couldn't do multitasked, multi layered work in an environment where I had to also interact with People. Because I couldn't. Like, this wasn't. Yeah, yep, yep. I could. It was sensory. I was. I just couldn't do it. And I tried it twice, and then I told my friends I can't. I appreciate what you guys are trying to do for me.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: But, you know, of course they're trying to be helpful, and I love them so much. Right. But I. I just, you know, and so going back to Acosta worked out very, really well for me because I was working by myself, basically for myself, doing it on a handheld device. I mean, it was perfect. Was perfect. And that worked out really, really well until, you know, for like a. I did that for a year and a half or so before I ended up deciding, okay, I'm ready for the next step. A colleague of mine actually told me that, you know, I was like, I think I'm ready for full time work. I think I'm ready for full time. I could kind of tell, you know, I was getting bored. I could tell things were amping up, you know.

Denise: Yeah. So what I'm hearing you tell us is that, uh, it's been a slow process. Have gradually gotten to the point where now you can do things that you couldn't do before, right?

Marie: Mm. Mm. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Even this last like six to eight months. Probably. Like last fall, I found a new acupuncturist. Um, I joined a gym, working on kind of rebuilding some strength, some balance, some things like that. Out of that has come. I am actually. This is brand new. Just since February, I am able to sit down and I read a book.

Denise: Wow.

Marie: And that's brand new. Like, I couldn't do that last summer because I tried. I couldn't do it last fall because I tried. Well, we've had to change some medications. My neurologist and I have had to change some medications because of the activity level. Not look, reading, but the activity level. With that changing of the medication, the activity level, the acupuncture, the cupping. Cupping's amazing. Kind of all of that together, I kind of found my new jam. So the sandwich is looking pretty good. And then out of that, all of a sudden, like, I can. I can read. Like, I can sit down and read and retain. So read and retain, which is like, hugely huge. Like, and I think that push of confidence or assuredness maybe is what is making me feel like, okay, I'm ready to reach out to the support community again. Because that came hand in hand. So that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Denise: Okay.

Marie: Where I'm at right now.

Denise: So, it's been years of recovery for you?

Marie: It has. It was 3, 15, 16, and it's 6 whatever to 8, 25. So we're like. We're like nine years. Yeah, we're nine years.

Denise: And each month, wow, some new development, it sounds like.

Marie: I feel like it would have you.

Denise: Say, okay, now I can do these things that I couldn't do last month, last year, two or three years ago. They're all new.

Marie: Yeah. I feel like it's definitely a. I continue to make forward progress even. So, this is. That's such a good statement, Denise. That's a really good statement. And I'm going to ask you, see what you think. So sometimes when you're in it. Sometimes when I'm in it, I kind of feel bogged down. I'm like, just, like, slogging through it like cement shoes. But then I look back and I'm like, oh, I kind of was doing all these things, and now all of a sudden I'm stronger and I can read this book and retain it and I'm ready to take these steps. I've seen this play out, like, multiple times as my healing has come along. So, you. Sometimes you don't think that you're making progress, but then when you get through that period of time, if you're able to look back through it, you kind of really were. You just. You know what I mean? Does that.

Denise: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that hearing about your journey is helpful for people who are maybe at the beginning or in the middle of their own recovery. Right. Because you can't see the end when you're at the beginning.

Marie: Yeah.

Denise: Middle. Right. And so I think it's helpful for you to say, oh, guess what? There's light at the end of this tunnel. Right.

Marie: Yeah.

Denise: And for sure, what would you tell people who are, you know, at the beginning or in the middle or somewhere in the. The mess of it.

Marie: Gonna make me cry. Keto. I'm so sorry. I have the words. It was tiny. Get myself together. Never give up on yourself. Never give up on yourself. People are going to come and go because a brain injury is very isolating, and you will be surprised at the people that will come and go. That's okay because you will always be there for yourself.

Denise: Right.

Marie: So never give up and listen to yourself and push forward and trust yourself, because it is a long journey and there's no fast track. So taking it slow, giving yourself grace, being accepting of who you are to make mistakes and learn as you go. I live a life That I honestly didn't think I would ever have again. I was on full Social Security disability and really thought that that was going to be my life. And now I live in where I will probably be happy for a very, very, very long time in a job that I love. That's setting me up for a future that I can count on and I can continue to push forward with my recovery. So never giving up and always looking like toward to yourself. This, I want to make this one statement I learned when I was in vision therapy that being selfish is not a bad thing. Being selfish is about loving yourself and putting yourself first. I had never been a person that put myself first in my whole life. Yes, I worked hard, I did all of that type A personality, but I had never put myself first. So you have to be selfish. You have to put yourself first. You have to think about what you need. And that's an oh, that's okay to do that. You have to do that.

Denise: Yeah. Well, you can't be in a position to really help other people if you aren't whole yourself. Right. If you.

Marie: Exactly.

Denise: 100% your own recovery taken care.

Marie: 100%. 100%. I hadn't said those words about the selfish for a really long time. I had forgotten that. But I, I believe that to be very true.

Denise: Well, I think the word selfish has a bad connotation, right. So I wouldn't even necessarily call it being selfish because it's self preservation at this point when you have.

Marie: It is.

Denise: Right. And so yeah, okay, in order for me to get back to the person that I know I need to be, right. A recovered, fully functioning person, this is what I have to do.

Marie: Absolutely, absolutely. And you, and you just, you have to do it. And I came to that realization when I found people in my personal life. Not my children or my siblings, but I have, I found people in my personal life that were presenting barriers and I was like, is this really happening? Because when you have a brain injury, you're like, is that real? Is that not real? You know, I mean there's a lot of gray.

Denise: Yeah.

Marie: And that's when I realized I was like, okay, this is a whole different level of, you know, fight or flight. This is like you said, a self-preservation situation. So, I'm just going to do it and I'm, it's, I'm going to make it happen just like I make everything else happen. Just going to be on a different level, you know. You know, we're just going to max it up a little bit. So, it is going to be what it is. And, you know, it's. It's. That turned out terrible. Not turned out terrible. Yeah, no, I love that. I like the self-preservation piece better. I might have to change that word because always, I mean, people get what I'm saying when I say the word selfish but always throws everybody off because they hear selfish. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, selfishness. But I think self-preservation, that might even be better.

Denise: Well, I'm glad you like that.

Marie: Yeah, I do like that. I like that. I do.

Denise: I do. Reframe. It's just reframing.

Marie: Yeah, no, reframing is great. I love that. I love that.

Denise: Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your journey with us today. It's been amazing.

Marie: Thank you. Thank you. It's been great to go back over it, so I appreciate that. I remembered so much, which is really great. And so that's awesome. I love it. Yeah.

Denise: Do you have any last words of wisdom that you want to leave our listeners with?

Marie: Um, I would say, you know, be an advocate for yourself. That's the most important thing. And if something's not working, then move off of that and don't wait. Because you can feel if something's not working.

Denise: Yeah. And if you are trying to accelerate your recovery, listening to those little promptings or nudges, you know, can maybe work you into a faster recovery than.

Marie: For sure. Yeah, I think. For sure. I think, you know, being your own advocate, you know, I use that a lot in all the work I've ever done, but I think especially in this situation, you have to be your own advocate. Listening to your gut. But then also, any little piece of information you can glean from anybody is amazing. Like, I've gotten some of my best pieces of therapy or just. Just off of the smallest conversation. Like what? What? Oh, oh, okay. Yeah, no, that, you know, like, little angel. I call them angels in my pocket. Like, I have these little angels in my pocket that have just said the smallest little thing. And it's just, you know, like, that's how I ended up at vision therapy. Just the smallest little thing, you know, because again, we don't know. We don't know what. We don't know. We don't know what brain injuries ultimately, where they're going to wind to.

Denise: So, yeah, okay, so listen to the angels in your pocket.

Marie: Listen to the angels in your pocket. Absolutely.

Denise: I love that.

Marie: Absolutely. I really enjoy speaking with you and I look forward to going back and listening to the rest of your podcast.

Denise: Oh, I appreciate that. I hope that there's going to be some in there that you can gain some benefit.

Marie: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I appreciate you having me on, so thank you so much. Thank you for being on.

Denise: Thank you for listening to the Healing Our Sight podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Please share and also join our Facebook community at Healing Our site to leave suggestions or comments. Have a great day.