I guess you could say that I am a typical midbrain-injured kid. I am bright, learn quickly and I am interested in many things. I love to talk and socialize and I am a bibliomaniac (crazy about books). On the other hand my midbrain injury has caused huge respiratory problems, resulting in rigidity and problems with mobility, balance, and coordination.
The best way for a well person to understand rigidity is to imagine that the joints all over your body—ankles, knees, hips, everywhere— are bound tightly with rubber bands. Every move you make is difficult and the "rubber band" is always pulling your leg, fingers, everything, tightly together. Before I started The Institutes program I was rigid all over my body, but now only a few joints feel stiff.
Midbrain-injured people like myself also have problems with coordination and getting messages from the brain to other areas of the body. When I first started The Institutes program I knew that I had to bend my knees and bring my legs up when I crawled, but they wouldn’t bend at all. The message didn’t get through until I had done thousands of hours of program. Last summer I spent about a couple of weeks telling myself just what I had to do in order to jump up while holding onto a bar. I told myself to just bend my knees and then push off quickly on the balls of my feet. I couldn’t jump up even a millimeter. Finally after a couple of weeks I could jump up! The message finally got through. It takes so much longer for midbrain-injured kids to get the message of how it feels to do something and then be able to actually do it. This can be terribly frustrating.
The good news is that after doing The Institutes program messages began to get in much more quickly. The Institutes program is really tough, but I’m certain it is a brain-injured person’s only hope for wellness. When the tough gets tougher, which it will from time to time, I have found that trying to meet small monthly goals motivates me the best. If I meet my goal then I reward myself with something such as a trip to a museum or concert. Recently I earned the privilege of attending a concert by doing 20 sets of 200 perfect steps on my track. It took me about a month to meet that goal, but I sure was motivated to make it in time for the concert.
My advice for the parents of other midbrain-injured kids is to try The Institutes program. Attend the What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child Course, learn everything you can while you are there and decide to give the program 100% of your effort for a certain length of time, such as six months. My family and I did just that and within a few weeks we saw outstanding progress. I’m sure the good results will make you very committed to continuing the program.
I want other midbrain-injured kids to know that your tight, rigid muscles can become loose without surgery or drugs. You can learn to walk without braces, your speech can become crystal clear, and your tight, uncoordinated fingers can learn beautiful piano concertos. I know, because all of these things have happened to me. All your hard work on The Institutes program will be worth all your tremendous effort.
I also have some advice for midbrain-injured kids who are already on The Institutes program. I think your progress will be steady and consistent if you are enthusiastic and put a little extra effort into your program. Imagine you are practicing piano and your mother asks you to play one more song. You are tired and cranky so you just fly through the song with no feeling or expression. You finish the song and say, "There, I did it!" You may have played every note but you sure didn’t improve your level of playing. I think doing your program is very similar to this. You may have everything on your worksheet checked off at the end of the day, but if you weren’t enthusiastic and if you didn’t give it extra "oomph," then your progress won’t be as good as it could be.
Of course, like everyone, I am not always at my best, but recently the green jackets [The Institute for the Achievement of Physiological Excellence] started me on some new nutritional things and now I have incredible energy. At bedtime I’m usually still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It’s much easier to do a better job on your program when you have lots of energy.
The worst thing about being brain-injured is not being able to do some things that my well friends can do. I would love to be able to scuba dive, backpack through the mountains, show jump horses, and trail ride through the mountains of Colorado. I look forward to the day when I can do these things too.
Believe it or not, having a midbrain injury also has had some positive effects on my life. My family and I are much closer than we would be if I were well and going to school each day, rather than all of us working together on program. Also, if I weren’t brain-injured I wouldn’t have met so many wonderful people at The Institutes and brain-injured kids from around the world.
I have a lot of plans for the future. Right now I need to keep working hard on my program so I can graduate as soon as possible. In college I would like to earn a degree in marine biology and also study English literature. I then want to spend a few years studying the intelligence of dolphins. I want to continue to write each day and hopefully have a book on the New York Times best-seller list some day.
I now love horses almost as much as books, and it is my dream to raise and show Tennessee Walker and Appaloosa horses. The northeast area of the United States is one of the best areas for horse lovers, and I plan to spend a lot of time there at horse shows.
Each time I am in the area I would like to volunteer in the clinic at The Institutes. So in a few years if you pull into the parking lot at The Institutes and see a horse trailer taking up a lot of parking spaces, you’ll know that I am in town and I am up in the clinic working with brain-injured children.
