Traumatic Brain Injury at the Intersection of Entrepreneurship: Kelly Tuttle

 Summary

Kelly Tuttle shares her inspiring journey of recovery from a traumatic brain injury, the impact on her personality, and practical strategies for brain health and resilience. Discover insights into brain injury types, recovery, and how to adapt for optimal living.

  Key  Topics

• Traumatic brain injury and concussion
• Recovery and resilience strategies
• Personality changes and neurodivergence

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Transcript

Kelly Tuttle (00:00.45)
Christian.

Christian Brim (00:01.486)
I mean you can call me anything as long as you're calling me for dinner.

Christian Brim (00:08.46)
I'll show up. All right.

Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, Kelly Tuttle. Kelly, welcome to the program.

Kelly Tuttle (00:23.515)
Thank you for having me, Christian. I'm happy to be here.

Christian Brim (00:27.874)
Well, I'm eager to hear your story. You are an entrepreneur, as we discussed in the green room, but it sounds like you have some other experience besides entrepreneurial that might be of benefit to our listeners. So let's start with that. us about your experience with TBI.

Kelly Tuttle (00:53.516)
So my story starts with a thunderous clap of metal and the shattering of glass and people coming out of their homes to see what has happened. And I was driving home from work and another driver pulled out in front of me on a rural road and I was unable to stop in time before my car collided into their car. And it was a bad crash. My car was totaled, airbags were deployed.

but I thought I can shake this off and get back into life. at the time I was a mother of young children and the main income earner and benefit earner of my family. And so I went to work the next day and my colleagues who are registered nurses and nurse practitioners, I was a cardiology nurse practitioner at the time. Notice that I wasn't getting my words out right.

I wasn't acting right and so they implored that I see my general practitioner the next day, which I did.

Christian Brim (01:59.724)
Let me for second. So you had no recovery period? You just had the accident one day and went back the next day? Okay. All right.

Kelly Tuttle (02:08.202)
Yes, it goes with my personality at the time. And so I went and saw my general practitioner. She recognized I had a concussion. She took me off work for two weeks and I left thinking I'd be better. So I went back to work, went back to life. I was pretty miserable, know, headaches, irritability, fatigue, neck pain from the whiplash.

But I just pushed through because that's what I was always raised to do. You just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you push through and you meet your commitments no matter what. And I actually fell asleep at the wheel two months, two to three months later. And for.

Christian Brim (02:59.65)
Were you not sleeping?

Kelly Tuttle (03:02.53)
No, I was sleeping. I was sleeping a lot and I ended up slamming on my brake and preventing my car from slamming into a tree. And this is how my brain was working at the time. I decided instead of letting my doctor know that I fell asleep at the wheel, I would just take a nap in my car in between work and home on the side of the road. I... Yes.

Christian Brim (03:25.836)
That was a solution.

Kelly Tuttle (03:29.698)
Not the best, not one I would recommend for sure. And I fortunately had lunch shortly after that with a colleague who was at the time a neurology nurse practitioner. So she was curious about my recovery and asked me, you know, how it was going. And I said, I still had a lot of symptoms, but that I fell asleep at the wheel, but it's okay. I'm taking this nap on the side of the road. And she's like, no.

That is not okay. You need to see a physical medicine rehab doctor. You need to get a brain scan. And I hadn't had any of this before. So after jumping through a lot of hoops with my health insurance, I finally got that referral to the physical medicine rehab doctor.

Christian Brim (04:21.87)
Okay, I'm going to pause for a second. This is not necessarily germane to the conversation, but I am curious. You were in an auto accident that someone else caused and you had these medical complications. Why was their insurance not paying for it? Why was there not like a ambulance chaser, sorry, personal injury lawyer at your door saying, let's go

know, recover for your pain and suffering.

Kelly Tuttle (04:56.236)
Well, that's a really great question. What I had found was my insurance company told me they didn't have time. They were based in Texas to call a doctor in California to get the information. And when I realized that I was on my own, because I was afraid of being stuck with a huge medical bill. I work in health care, so I know that the bills that.

Christian Brim (05:20.598)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (05:25.088)
The care that my insurance company was paying for was supposed to be paid by a third party. And so I fortunately, you know, wanting to get better as fast as possible. I'd read several, not read, but listened to and skimmed through a few traumatic brain injury recovery books. And all three of the books said, if you think you should, you need a lawyer, hire a lawyer.

Christian Brim (05:31.384)
Right.

Kelly Tuttle (05:55.338)
And when my car insurance company told me that, I got onto, fortunately, the Brain Injury Association of America's website, bia.org, I believe it is. And they had a list of lawyers. I called a lawyer in New York.

who referred me back to a lawyer in California. And that's when really some drastic steps were taken into my recovery because my lawyer knew about specialists outside my health insurance. Now remember, my health insurance just told me, just go home, rest, and you'll get better. And when I went back...

Christian Brim (06:39.554)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (06:46.254)
Don't get me started on insurance companies.

Kelly Tuttle (06:49.927)
I know. And then when I went back and said, I'm not better, they referred me to mental health. And the mental health counselor said, no, your symptoms are related to your concussion. You need to go back to your doctor. I mean, this is terrible. And so I just was not getting the care from my insurance company or my doctor. And the lawyer meets these referrals and I started learning more about my injury and

Christian Brim (06:55.512)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (07:02.542)
Right.

Kelly Tuttle (07:19.123)
and getting better. And at one point my husband said, you know, it's terrible to say, but your lawyer cares more about you recovering than your doctor.

Christian Brim (07:28.364)
Money is a hell of an incentive. I mean, I don't say that flippantly. Like, everybody complains about, I even called them ambulance chasers. But, you know, the reality is that they serve a purpose. And, you know, the fact that they're monetarily incentivized is not necessarily a bad thing.

Kelly Tuttle (07:31.061)
Yes.

Kelly Tuttle (07:50.4)
Yes. you know, these type of lawyers that, so if you were to hire a lawyer after a car accident, you want to get one who's specializes in traumatic brain injuries. And these people, they attend seminars and education related to brain injury recovery and treatment. And so they are really on top of the knowledge related to brain injury care, as opposed to a general

practitioner type doctor. But yeah, so if this happens to any of your listeners, definitely go to the Brain Injury Association of America website, find a lawyer because they list lawyers that specialize in traumatic brain injury.

Christian Brim (08:39.8)
So you got hooked up with some specialists. It's not necessarily important to the story. It's probably very important to you. Did you recover financially from the person responsible?

Kelly Tuttle (08:54.111)
I did. I did recover my medical expenses and so forth and lost wages.

Christian Brim (08:59.074)
Good. I'm did any of this intro recovery, etc. lead you to entrepreneurship leading you to I'm I don't, you know, being an author, podcast host, etc.

Kelly Tuttle (09:22.269)
Yes, so when I saw that physical medicine rehab doctor, she took me off work for three months so I could focus on my recovery. And she sent me to several therapists, speech therapy, physical therapy, neuro therapy. And when it was time for me to go back to work, the two weeks prior, I was freaking out because I was like, I don't know what my brain needs to

Christian Brim (09:30.68)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (09:51.0)
Hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (09:51.81)
support it to function well while I'm at work. And so I was going through all these books, websites. It was exhausting. I was tired. I had a headache. I difficulty remembering things that I read. So it was a real struggle and I didn't want anybody to ever go through that. So when I wrote my book after the crash, how to keep your job, stay in school and live life after a brain injury.

Christian Brim (10:10.744)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (10:18.075)
I wanted all that information, the tools and strategies that worked for me and were recommended by specialists to be in one book, one space, so that someone who wanted to go back to their job could pick it up and start implementing those strategies right away.

Christian Brim (10:33.824)
Mm-hmm. And so did you go back to work as a nurse or no? Okay.

Kelly Tuttle (10:38.739)
I did. worked for about a little over seven years after my brain injury.

Christian Brim (10:48.91)
Okay, and then move to full-time entrepreneurship.

Kelly Tuttle (10:53.129)
I did, I ended up retiring early at 55 because I couldn't keep up with the workload. And my managers at the time weren't willing to provide resources to support my disability.

Christian Brim (11:02.806)
Right. I mean, that's a physically demanding job.

Kelly Tuttle (11:19.091)
I just decided to do their early retirement and then do this instead full time. And I've been happy ever since.

Christian Brim (11:28.152)
So that was how long ago that you, I'm not trying to, I haven't had a brain injury and maybe I have and I just haven't realized it but I still have trouble putting thoughts together. Interpolate, that was the word I was looking for, your age but how long ago was that that you went full-time entrepreneur? Okay. All right, so.

Kelly Tuttle (11:51.337)
a year ago.

Christian Brim (11:56.238)
Here's my question. What did that experience because I find the brain absolutely fascinating. The way the brain works to me is one of the most

I don't say misunderstood. One of the things that fascinates me about the fields of psychiatry and psychology is that it's unlike other forms of medicine, it's primarily done by observation. There's not a lot of, yeah, you can do an MRI, but there's no blood work to determine brain chemical levels. And so it's a lot of observation and guesswork.

And, and like there's, there's just a whole lot that we don't know about how the brain works. so what my question is, is, is there anything you've learned through that experience that changed how you, approached entrepreneurship? Like, is there something you learned that has shown up?

in your entrepreneurial journey? That's the best way I can phrase that question.

Kelly Tuttle (13:26.09)
Well, definitely, guess I would say resilience, of course, just recovering from the brain injury, I would be developing my resilience. But related to my business, I would say that I have really been happy that I made the decision to do it because I'm constantly learning something new.

Christian Brim (13:32.588)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (13:55.576)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (13:56.173)
And when you're constantly learning something new and you're pushing your brain, it encourages neuroplasticity. And I feel like making that decision to write my book was one of the best decisions to boost my recovery because I set myself on a journey where I would be constantly learning and not stagnating.

Christian Brim (14:12.451)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (14:19.566)
Mm hmm. That's brilliant. I had a I had a friend had a traumatic brain injury many years ago and from her perspective, what she says is that she had a personality change. Now, I don't know how much of that was truly caused by the brain injury or those were just

Kelly Tuttle (14:39.552)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (14:48.844)
That was the meaning she ascribed to the changes that she made, right? But they were significant, like significant life changes. In your research and experience, is that common where people like change personalities?

Kelly Tuttle (15:07.326)
Yes, very it can happen. In fact, my personality changed before my car accident. I was a very big go getter, goal setter, accomplisher out traveling out doing stuff volunteering in my community and then after my brain injury and I was a T shirt jeans kind of gal and after the car crash.

I was more of a stay at home, appreciating my home, my family, being grateful, being more mindful, spending more time in the present rather than worrying about the future or hanging out with regret in the past. So those were changes just to me, but because of the chemical changes, the organic chemical changes that happened in the brain,

Christian Brim (15:53.774)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (16:03.189)
and then changes that happen in your life. You can have changes in your behavior and your personality and brain injuries do increase your risk of suicide and suicide ideation. so caregivers do need to watch their loved ones who are recovering closely. I believe it was the brain injury of America said that one in five brain injury survivors

still had suicidal ideation five years after their brain injury. it's a big deal. people have killed themselves after a brain injury just because things can change your personality changes, the chemistry, the way your brain function changes. and usually the survivor, it's hard for them to articulate what's going on in their brain.

And caregivers and people in general are just not knowledgeable about the impact of a brain injury or a concussion. And so they may not understand, maybe not say the right things or do the right things. And this can impair relationships of the brain injury survivor. It can impact your work because you can't keep up or you're irritable or you have a burst of anger at work because

You've pushed yourself too hard, your brain's tired, it's ready to shut down. And if you lose your relationships and you lose your job, then you're at risk of using drugs and alcohol and the spinning can continue to go down. And there's a large percentage of the incarcerated population that are TBI survivors.

Christian Brim (18:00.972)
Let's define some terms here. Is like a concussion considered a traumatic brain injury or not?

Kelly Tuttle (18:10.299)
It is, so they're synonymous. Usually the concussion is used in the acute early recovery. The doctor will say there's a concussion, it's really a brain injury.

Christian Brim (18:25.582)
So the brain injury continuum would be like you fell down, hit your head, you have a concussion, all the way to like, you know, maybe an industrial accident or a soldier where they like lose part of their brain or there's some direct injury to some part of their brain. that is that accurate?

Kelly Tuttle (18:52.477)
Yes, so there's lots of ways that you can develop a brain injury and some of you of them you listed. So there's falls, there's vehicle motor accidents, blast, injury from the military, domestic abuse survivors, RRTBI survivors also. It can happen at work.

Christian Brim (19:09.443)
Mmm.

Kelly Tuttle (19:22.631)
I've had nursing colleagues I've known who've been punched and knocked to the ground who have sustained brain injuries. You know, same in any industry where there's a high risk of bodily injury. So you don't have to actually hit your head to sustain a brain injury. It could be just an acceleration, deceleration type instance, maybe some twisting. What happens is that the

Christian Brim (19:39.459)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (19:46.382)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (19:52.66)
gray matter, is the top part of the brain, is heavier than the white matter, and they can shift. And that shifting shears the brain cells connections to each other. And then there's the little bit of movement in the brain that can cause damage. And then the worst is when there's twisting, because you'll get more of a shearing of those connections.

Christian Brim (20:01.88)
Mmm.

Kelly Tuttle (20:21.993)
But other ways people don't realize or forget is strokes. If you have a brain tumor, because that tumor is gonna push on cells, it's gonna cause brain damage to those cells around the tumor. Hypoxia episodes, either through cardiac arrest or near drowning. Poisoning, lead poisoning, carbon monoxide poisoning.

Christian Brim (20:28.247)
Mmm, yeah.

Kelly Tuttle (20:51.963)
and infections like meningitis or repeat COVID-19 infections.

Christian Brim (20:57.176)
There's the answer. I did have a brain injury. I had viral meningitis as a child there. I've named it. I knew I had something wrong with me. That was the, but thinking back about that, that was like the worst headache I've ever had in my life was meningitis. Like that was awful. Is there a lot of crossover in treatment?

Kelly Tuttle (21:07.103)
And the.

Kelly Tuttle (21:18.141)
Yes.

Christian Brim (21:25.998)
with brain injuries and PTSD.

Kelly Tuttle (21:30.111)
Well, you you, you, yes, because when usually how someone obtains a brain injury and where we were and when I'm when I was talking about like the traumatic brain injuries, there can be PTSD because a traumatic event happened, right? You were either in a car accident, you fell down the stairs, you so you can still have PTSD.

Christian Brim (21:49.569)
Right, right.

Kelly Tuttle (21:58.108)
even if you're not in the military and been exposed to blasts or being hit in the head. But even being hit in the head, I read about one brain injury survivor. She was at the bottom of stairs and some kids were playing up on top and they dropped their basketball on the top of her head. I mean, it can be traumatic.

Christian Brim (22:20.43)
So in the treatment is, mean because I understand that the brain like the rest of the human body is resilient and adaptable. Is it possible to fully recover from a traumatic brain injury?

Kelly Tuttle (22:42.131)
I think that there's people out there that do feel like they have fully recovered. And there are some people who do get better after two weeks or a couple months, but there's a lot of people who don't and end up with symptoms throughout their lifetime. And one of the examples that I use to kind of paint this picture is that when you break your ankle, you expect

to be in a cast for six weeks or eight weeks, do therapy and then you'll be better and you'll be able to walk on your ankle, right? But your ankle may ache in the winter or it may swell up or it may be prone to twist more easier than your other ankle because of that injury. And it makes me think, well, why would you think the brain wouldn't have residual effects after, because it's more delicate.

Christian Brim (23:14.136)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (23:32.064)
Right. Lasting right.

Kelly Tuttle (23:37.08)
an intricate processing organism and it's squishy.

Christian Brim (23:40.31)
yeah. Yes. Yes, that's a very good point. Like any any physical injury, you may recover, but you're never quite the same. Right. Athletes will will attest to that, you know, ad nauseum. So so that that sounds like then that requires some adaptation on the person's part to.

Kelly Tuttle (23:53.362)
Right.

Christian Brim (24:09.326)
continue to function or achieve what they want to. So what adaptations have you had to make?

Kelly Tuttle (24:18.046)
Well, I just wanted to go back to what we were talking about and I'll go back to your question is that the other thing is is that brain injuries are cumulative. So if you if you fall off your bike as a child and maybe struck your head on the concrete, the sidewalk, that's a brain injury. And then if you're a young, a young adult and you're in a car accident and you get whiplash, then that's another brain injury. And so.

Christian Brim (24:28.973)
Hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (24:46.846)
Once you have a brain injury, you really want to avoid adding additional salts to it. So knowing that, um, you would want to monitor your blood pressure, uh, uh, avoid, uh, diabetes, um, uh, make sure your cholesterol looks great because you don't want to hit 60, your sixties and then have a stroke. And what I saw in practice, cause I did change my career. became a neurology nurse practitioner.

Christian Brim (25:10.562)
Mm.

Kelly Tuttle (25:17.178)
was that you really want to preserve your cognitive ability into your later years and, keeping your brain healthy and, brain injury prevention is key in doing that so that you can have a great, you know, golden years and retirement and so forth. but going back to your question about using strategies, I, had,

The key thing is to know your symptoms. having a brain injury, part of that is there's an energy deficit. And that's because the brain is using a lot of energy to heal, clear out debris, make new cells, make those connections, change real estate where it used to do something, it'll change it to another spot that can work.

Christian Brim (26:08.216)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (26:14.63)
And then there's also a change in this and this how the cells produce energy. So if you go back to high school and you think about your Krebs cycle, which is I hate doing, but. It's good to forget. anyway, what you get out of that is you get those energy.

Christian Brim (26:25.9)
You went to a different high school than I did, because we did not talk about... Maybe we did and I've just forgotten.

Kelly Tuttle (26:42.238)
resources called ATP and our cells run on ATP. That's the energy we get and go through the Krebs cycle and you add oxygen and all that stuff. Well, that process happens in the mitochondria of the cell and when you have a brain injury, cells die and those mitochondria get damaged or die too and so then you have a brain that has less power.

Christian Brim (27:08.942)
Mm.

Kelly Tuttle (27:10.098)
to keep doing the things that you're doing. so knowing that there's an energy deficit, it's important to support the brain with external tools. For instance, I had sound sensitivity. I'm very sensitive to sounds, couldn't focus or concentrate if there was any noises around me. So when I was at work, I would wear noise counseling headphones or earbuds to help.

with my focus scene, I had light sensitivity. So when I was at my desk, not in front of my patients, I would wear dark glasses. I had shields to block the fluorescent light from shining on me and creating an additional glare on my computer. So those are some of the things I implemented and I was easily distracted by things that move around. So I create.

had privacy panels on each side asked for an additional one on the opening of my cubicle so that I wasn't distracted when people were walking in and out of the space that I was working in.

Christian Brim (28:21.72)
That's very interesting because one of the things that I've noticed with entrepreneurs is they tend to have these, and I may be using the wrong term, but neurodivergent attributes. I remember standing at an entrepreneur conference and the speaker had us all stand and then she read off these symptoms.

And she said like if you if you have any of these symptoms sit down and by the end of You know the list of symptoms everybody was sitting down and she's like well I just described the symptoms of bipolar disorder something like that. I don't remember exactly but And that's not to say that I think that all entrepreneurs have bipolar disorder what what I have noticed though is that there are themes with entrepreneurs of of neurodivergency that seemed to

happen. I'm wondering if because the things that you described sensitivities distractions, 100 % like sounds, motion, and not about light sensitivity, but I guess I'm curious in any of your research or experience. You've drawn any

not causation, but correlation. Is there any correlation in that data around?

things that show up for entrepreneurs versus things that show up in traumatic brain injuries.

Kelly Tuttle (30:04.85)
would say that I'm a big podcast listener and I follow a lot of entrepreneurs and work from home type podcasts. And I have seen a pattern, not that I've seen research to support this, but I have seen a personal pattern.

Christian Brim (30:23.105)
Now we're just making shit up here. I mean, we're not we're not breaking new scientific ground here.

Kelly Tuttle (30:29.359)
I have noticed a lot of them that I follow have a history of ADHD or some type of neurodiversity. I feel like the corporations, large corporations, I feel like it speak for not small businesses or medium businesses, but large corporations are not accommodating.

to neurodivergent individuals. For instance, like for me, I needed a private office to work in and I was told there is none. You have to work in this open workspace, which was a nightmare. And I've heard other stories where, you know, people just did not do well in the corporate, under corporate employment. And that's why they kind of left and

are doing their own thing. And I kind of attribute some of my entrepreneurial steps, not only to the brain injury, but also being Gen X. When I was a kid, I was left at home alone. if something, and that was before cell phones and the internet and all that stuff. So if something went wrong or didn't work, I had to figure out how to fix it.

Christian Brim (31:29.741)
Mm.

Christian Brim (31:40.354)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (31:54.018)
Well, I'm still trying to figure, I was having this conversation with my wife recently and we've had it multiple times. When we were kids and plans didn't happen, how the hell did we communicate with each other? I don't know. Show up at the arcade on Friday night and then if you show up at the arcade and no one's there, how do you know where everybody went? I don't know, we figured it out, but yeah, I have noticed like...

There are alternatives to being completely connected all the time. That's just an aside. So you do see similarities. I would agree with that statement about large corporations. I would say the education system as well, like divergence of thought is not wanted. It's not wanted. They do not want you to think outside the box in any way.

So, you know, I think whether you had it naturally or you had some of these things because of the traumatic brain injury, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because I think we need more divergent thought rather than more convergent thought.

Kelly Tuttle (33:12.557)
Exactly. So one of the things that was a problem at my job as a nurse practitioner was my time with my patient was limited. And so I had information I wanted to share with them, but I didn't have time to do that. And sometimes, you know, when you're sick or you're stressed or anxious, you're not open to hearing it at that moment, too.

Christian Brim (33:25.005)
Hmm.

Kelly Tuttle (33:41.597)
And being in the doctor's office is highly stressful for a lot of people. So it was, that was frustrating. And I felt like I wasn't able to do my job as a nurse. Like nursing, we go to school to learn how to educate patients about their disease processes and how to live with them. And that's, and not being able to do that was disheartening. And when I,

Christian Brim (33:49.268)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Christian Brim (34:05.815)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (34:10.038)
Mm.

Kelly Tuttle (34:11.502)
wrote my book, I realized, my gosh, I broke out of the exam room and I can reach people with all the information I've been wanting to share with all my patients out of the exam room. And so it was more of seeing a problem and breaking out of the box and meeting the needs that I knew were out there.

Christian Brim (34:16.865)
Hmm

Christian Brim (34:25.034)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (34:37.559)
I love that. That's almost a gift, right? Like that before the brain injury, you couldn't do the job the way you wanted to do it. But now you can. I love that. How do people find your book if they want to learn more, listen to your podcast, et cetera? What's the best way to connect?

Kelly Tuttle (35:02.133)
The best way to connect is my website at kellytuttle.org. That's T-U-T-T-L-E. My book, you can find it at Amazon. It's also on Audible. So if any of your listeners like to listen to their books, it's on Audible. it, yes, I did. That was fun. That was interesting. It was. yeah, because I, I have some aphasia.

Christian Brim (35:19.767)
Did you narrate it? Nice work. That was the unusual challenge. That was, yes. Yes.

Kelly Tuttle (35:31.139)
And so sometimes even though I want a word to come out, it doesn't come out right. So that was really interesting. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it because I know a lot of people needed the audible version to be able to to the information. But my book is also, you can get it at any of your favorite indie stores. After the crash, how to keep your job, stay in school and live life after a brain injury.

Christian Brim (35:52.523)
And the title again was.

after the

Kelly Tuttle (36:01.327)
And my podcast is the mindful return by with Kelly Tuttle.

Christian Brim (36:07.693)
Perfect. Listeners will have all of those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, remember you are not alone.