Hospital leadership and brain injury program staff celebrated the ribbon-cutting for the program’s newest unit on Aug. 3. The unit, located on the sixth floor of the Marcus-Woodruff Building, began serving patients and families on Aug. 4, as part of a phased opening.

"There's a lot of hope in what we do at Shepherd Center, and hope is certainly here on the sixth floor. We are so proud of the expanded access to allow patients with brain injuries to be well cared for," said Jamie Shepherd, MBA, MHA, FACHE, president and CEO of Shepherd Center.

In addition to having a new therapy gym and state-of-the-art equipment, the new unit enabled the conversion of all semi-private rooms throughout the hospital into private rooms, giving patients a space to call their own for the duration of their rehabilitation.

"It's amazing to be at Shepherd [and celebrate] all that we've been able to accomplish — to be able to have 35 new beds for ABI. Having the quality be consistent across all three units is really important to us, and I've had a great team of people who helped get this accomplished. It's super exciting,” said Katie Metzger, OTR, MBA, director of the Rollins Acquired Brain Injury Program.

The new unit brings the total capacity of the brain injury program to 85 beds, which means more patients with brain injuries will have access to the specialized care and expertise Shepherd Center’s clinicians offer. The new unit expands opportunities for patients with other diagnoses, too. The Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit (CRU) is equipped to care for patients with brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, traumatic amputations, dual diagnoses of spinal cord and brain injuries, pulmonary complications, multiple orthopedic injuries, and pressure injuries, as well as other neurological conditions. With more beds available for patients with brain injuries on the sixth floor, CRU will be able to admit more patients with other conditions.

The opening of the new unit is the culmination of years of planning and fundraising. Much of the funding for the new unit comes from Pursuing Possible: The Campaign for Shepherd Center, which concluded this spring. The campaign raised an incredible $446 million, which made the renovations needed for the new unit possible. Additionally, staff played a huge role in preparing the new unit for patients. Team members spent months planning details like the unit design, equipment procurement, staffing models, workflow processes, and communication systems, and worked hard to ensure consistency across all ABI units.

The opening of the new unit represents a new chapter in Shepherd Center’s history. But this new chapter is not unlike the one that started it all: people seeing a need and working to make sure it is met with expertise and compassion.

Written by Erin Kenney

From the outside looking in, everything was going right for Marine 1st Sgt. Mark Koerner. 

He’d had an accomplished career in the Marine Corps — he was the most senior member of his unit at Parris Island, South Carolina — and he had a loving wife and two young children. 

But not everything was going right. 

“A lot of things happened during my 20 years [in the Marines] that led up to me really having a hard time in South Carolina,” he remembers. “My symptoms just kept getting worse and worse, quality of life getting worse, and [I didn’t] understand what was going on with me. From an outsider's perspective, I appeared to be so blessed — and I was, and I still am — but why couldn't I be present in that?” 

He remembers feeling distracted, gaining weight, experiencing drinking problems, and generally feeling off. He did what he could to change things — scheduling surgeries he’d once pushed off, seeing behavioral health specialists at the Naval Hospital, quitting drinking. But a bad relapse pushed him over the edge. 

His first stop was Emerald Coast Behavioral Hospital in Florida, where he got help with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse. Things were already looking up when he got back, and then he caught up with a friend who’d recently been to SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center, a comprehensive rehabilitation program for veterans, service members, and first responders with traumatic brain injuries and mental health concerns. Mark applied to the program and was accepted. 

“I wasn't sure what to expect when I was going there, all I knew really was what [my friend] had told me about his experience there,” Mark says, “It just seemed like the next logical step for me to continue getting help that I needed before I took that giant leap and hung up the uniform.” 

Mark’s time at SHARE was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He was surprised to find that he had a say in his treatment plan, and while some days were difficult, he fully committed to the program. He had made sacrifices to be there — leaving behind his family and his unit — so he gave it his all. It was worth it. 

“It just all worked so well together that I honestly felt like I was a new man when I left there,” he says. “I was able to come back and face life, and it's not like any problems disappeared, but my ability to manage them was almost effortless compared to how I felt prior to SHARE.” 

He doesn’t point to one specific kind of therapy as the tool that gave him his life back. Instead, it was the combination of everything — memory exercises, recreation therapy outings, Wednesday night cookouts, staying in the apartments with his peers, and the genuine kindness from the program staff. 

When he returned to his unit after his time at SHARE, he was transparent with them about where he had been and why. 

“It was a little hard to go back after being gone for so long, I'm sure [there were] a lot of rumors, a lot of younger Marines saying, ‘Hey, where did the First Sergeant go?’” 

“I told them exactly where I lived, where I was. I didn't expect it to happen, but after I was so transparent with them, I had a lot of Marines wanting to talk to me because they were going through things that were very similar to what I was going through, and I was able to help them through a lot of it and pointed them to resources and just gave them my experience and my advice.”

Mark retired from the Marines in 2024, after 20 years of service and seven deployments across the country and the world. He’s now a first-year apprentice in the International Union of Operating Engineers in Ohio, where his family has a home, his wife Abby has a job, and their boys are in school. 

“When I'm home, I can be present with the boys. I'm not wrestling with all the distractions, many of them selfmade, that I once was,” he says. “I'm able to wake up every day and be grateful for all the blessings in my life. “There's always problems in life, and nothing ever works out perfectly. I continue to run across them, but it's nothing that's insurmountable, and home life is very much improved.”

Written by Erin Kenney

When Keylan Watkins returned home to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Shepherd Center, his mother, LaToya, took him to Erlanger Hospital to show them how far he’d come. 

“I wanted them to see the miracle Shepherd created,” LaToya says. 

Four months earlier, on June 2, 2023, Keylan, then 12, sustained a traumatic brain injury when he fell off an all-terrain vehicle. He was in the pediatric intensive care unit at Erlanger for 35 days, where doctors were unsure of Keylan’s prognosis. After learning about Shepherd Center from a caseworker, LaToya and Keylan arrived by ambulance to start his rehabilitation. 

Keylan was using a feeding tube and was unable to walk, talk, or eat. But he slowly made progress. 

“I was optimistic about his chance for recovery, but I also doubtful because of what the doctors had told me,” LaToya says. 

That doubt of Keylan having a successful recovery faded during their first week at Shepherd Center. 

“He was standing more, reacting more, and began remembering things,” she remembers. “I knew we were in the right place and that things would be okay.” 

In Shepherd Center’s Adolescent Rehabilitation Program, Keylan enjoyed being with other kids close to his age, socializing, playing games, and shooting baskets in the gym. 

“It was fun and took my mind off of what I was going through,” Keylan says. He set small goals for himself – like walking down the hall on his own – and surpassed them all. 

After 46 days at Shepherd Center and a few weeks at outpatient rehabilitation at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Keylan returned home in October 2023 and began seventh grade. 

Now 15, Keylan is a freshman in high school. His doctors have discouraged playing sports because of the risk of head injury, but he stays busy off the field. He is happy just “chilling with his friends,” and has a job running the scoreboard and keeping the stats for basketball games at the Chattanooga Parks and Recreation Department, where LaToya also works. He is also training to be an umpire for softball games. 

Keylan and LaToya are both grateful for Shepherd Center. 

“I loved everything about Shepherd Center,” LaToya says. “It was such a family atmosphere. I tell everyone it is an amazing place and they create miracles.” 

Written by Sara Baxter 
 

June is National Aphasia Awareness Month. Over two million people in the U.S. live with the condition, which impacts comprehension as well as written and verbal communication. Amy Waite, CCC-SLP, has worked at Shepherd Center as a speech-language pathologist for over 20 years and regularly works with patients experiencing aphasia. Here, she answers some frequently asked questions about the condition. 

What is aphasia? 

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by damage to the left side of the brain in 98% of people — there are the occasional people who develop language on the right side, but in most of us, it develops on the left. It can affect how well you understand, how well you talk, or both. It also affects reading and writing, because they're the “on paper” version of our comprehension and expression. 

Its impacts depend on the location and the size of the area of damage. You can see much more classic aphasia symptoms in stroke patients and less classic in patients with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), because the damage is more diffuse but not as deep with TBI. In stroke patients, it's very specific to an area, so it'll be much more textbook. 

There are different names to describe the different types of aphasia and its impacts: global aphasia is the most severe, impacting comprehension and communication. There’s also expressive aphasia, also called Broca’s aphasia, where people do have the comprehension piece but may struggle with spoken language. And Wernicke’s aphasia affects how well people understand what is being said. 

How do you work with patients who have aphasia? 

For many of my patients with global aphasia, they don’t enjoy coming to their speech therapy sessions. Sometimes people think I’m speaking in gibberish to them, because they don’t understand that they’re experiencing aphasia. So, you have to think outside of the box. Once, I was working with a woman who did not like speech therapy, but she liked country music, so we’d play country music. 

She could sometimes sing parts of songs, because that uses a different part of the brain. And then I'd start playing a song, and I'd write three artists on pieces of paper. And then I'd put them in front of her and I'd say, ‘Who's singing this song?’ And then I'd point to them and read them, so she heard me say it, she saw their names, and she was hearing the song, and then she could point to the person who she thought was singing it. So, we were working on reading and comprehension through something she enjoyed. And the only way I could even get in at first was by just playing country music and not asking any questions. But then after we got through that, and she realized she could sing a little word here and there, then it started to loosen her up, and then we went with it. 

People with expressive aphasia, they’re all about speech therapy. They’re going to sit down, and they’re going to work, and then they’ll want to do five more [drills]. They'll get frustrated, they'll make faces, they'll make noises, but then they're like, “Nope, nope, let's do it again.” And it's because they understand that something's wrong and they want to fix it. It’s unlike when people are experiencing the comprehension deficit, because the self-awareness isn’t there, and I think it can be more frustrating for them. 

If someone is experiencing aphasia, what are some strategies to assist with communication? 

Aphasia can be very frustrating. I encourage people to use humor — to laugh at themselves and try to find things that are funny, because if that’s even remotely a strategy they used in life before their injury, it can be helpful in therapy. But I do try to acknowledge the frustration and encourage people not to give up. 

But sometimes, it’s good for people to know when it’s time to take a break. If something isn’t highly important, it may be easier to talk about later. Factors like emotions can impact your ability to communicate — if you’re angry or sad or upset in any way, it’s going to be harder to communicate. 

I also encourage people to use gestures, draw pictures, and write. I’m horrible at drawing, but I use drawings to help communicate and also show my patients that it doesn’t matter what your drawings look like if they help you get your message across. And a lot of times we’ll laugh at my drawing, because if you can laugh at me, you can also laugh at yourself. 

How do I help a loved one experiencing aphasia? 

A big part of this is using less words and being direct in what you say. I'm not going to say, “Would you reach over there and pick up your shirt? I'm going to say, “Pick up the shirt.” And I'm going to make sure I use gestures, facial expression, and tone of voice to help also indicate my message, because those are all nonverbal cues that people with aphasia are still going to understand. 

So sometimes, you become an expert at acting things out or miming because people can understand what you mean. So, I'll say, “Do you want a drink?” [She acts out drinking from a cup]. Because then they'll understand, “Oh, she’s asking if I want a drink,” even if they don't understand the words. 

Again, aphasia is very frustrating. As a family member or friend, the worst thing you can do for them is finish their sentences, even if you have good intentions. Imagine if everything you want to ask me or say, I finished it for you and told you half of what you were trying to say. So, I encourage people to be patient and let their loved ones work on their communication. 

What if someone needs additional aphasia therapy after their rehabilitation at Shepherd? 

There are some intensive aphasia programs around the country. Most people could still benefit from additional aphasia therapy when they’re leaving Shepherd Center. If patients go to our outpatient programs, they'll still get speech therapy at Pathways. But a fair number of patients still go on to one of the aphasia programs. 

One example is the University of Michigan Aphasia Program. That's like the granddaddy of all of them. But there are others, like The Aphasia Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. And I know the other speech therapists and many of our doctors [at Shepherd] recommend these facilities, too. They’re just more intensive, like six hours of aphasia therapy a day. And these programs have great outcomes, regardless of the time passed since injury. 

Usually, I introduce the topic to the patients while they're inpatient, because the programs can be very expensive and they're not covered by insurance. So, I’ll say, “Hey, if you want to do a fundraiser, if you want to do a GoFundMe, here is something that you could use it for, if your communication isn't where you want it to be.” 

Does aphasia go away or improve? 

Technically, if you read about it, there's no cure for aphasia. But you can see people recover well enough that they are able to function without any communication deficits at all. And you can see anything in between, from no change to partial recovery — people whose communication is functional, but maybe they still struggle a little bit with talking. So, while there is no “cure,” a person can recover enough to live a fully functional life without having to use any compensatory strategies. 


Responses have been edited for length and clarity. 

Interview by Erin Kenney

But psychological testing doesn’t always ensure fair and accurate results, especially for racially diverse patients.

“The primary issue is that most psychological tests were developed and normed on Caucasian populations, so they don’t really apply as well to non-Caucasians,” says Brick Johnstone, Ph.D., the O.Wayne Rollins Director of Brain Injury Research at Shepherd Center.

So, Johnstone, along with other researchers, worked on a study to show another way of evaluating patients, without relying on normed data. The study was published in the January 2026 edition of the journal Brain Injury. Working with the study’s lead author, Gary James, Ph.D., Johnstone and other researchers developed a method of evaluating patients’ severity of brain injury based on the individual’s estimated level of function pre-injury (such as their own reading score), rather than comparing results to normed data (i.e., a potentially inappropriate reference group).

Shepherd Pathways rehabilitation counselor Tim Riggins, LCSW, and brain injury research program manager Nicole Thompson, MPH, also worked on the study. Using data from 239 patients with brain injuries at Shepherd, the study examined the team’s method of neuropsychological evaluation. White patients and Black patients differed on some of the absolute scores (e.g.,IQ, memory, attention), but the study shows that when comparing someone’s post-injury function to their pre-injury function, the results were similar across the board (i.e., White and Black individuals had similar rates of mild, moderate, and severe impairment).

“These results further support the fact that people of different racial backgrounds — they all experience brain injury in a similar manner,” Johnstone says. “So, we’re really trying to indicate that there are different ways to look at data, to interpret it, and we think this is the most appropriate way to do it fairly.”

Riggins says that while neuropsychological testing doesn’t stand alone in the rehabilitation process, it can inform the treatment opportunities a patient receives. As a rehabilitation counselor, Riggins supports patients in managing the personal, social, and psychological effects of their brain injury on their goals of returning to employment, school, or independent living.

“When it comes to return to work potential, [patients] go through neuropsych testing to assess their readiness for return to work and potential accommodations that are necessary,” he says. “So, the outcomes of the testing directly influence their goals for their recovery ...[and] if they're not able to return to work, if the report doesn't support disability, it could make it more difficult for them to receive benefits they need to support themselves.”

Riggins says the research results were validating, acknowledging that while racial bias is often present in traditional testing, there are different ways to evaluate patients in order to help them achieve better outcomes. That philosophy — helping patients achieve the best possible recovery — drives much of brain injury research at Shepherd, Johnstone says.

“Our brain injury research is really focused on improving community outcomes. We want to make sure that the services we provide, the research we do, is helping people successfully reintegrate into their community or to get jobs ... we're just trying to help all of our patients from many diverse backgrounds.”

Written by Erin Kenney

Interested in participating in research at Shepherd Center? Find actively recruiting studies here.

Landon Simpson

OT Goals – Cervical control, increased arm movement, sitting upright

PT Goals – Walking

19-year-old Landon Simpson transferred from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, to Shepherd Center’s Disorders of Consciousness Program in October after sustaining a brain injury in a car crash in August. His therapy team has been working with him ever since his arrival at Shepherd. He emerged in January, and today, he has back-to-back occupational and physical therapy sessions.

His occupational therapist, Corrie Samples, MS, OTR/L, and PT/OT aide Fred Tuppings, are helping Landon position himself over a peanut-shaped ball for an exercise on the therapy mat.

Corrie explains that Landon has bilateral tone in his arms and a preference for a flexed position with his arms, neck, and trunk. In therapy, the focus is on strengthening the antagonist (opposing muscles) to assist him with improved head position, sitting balance, and upper extremity strength and movement.

Landon’s mom, Ashlie, attends most of his therapy sessions, encouraging him and jumping in to help when she can. She’s been at Shepherd with Landon ever since he arrived, sleeping in his room at night, and sometimes heading to the family’s apartment in the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences between therapy sessions to do laundry or take a break. Other family members — Landon’s dad and his grandmother (Ashlie’s mom) stay in the apartment for weeks at a time to support Landon and Ashlie.

“It's very hard,” she says. “But he has improved a lot, so just praying every day that he continues to improve.”

During his OT session, Corrie challenges and cajoles Landon, sometimes using reverse psychology to motivate him.

“Take a break if you need a break, but put your arms down,” she tells him. Then, when Landon leaves his arms folded against his chest, she jokes, “Okay, don't put your arms down. Whatever you do, keep them up on your chest. Right under your chin.”

Landon works on sitting up at the edge of the mat. Corrie guides him to lift his head, put his hands on the mat, and engage his core to support himself. Sometimes Landon says “no” to Corrie’s instructions, and you can see his frustration. Other times, he shares an impish grin.

“I want to see that handsome smile,” Ashlie tells him. “Lift your head up. This is going to make you stronger.”

Ashlie says Landon loves being outside — playing golf, duck hunting, and fishing. He’s also always had a strong work ethic, and before his injury, he was working with an electrician and training to become one himself. She and Landon FaceTime with his girlfriend back home in Clinton, Kentucky, every day, and her name comes up as motivation during therapy.

Sometimes, to better understand what Landon is trying to communicate, Ashlie brings a letter board so he can point to the first letter of the word. The day before, he was saying his dad’s name a lot. Today, he’s saying his girlfriend’s name.

At the end of a session filled with sitting, standing, and stretches, Corrie gives Landon a few minutes to rest on the mat before his physical therapy session begins.

He has casts over his feet and lower legs since he recently had surgery to release his contracted Achilles tendons. The surgery will allow him to keep his feet flat when he walks, rather than walking on tiptoes.

After OT, Landon heads across the gym for physical therapy with Ryan Gill, PT, DPT, NCS. Today, he’s going to be walking using the ZeroG Gait and Balance System, which provides body-weight support so he can safely practice walking. Beth DeBee, PT, DPT, NCS, and Matthew Yin, a PT/OT aide, join to help with the session.

Once Landon is harnessed into the ZeroG, the team guides him through the motions of walking several yards along a black-and-yellow line that runs across part of the gym. Landon’s grandmother, Rosemary, joins the group and shares encouraging words.

They support Landon as he moves down the line, let him stop for a brief rest, then head back in the opposite direction. Sometimes Ashlie joins in, holding Landon’s hands steady and encouraging him.

Ashlie and Ryan talk about the boots they have on order for Landon’s feet after the casts are removed, as well as a new wheelchair.

In a week or two, Landon will head to Shepherd Pathways to continue therapy on an outpatient basis there. Ashlie is grateful for his progress up to this point and the therapists who have worked with him.

“We've always had Corrie, Ryan, and Aubrey (Landon’s speech-language pathologist), and Landon’s nurse, Carrie, from day one, and they've been great,” Ashlie says. “We've gotten this far because of them.”

Laura Snyder

PT Goals – transfers, standing, walking

“Stunning.” That’s physical therapist Payton Pulver’s recent word of choice to describe impressive progress by her patient, Laura Snyder.

On the day of this therapy session, Laura has been at Shepherd Center for almost three weeks.

“My husband Bill is going to join us,” she says before the therapy session begins. “He is definitely my partner. It would be a mess if I didn’t have him here.”

In December, Laura fell and hit her head, which led to a brain bleed, causing weakness on her left side. After brain surgery and five weeks at East Carolina University Health in Greenville, North Carolina, she transferred to Shepherd. She has been using a manual wheelchair, but in physical therapy, she’s working on standing and walking.

Since surgeons had to remove part of her skull to address the brain bleed, Laura wears a protective helmet. She also wears prism glasses to help adjust her perception of where she is in space and correct her posture. The glasses are an important intervention for people with visual impairment due to a brain injury and can help with balance and peripheral awareness. Payton also puts a brace on Laura’s ankle.

“It works with her knee, too, to help her lift up her toes, and also keep her knee bent, because she tends to hyperextend her knee,” Payton explains. “So, I’m trying to give a little more support at the ankle and the knee.”

Laura’s shoe doesn’t fit over the brace, so she wears a larger one, which she calls “the big goober.”  

First, Laura works on “sit and stands” with Payton. Then, while Laura is standing, Payton asks her to shift her weight to the right and raise and lower her left foot. From there, they try a set of portable stairs, and Laura makes it to the top.

“I can get into my house!” she exclaims with a grin.

Bill looks on. He says that Laura has that smile “every minute of every day. She lights up a room.”

In therapy, Laura is working on transfers, walking, and standing.

“You know, just all those very basic things, but I'm getting there. It just takes time. You work on little things, you go to this therapy, and you work on this particular thing, and you go to this [therapy], and then you begin to see how they all come together.”

Laura has conquered the stairs, but she and Payton aren’t done for the day. They move to the hallway where Laura will practice walking while holding onto a wall rail, which Laura says she doesn’t particularly like.

Laura holds onto the railing, Payton stands in front of her for support, and Bill follows behind with the wheelchair ready if needed.

She takes one step, then another, moving the “big goober” of a shoe forward. Payton reminds her to focus and not to lock her knee.

“Laura, you’re walking!” Payton says.

Laura’s husband Bill chimes in, “Yeah, you are!” 

Laura lets out a big “YeeHee!” All with the broad smile she’s worn for most of her physical therapy session.

Stunning.

Aaron Hurd

SLP Goals – word retrieval, sentence structure, complex conversations

Thirty-two-year-old Aaron Hurd and his speech-language pathologist, Amanda Goldman, CCC-SLP, first focus on a worksheet resembling a Mad Lib — several paragraphs in which he’ll fill in the blanks to create logical sentences. As he worked on a similar exercise in a previous session, they decide Aaron will complete the worksheet for homework, and they move on to another exercise.

Last December, Aaron had a hemorrhagic stroke, which affected his speech and caused paralysis on his right side. After a month at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta, Georgia, he transferred to Shepherd’s inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. There, he worked with therapists on improving his vision, walking, and speech.

He graduated from the program at the beginning of March and is in his second week at Shepherd Pathways to continue therapy on an outpatient basis. Therapy will continue to target his vision, mobility, and speech to support Aaron’s long-term goals of returning to work and driving.

Aaron wears prism glasses over his own glasses to improve his depth perception, balance, and posture. After putting away his homework, he scrolls on his phone for a moment until he finds a job posting with a description that resembles his own job as a senior manager for payments.

“We’re trying to get Aaron to be able to write or verbalize a job description because he’s having trouble with more complex topics,” Amanda explains. “Then, he can tell people what he does for work, because right now he uses a lot of empty words… so lots of ‘things,’ right? she says to Aaron, “And ‘ums,’ when he’s trying to figure the word he wants to say and out how all the words go together.”

Aaron reads the description aloud. He struggles with some of the more complicated words, and Amanda offers starting sounds and gives him tips on pronunciation or where to place his tongue to get the sound he’s looking for.

When, at times, the words don’t come out quite right, Aaron knows it. “Oh my gosh,” he says with some frustration. Upon listening to the high-level job description, filled with professional jargon about payment cycles, Amanda jokes with him, “I’m not going to lie, this language even goes over my head!”

Aaron tells her, “So, I know what it is. That's what I'm saying. I know what to do, I can do it. But can't talk right now.”

“I know,” Amanda assures him.

Aaron has anomic aphasia, which means he primarily has difficulty with word retrieval. Unlike other types of aphasia, in which people have difficulty understanding what people are saying, Aaron’s comprehension is very good.

“He’s working solely on expression,” Amanda explains.

Sometimes, that just means giving Aaron time to think to retrieve a word.

“And then once he gets it, trying to keep that word and putting a sentence together can be hard,” Amanda says. “So, it's the word retrieval, the sentence structure for it, and adding more content into his conversation.”

They move on to another exercise. Amanda asks Aaron to use complete sentences to describe who is in the picture, what is happening, where it takes place, when it is occurring, and why it may be happening. Once he says a sentence aloud, she asks him to write it down as well. As he speaks and writes, he sometimes stops to correct himself when a word doesn’t come out sounding the way he wants it to, or he isn’t sure of the right word.

“Your spelling is getting better,” Amanda tells him.

Aaron admits that he’s never been great at spelling, and Amanda tells him that it was always her worst subject in school.

“Hey, you've written two sentences, and there's only one letter that's been off,” she points out.

“I do payments, numbers,” Aaron says. “I don't talk.”

 “All right. So, I should start giving you math?” Amanda jokes.

Aaron describes a picture of a group grilling. He and Amanda talk about what they like to grill and how they like their burgers. She asks him how he feels about the difficulty level of the exercise.

“I know what I want to say, I can't write the words. Those words, not coming out.”

“Your writing, though, was great,” she says. “Your spelling, there was one spelling error I had to fix, and then a little bit of the grammar, but then you fixed it yourself. But, yes, saying the sentences and putting it all together [can be difficult]. Also, do you feel on the spot sometimes?”

“Yeah,” Aaron admits.

Sometimes, Aaron leaves out a preposition or an article in his communication. Even though he can get his point across that way, Amanda encourages him to use full sentences.

“Other people might let you get away with it, but I won't,” she tells him with a smile.

It's speech. I have to make you say the whole thing.”

In a third exercise, Amanda asks Aaron to describe the similarities and differences between pairs of words, like high school and college or waffles and pancakes. When he’s struggling to find a word, she offers encouragement and sometimes gives him the first letter or sound to help him retrieve the word he’s looking for.

As the session wraps up, their waffles vs. pancakes conversation leads to talk of their go-to Waffle House orders and favorite foods.

Next, Aaron will head to recreation therapy, where he’ll continue working on words — with a fierce game of Bananagrams.

Written by Ruth Underwood

For someone unfamiliar with Shepherd Center, that may read like a typo. It’s hard to imagine feeling joyful in the wake of such tragedy.

But for Rebecca and Justin, and hundreds of other patients and caregivers who’ve experienced recovery at Shepherd Center, joy was just part of the process. Of course, they also experienced grief and anxiety during Graham’s four-month hospital stay. But with the support of their family and friends, church community, hospital staff, and the other patients and families on their hall, they were able to delight in the small victories — at first, Graham’s small movements and words, at times slurred, but spoken all the same.

The Goldman family, made up of Rebecca, Justin, and their three children — Graham, Jake, and Shelby Kate, lives in Madison, Mississippi. They’re an active bunch, enjoying traveling and camping together. Graham was especially active, competing in tennis, football, track, and cross-country for his high school. He took up cycling about three years ago.

In cycling, Graham found drive, passion, and a welcoming community. He enjoyed road and gravel races with his dad — and the sport brought the pair closer together. Justin had coached many of Graham’s sports teams as he was growing up, but through cycling, he began to see his son as a peer.

“That's when our relationship really began the transition from more of a traditional father-son to almost more of a friend,” he says. “I mean, we got really, really close.”

Cycling helped Graham build confidence and endurance, as well as a new support system. The weekend before he sustained his injury, he completed a 60-mile race. But then on April 28, 2025, he was in a serious biking accident, resulting in a traumatic brain injury.

Right away, Graham’s parents knew they wanted to get Graham to Shepherd Center for rehabilitation. A friend from church had been to Shepherd a couple of years prior, and they felt the hospital would provide Graham with the care he needed to succeed, despite being five hours away from Madison.

Rebecca’s parents, who are retired, stepped in to care for Jake and Shelby Kate, promising her that “they would be there as long as they were needed,” she recalls. After weeks in the ICU, she and Graham made the journey to Atlanta, where Graham began his rehabilitation, and she settled in at the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences. Thanks to a supportive company allowing him to adjust his schedule, Justin was able to travel to Atlanta frequently throughout Graham’s recovery.

“That was a really trying time for me because there was no rest,” Justin remembers. “I would come back and work hard and try to take care of our other kids, and then I flew [back to Atlanta] weekly because I couldn't afford the time to drive. I had to instantly get in the game and be refreshed and ready to stay in the room with Graham.”

When Justin was at Shepherd, he got involved in Graham’s therapy sessions. He says that encouraging his son in therapy wasn’t much different than cheering him on in sports or cycling — with Graham’s athlete mindset, Justin knew he was capable of overcoming hard things. Working alongside Shepherd Center’s therapists helped on that front, Justin says.

“[Graham’s therapists] were phenomenal ... both on the therapy side and as well as the joy and the smiles and the morale champions that they were to keep us uplifted,” Justin says.

And while Rebecca gives Justin credit for being Graham’s “biggest cheerleader” in therapy, he says his wife played a much larger role in their son’s recovery.

“My wife is very humble and kind. She carried the lion's share, of course,” he says. “I thank the Lord for giving us resiliency and energy [to care for Graham during his recovery]. I look back at it now, and I'm like, ‘How in the world did I do that? And how in the world did my wife do that, when I wasn't there?’ She was carrying that burden by herself.”

Rebecca stayed by Graham’s side throughout his recovery. Friends from back home often came to Shepherd to visit, sometimes dropping in because they said they were in the area, only for Rebecca and Justin to learn they were visiting Chattanooga or Birmingham. They were willing to drive the extra hours just to support Graham and his family.

Rebecca often spent the night with Graham in his hospital room, learning from his nurses and therapists how to care for him medically.

“The staff, the nurses, and the therapists were so great to teach us — to empower us to be able to do some of the things so that we were able to help him instead of always having to call a nurse or a therapist for help,” Rebecca says. “It was an honor to care for him in the ways that we were.”

Now, Graham is back home with his siblings and back to school part-time. He does outpatient therapy each week and continues to improve day by day. Rebecca and Justin aren’t sure what the future may hold, but that hasn’t stopped Graham from making plans of his own.

“We actually went back to Shepherd in the last week of December, and he saw all of his favorite therapists there that he thinks are all legends, and he loves them dearly,” Justin says. “He saw them, and he said, ‘I want to be a physical therapist. I want to be a PT, and I want to work at Shepherd.’”

Written by Erin Kenney

The way to Kaedan Everhart’s heart typically follows a path worn by horses, dirt bikes, and four-wheelers. Yes, it takes a lot to get Kaedan Everhart indoors. For anything other than a line dance, that is.

The 18-year-old from Statesville, N.C., goes by K-Lo among his friends at the rodeos where he ropes and the stables where he rides. Throughout high school, you’d just about always find a cowboy hat on his head and boots on his feet. Except for fall Friday
nights when the talented cornerback donned a football helmet instead.

“If it’s outdoors, I’m up for it,” Kaedan says. “That’s where I’m happy. That’s where I’m me.”

On Oct. 13, 2024, however, Kaedan sustained several serious injuries in a car accident, including a traumatic brain injury (TBI). His always-in-motion life came to a standstill, with a ventilator helping him breathe and operations to repair broken bones and brain bleeds. 

The great outdoors seemed very far away.

Kaedan eventually transferred to Shepherd Center’s Adolescent Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. His care team set to work right away, getting him mobile again. As Kaedan’s brain awakened, his therapists challenged the young athlete with activities to help him re-learn to think, speak, and walk.

As part of his therapy, Shepherd Center staff even took Kaedan to a horse ranch to practice his skills. And they spent extra time addressing his right-side motor deficits, a consequence of his TBI.

“That meant the most to me,” Kaedan says. “They got my arm moving again. It doesn’t straighten all the way, but I can use it for all the things I enjoy doing.”

Indeed, he’s back to roping and riding once again, his most important and peaceful pastimes. This fall, he’s working at a ranch where he drives a horse wagon. The job is just a part-time one, as he’s now in his freshman year at Mitchell Community College, with plans to transfer next
year to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Kaedan’s studying agribusiness with an eye, no surprise, toward a career that will keep him outdoors.

“God has something for me, ahead of me,” Kaedan says. “I’m thankful I get to see what it is now."

Written by Phillip Jordan

Baseball has been part of Grayson Pope’s life since he was three years old. 

“When he was about four, we were playing travel ball and they toured the University of Tennessee baseball facility,” recalls Grayson’s mom, Jamie Pope. “While we were walking back to the car, he said he’d play ball there one day when he got big.” 

Grayson, 19, graduated high school in May with a 3.9 GPA and started attending the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville as part of its baseball team this past summer. Although he’s not playing on the team, he will be helping them in a coaching role, living in the dorms, exercising with the team, and making lasting memories. 

“It means so much to be on the baseball team,” Grayson says. “They have been so supportive of me since my accident and being able to give back and help out with the program means the world.” 

On June 6, 2023, while playing golf with friends, a pop-up storm hit the course. As Grayson drove back toward the clubhouse, a large oak tree fell on him, causing a severe traumatic brain injury. 

He spent 42 days in UAB Hospital’s ICU in a coma before transferring to Shepherd Center’s Disorders of Consciousness Program. After four days, he moved to the inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. While Grayson’s dad and grandparents stayed in family housing provided by Shepherd Center to families and patients who live more than 50 miles from the hospital, Jamie stayed by his side in his hospital room. 

“I didn’t want to miss any milestones," Jamie remembers. "When we got there, he was like an infant. By the end of the first week, he was holding his head up. By the time he left inpatient and started the outpatient program, he was walking.” 

Grayson’s team of doctors, nurses, and therapists worked with him to incorporate baseball into his therapy. He recalls practicing on the Zero-G Gait and Balance System for safe mobility training. 

“I practiced hitting a ball and running while I was attached to the Zero-G," he says. "It has straps that can control the tension and helped me stand up without falling.” 

The recreation therapy team also took Grayson to a Braves game, where they toured the facility and met some players. “It was a great experience,” Jamie says. “There’s so much hope at Shepherd. They made me feel like Grayson was their only patient, and I know he wasn't. They will forever have a special place in my family’s heart.” 

By the time Grayson completed the inpatient program, he was able to walk again. After, he began Shepherd Pathways, an outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program, where there was an intensive focus on making sure he was ready to return to day-to-day life and school. 

Despite the challenges he faced, Grayson discharged from Shepherd on Nov. 17, 2023, able to function independently again. He returned to Shepherd the next summer for Project Rollway.

"He got to go pick out his outfit he got to wear. They had food and entertainment. What was really neat was we hadn't seen a lot of our therapists, especially ones from inpatient, for a while,” Jamie says. “We got to reunite with all of them and show off our kiddo. Up on the stage, the world stopped revolving for a split second, and he enjoyed that moment." 

Grayson shares his mom’s sentiment. 

"It was fun seeing all my therapists, doctors, and nurses again,” he says. “They were able to see how far I had come. Being on stage was fun, but I enjoyed seeing everyone more." 

Grayson went on to continue therapy closer to home, while finishing his junior and senior years of high school on time with his friends. 

“Baseball taught me you will fail more than you will succeed, but that is okay. Never give up, and you will learn from it and get better the next day,” Grayson reflects. “I am excited to start the next chapter of my life at UT.” 

Written by Damjana Alverson

Deltrick Elmore says the best decision he ever made was adopting his Belgian Malinois puppy “Bear” four years ago. The second one, he says, was taking part in Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative.

Deltrick enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1995, where he worked as a generator mechanic and later in explosive ordnance disposal. He left after three years and joined the Navy. After discharge, he served in the Army National Guard on and off from 2003 to 2019. While in the National Guard, he also worked as a consultant to Army bases and traveled around the world, helping plan tactical operations. It was during this time — including a stint at a base in Afghanistan — that he was involved in several explosions from enemy fire.

“At one point, I got blown across the chow hall,” Deltrick remembers.

He returned to the U.S. in 2019. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he had sustained injuries that caused long-term physical and mental symptoms from his time overseas. He had severe headaches and began noticing a decline in his cognitive abilities, slower reflexes, and shaky hands. He had bouts of depression and attempted suicide.

He sought counseling to combat his depression, but he couldn’t find relief for his physical symptoms. In 2024, he experienced a seizure, which revealed an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. His doctor referred him to SHARE.

“I didn’t want to go at first,” admits Deltrick, who came to SHARE in January 2025. “I didn’t think it would help. But it helped a lot.”

He was at SHARE for two months, where he got relief for his headaches and worked on balance, memory, and decision-making skills. Playing the piano and working in the vegetable garden during recreation therapy helped calm the shaking in his hands.

After he left SHARE, Deltrick returned to his job as a cybersecurity engineer. He says he is calmer and happier. He appreciates the treatment he received at SHARE, as well as the camaraderie he felt with the other clients.

“SHARE is a community where nobody judges you,” Deltrick says. “I thought I was going through this process alone, but they pull you in immediately. We cheered each other on. It was the best thing I’ve done so far.” Besides adopting Bear, of course.

Written by Sara Baxter

If you or someone you love is struggling, please don't wait. You can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime for free, confidential support.

Thank You!

Thank you to our models, their families and friends, Shepherd Center staff, and everyone who made this event possible! And a special thank you to Ashley Kim, for eight years of leading Project Rollway, as well as all our event attendees and sponsors. 

Donors 
Andee’s Army 
Gas South 
Atlanta Sound and Lighting 
Haug Barron Law Group 

Clothing Partners 
Elk Head Clothing 
London Trading Company 
Patagonia 
Onward Reserve 
Megan Huntz 

DJ 
Jewels Beats 

Graphic Designer 
Eight Ball Creative by Austin Jones 

Photographers 
Laura Barnard 
Drew Oswald 

Hair & Makeup Specialists 
Sam Henry 
Morgan Hughes 
Kaitlyn Radler 
Dani Maslaney 
Alyssa Attride 
Tati Hayton 
Christel Irick 
Kristia Stokes 

Written by Erin Kenney

“From the outside looking in, nobody can tell that I had a head injury,” says Joshua Craft. “But there’s a fight I have with myself every day to make sure I’m doing the things I was trained to do.”

After sustaining a traumatic brain injury (TBI) 22 years ago, Joshua Craft has worked ceaselessly to manage his symptoms. And he credits Shepherd Center for starting his rehabilitation journey.

When Joshua was 16, he fell out of a truck while working a summer job, fracturing his skull. After stabilizing at a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, Joshua came to Shepherd Center. His first memory of Shepherd was July 4, 2003, when his therapists took him and other patients to the roof to watch fireworks over the city. 

While in the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, Joshua completed physical, occupational, and speech therapy. After inpatient therapy, he moved on to Pathways. Throughout his time at Shepherd, peer support played a critical role in his recovery and inspired him to help other TBI survivors. 

“As I started getting better and improving, I wanted to help,” he says. “I wanted to be there for people. And that’s what I do now. I love to help people, whether I’m helping somebody whose home got damaged in a storm, or helping a fellow traumatic brain injury survivor.” 

After his discharge from Shepherd, his mom and aunt, a nurse and teacher, helped him navigate his needs at home. College proved to be a different experience. 

“I didn’t have anybody to advocate for me,” he remembers. “I had to make sure I was getting the accommodations I deserved, which is something I’ve told other TBI survivors — nobody is going to fight for you in college.” 

Joshua faced another challenge while in college: a cancer diagnosis. While his prognosis was good, he had to endure several rounds of chemotherapy, which gave him debilitating side effects. He says his TBI rehab prepared him for his battle with cancer. 

“Anytime I would get down about it, I’d tell myself, ‘This is nothing — you’ve slayed greater giants than cancer,’” he says. 

Joshua beat cancer and graduated from college, returning to his hometown to work for the local government. He still has lingering symptoms from his injury, both physical and mental. But he says he has the tools and mindset to navigate them, thanks partly to Shepherd Center. 

“Everything was right for me at the time [of my injury] — the stars lined up. Nobody else in the world could’ve given me better care or support than the ones that were there. I was very fortunate,” he says.

Written by Erin Kenney

As things got worse, Carlos began having suicidal ideations.

 “No one saw the pain I was in,” Carlos says. “I was suffering in silence.” 

Carlos was in the U.S. Army for 18 years in Mechanized Infantry and later in Special Forces. He had a total of 11 deployments and although he has experienced several TBI incidents, the more significant were in Afghanistan in 2007 when he was involved in three different explosions. When he heard about SHARE from a friend, he decided to try it. 

After his acceptance in April 2019, he began psychological, speech, physical, occupational, and recreational therapy. Doctors prescribed medications to alleviate his chronic migraines. By the time he left three months later, he had seen dramatic improvements. 

“It was the last time I’d had any suicidal thoughts,” he says. “The symptoms of my PTSD decreased, and my migraines improved. I became a better husband and father. And the counseling my family received helped them understand my symptoms.” 

Carlos medically retired from the Army in October 2019 and focused on his health and eventually a new career. He returned to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in intercultural studies from Manna University and now works there teaching Latin American students. While studying for his master’s degree, he began to experience eye strain/fatigue and more frequent migraines, which led to depression. He returned to SHARE in March 2025. 

“They are helping me learn the different triggers and how to pace myself before the migraines increase to a debilitating level,” Carlos says. “I am also learning new tools to make things easier on my eyes.” 

Carlos says that because of SHARE, he is happier, more focused, and has fewer PTSD and TBI symptoms. He also has a better relationship with his family. “I came to Shepherd with the hope that I would get better,” he says. “The SHARE program was my last lifeline. They helped me, they helped my family, and we are all smiling again.”

Written by Sara Baxter

But then Rojean saw how it benefitted him, and she changed her mind. Now she says that SHARE changed her life. 

In 2008, just months after joining the army, Rojean was injured when the butt stock of an M-16 rifle hit her in the face, causing a fracture in her orbital floor and skull. She underwent facial reconstructive surgery and jaw surgery. 

She says the injury kept her in “limbo,” with chronic memory and balance issues, necessitating a transfer to a unit where the duties were lighter. She tried treatments and programs to improve her physical and mental health, but she saw no progress. 

When she retired in 2012, things went from bad to worse. She experienced severe mood swings, bouts of anger, memory issues, feelings of isolation, and suicidal ideations. She was unable to work. 

“I was not in a good place,” Rojean remembers. “It affected my relationships with my friends and my family. I needed help.” 

When Rojean came to SHARE in 2015, she was impressed by the staff’s compassion. 

“You are surrounded by people who care about you,” she says. “But they also push and motivate you to pursue your hopes and dreams.” 

Rojean’s hope was to become a nurse. She’d tried school after her injury but couldn’t keep up with the classes. At SHARE, she focused on her physical health and learned to regulate her moods, establish boundaries, and advocate for herself. She also participated in recreation therapy. She believes this work set her up for success. 

“Shepherd helped me become an unstoppable version of myself,” Rojean says. With newfound confidence, she returned to college, earning two associate degrees and a bachelor’s degree while holding several leadership and volunteer positions while in school. She eventually enrolled in Emory University’s accelerated nursing program and graduated in May 2024. 

Now, Rojean works as a medical-surgical nurse at Emory University Hospital and is inspired to help people like the Shepherd Center staff helped her. 

“I am more mentally and physically sound and in such a better place,” she says. “SHARE is an amazing program. I want to impact people in my work like those at Shepherd impacted me.” 

By Sara Baxter

This story first appeared in the special 50th anniversary issue of Spinal Column magazine.

Brent Butler, a longtime cyclist, sustained a traumatic brain injury — among a litany of other injuries — in a collision with a car while he was biking. By the time the Butler family got to Shepherd Center, Brent had yet to emerge from a minimally conscious state. 

“Physically and emotionally, we were pretty low at that point,” Butch recalls. 

Thankfully, after the parents saw Brent checked in, all they had to do was head next door to the Irene and George Woodruff Family Residence Center for some much-needed sleep. 

“That may not seem like much, but in that moment, it was a blessing,” Butch says. “Especially for me. I’ve been a paraplegic myself for 20 years. I know how hard it is to find a truly accessible hotel room. At Shepherd Center, we had it waiting for us, right next to where our son would be.” 

The next morning, Butch and Debra were told to come over to Brent’s room at 8 a.m. A quick roll through the parking deck and an elevator ride later, they were back by Brent’s side. But not his bedside. That’s because Brent’s care team already had him up and sitting in a wheelchair. 

“He still wasn’t even awake, and they had to strap him in to stay upright,” Butch says, “but he was upright. He hadn’t been out of a bed for a month. I said something to one of Brent’s nurses, and they said, ‘Oh, we don’t stay in bed at Shepherd Center.’ I turned to my wife and said, ‘Yeah, we’re in the right place.’” 

Family housing is one piece of the puzzle at Shepherd Center when it comes to helping families stay together, learn together, and prepare to return home together — all during what’s likely the most trying and tiring time in their lives. This fall, Shepherd Center more than doubled its family housing capacity with the opening of the new Arthur M. Blank Family Residences — in part due to stories like the Butlers’, that demonstrate the importance of family housing. 

“The residences are a game-changer,” says Lauren Ross, OTR/L, MS, an occupational therapist in Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. “They help these new caregivers take care of themselves, too. And that’s huge. Because when they’re rested, they’re able to spend more quality time with their loved one. They’re able to participate fully and learn what they need to learn as caregivers.” 

Ross witnessed that first-hand with the Butler family — Butch and Debra, as well as Brent’s sister Maggie — when she worked with Brent during his inpatient stay at Shepherd Center. “They were so wonderful to work with and super open to being educated,” Lauren says. “We did a lot of exercises to simulate their home environment in order to get them thinking about their needs at home and how they would navigate things returning to their daily lives.” When Brent was discharged to Shepherd Pathways, a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury, he “moved in” with his family in the Woodruff Residence residence — getting a taste for the transition home. Today, the Butlers still live together — a development that would have been quite unexpected a little over a year ago. Butch and Debra moved Brent in with them, to their home in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Maggie is there almost all the time, too, essentially moving in from her home in Asheville. 

“We’re a tight-knit little team,” Butch says. 

They’re thankful that Brent is active and engaged, with his sense of humor fully intact. His short-term memory, while spotty, continues to improve. And they recently took a road trip to a big car show — a treat for Brent, who is a massive Formula 1 racing fan. The transition has been smoother than anticipated, something the family attributes to being fully engaged in Brent’s rehabilitation at Shepherd Center. 

“It all started with the housing,” Butch says. “That took off so much worry and stress, and we were just able to be engaged in the rehab process. That made all the difference in the world. When you’re in it right alongside him, you’re learning so much. You’re learning how to be the caregiver. You’re getting a sense of what to be prepared for back home.” 

By Phillip Jordan

Trisha and her family live northeast of Atlanta in Suwanee, Georgia. She’s a mom of four, and before Holden’s injury, she worked in real estate staging homes for sale. She jokingly says she goes by “superhero, caregiver, and mother of four,” but to observers, the description sounds spot on. We asked her about the challenges and rewards of caregiving and how she takes care of herself.

On pacing yourself

That constant thing you hear — “It's a marathon, not a sprint” — that used to make me so mad. It really did — because I am not a runner. I don't like the long haul. I thought, “This is not my jam.” But the saying is true. And it is more apparent as time goes on, you're like, “Oh, okay, we're not done yet.” I mean, you'll never be done. We still have big decisions. We're still going to three or four appointments a week. We still have to do follow-up care. Our son is still having new ailments that are TBI-related, five years later, that we didn't deal with before. You do what you can, about what you can, and that's the best you can do.

On doing it all (you can’t!)

We would spend three hours in the car each day just getting down to Shepherd and back to our other kids. We made that drive every day because it was important to me to be home for my other children. You know that always makes me cry. I think people quickly pass off the impact a catastrophic injury has on people who are home, and that's not talked about often. They may not be spending their time at the hospital, but we have seen this impact on our younger kids over the years. There are a lot of things — balls were dropped, and I think that's important as a caregiver, too — you have to give yourself grace because you can't do it all. You just can't. And when I say our community rallied around us while Holden was in Shepherd — we couldn't have done it without the support of other people. It was truly amazing.

On grief

I think it is important to allow yourself to grieve what was lost. And I'm still learning this lesson. Grief doesn't have to be someone dying. It can be anything. It can be the ideal you had in your head of what was to be. And for my husband and me, that was — and still is — our biggest thing. It overcomes me still to this day when certain things happen or come up — this grief that you always have with you. But allowing yourself to grieve what was — and then also accepting this new piece of (your loved one) Holden that's unfamiliar, that you don't know — there are a lot of questions, and it's scary. And you can be so grateful for how far you’ve come, and you can also miss that old Holden at the same time. Both of these feelings are okay.

On peer support

I'm a tough cookie by nature, a very independent woman, and I'm going to be honest: I was one of those people who said, “No, thank you. I don't want to be in this club.” For the first couple of months at Shepherd, I wasn't in denial as much as I think I just didn't want to be in that club quite yet. I was trying to live in the moment, and I didn't want my worries to take me too far away because that happens really fast, too — when you're in a situation like that, there's so much you can get lost in, and I think it's essential to keep yourself really present. Now I can see I just wasn't ready. But it turns out, the most important thing is having people that have been there before because you just don't know until you know. So, for us, that resource was invaluable. I still talk to all those ladies (from my peer support group). We're still friends. And I think people talking about it and being vulnerable is really important. There aren’t enough caregivers willing to share the real, authentic parts. So, connecting through all those avenues is important. Connection is key.

On learning everything you can — and then being flexible

Brain injury is so fluid, and it's always changing. It's kind of funny because you might be trained on one thing, and the next day, your loved one might emerge, and you don't even need the thing they just trained you on. So, I think being flexible is super important in this whole journey. I remember when they delivered the hospital bed to my dining room. These are not plans you’d made or things you'd visualized. And it's scary. It's a bunch of you being flexible, being patient with your person and yourself, just learning as you go, and giving yourself grace.

On self-care

I think as parents, we don't tell ourselves enough, ‘It's okay to rest. It's okay to give yourself space.’ Like that old saying, ‘You can't pour from an empty cup,’ right? If I’m completely drained, I know that Holden's not getting the best of me. He’s not getting the best care if I'm not taking care of myself. I'm a nature girl and a connector. So, even a 10-minute walk is something that gives me life back.

On decision fatigue

My husband and I talk about decision fatigue a lot. It comes up almost daily because things change. Maybe abilities change. What the patient is capable of can change, along with what they want to do and what motivates them. So, then your decisions on what to do next change, and that is hard.

When we get to the point where we don't know what to do next, I think space is our best friend. Just taking a moment, whatever that looks like for you — being outside in nature, exercising, breathing, all those things. You need space from the situation to be like, “Oh, okay, that's what I should do next.” My toolbox also includes tagging my husband in and seeing what other moms who are caregivers think –  those kinds of things.

On connecting with others

We're big on adaptive activities and sports. That's also how we formed relationships with other caregivers. We will try anything and do anything because that is a really great avenue for meeting people. We learn something new every time we go — whatever it is — a new device, new therapy, new something.

Holden and I have started “Holding Life Together.” Our mission is to connect people because connection is the most important thing for us. It fuels you to be more motivated to heal, to keep going, whatever it is. Holden thrives on connection, and so do my husband and I. And so that piece is very important to us.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Holding Life Together started with a support group for people in their 20s who have experienced a traumatic brain injury or other catastrophic injury or illness. Now, the Ludwigs are launching a caregiver support group as well. They have a website and social media presence @HoldingLifeTogether. Trisha says Holden’s approach to life is filled with positivity, and it rubs off on her.

“It’s who you surround yourself with,” Trisha says. “You know it's positivity. That doesn't mean we don't have crappy parts too, right? We're just trying to show the whole journey of a work in progress because a lot of this we've learned the hard way, but it all goes back to being human and having these experiences — it's just living a human life.”

“We had had enough, and we made a promise to finally get into shape. And so, we contacted our cousin Jesus, who's a personal trainer, and got set up with a plan to finally be comfortable in our own skin,” Joshua explains.

But as the pair drove out of their neighborhood, a delivery truck ran into their car. Mike died in the crash, and Joshua sustained multiple injuries, including broken ribs, a fractured clavicle, damage to his diaphragm, and a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which affected his ability to move his left side.

Joshua spent the next three weeks at Ascension Sacred Heart Bay Hospital in Panama City. For the first two weeks, he used a ventilator to help him breathe and couldn’t offer much response to his parents or the medical staff.

Angie remembers that after the first week in the hospital, Joshua could gently squeeze her hand and give what looked like a thumbs-up. Joshua’s neurologist said they needed more of a response — something like a peace sign, he suggested. Eventually, Joshua did give them a sign — with his middle finger. It wasn’t a peace sign, but one that his mom and dad knew reflected his spit-fire personality.

With signs that Joshua might emerge from his disorder of consciousness, his parents began to consider where he should go for rehabilitation. Their options were a nearby facility or Shepherd Center.

“We had never heard of either one,” Angie recalls, “but the staff at Ascension was absolutely phenomenal, and they told us without a doubt that they would choose Shepherd — and we're so glad that we did.”

Milestones

When Joshua transferred to Shepherd on June 21, he could shake his head yes or no but still couldn’t open his eyes. He no longer needed the ventilator to breathe but still had a tracheostomy tube to help him transition to breathing independently. He was admitted to the Disorders of Consciousness Program, and his mom remembers a huge milestone Joshua reached soon after arriving.

“This kid could barely open his eyes, and within 24 hours, Shepherd had him saying ‘mom’ — and by June 24th, he was a chatterbox,” Angie recalls.

Joshua’s personality began to shine. When his cousin came to spend time with him, Joshua pulled a prank on her. He asked her to call his friend Clark. She searched his contacts on his phone, trying to find Clark’s number. He asked her again to please call his friend Clark. Clark Kent. She called Joshua’s parents, upset that she couldn’t find the number. Joshua then laughed, “Superman. Ha! Ha!”

He marked transfers in the Hoyer lift with an excited “Weeeeeeeee!”

“My nurses loved it,” Joshua recalls.

“He had everyone laughing with him,” his mom adds.

Joshua’s sense of humor — and sense of determination — helped him in his therapy sessions.

“If I couldn't do something, that just lit a fire under me. If I fell down, I wouldn't sit on the floor, I wouldn't be frustrated and give up. I would try just one more time,” he recalls.

He says the staff often had to remind him to slow down and not push TOO hard, but he appreciated how they tailored his therapy to his interests.

“They do a very good job of keeping therapy not only beneficial to you but also enjoyable,” Joshua explains. “One of my goals was to be able to play video games again, and they 100% had me playing video games frequently during therapy, which was a part of therapy that I genuinely loved because they found a way to make my work, my rehabilitation, fun for me specifically.”

While he was growing stronger, Joshua’s family stayed in Shepherd Center’s donor-funded family housing. He says having them nearby made a huge difference and that he “relied on them for the whole journey.”

Meanwhile, his family took advantage of Shepherd’s counseling and peer support program. Angie says she still takes comfort in things she learned from the peer support staff.

When Joshua graduated from the inpatient program, he continued rehabilitation at Shepherd Pathways, a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. By the time he left Shepherd, he had regained use of his left side. He was walking and only occasionally using a wheelchair for longer distances.

Looking to the Future

Now he’s back home, and his family has recently moved from Panama City to Tampa. He left his wheelchair in the garage and hasn’t used it since. He still goes to outpatient physical and speech therapy for what he calls “fine-tuning” for specific physical skills and to work on his memory.

He’s also back at the gym. He’s lifting weights and has lost 110 pounds. Over the summer, he won second place in the transformation division of a bodybuilding competition. He’s studying to be a certified personal trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

“I just genuinely enjoy the fitness world, so I want my job to be in it. I started my fitness journey as a way to finish my promise to Mike, but then I got healthy, and I was kind of at a crossroads. Why should I continue pushing myself? And then I found the answer to that is — I want to help as many people as I possibly can. I want to help people who are, like me, lost on how to lose weight. Being in that spot, it feels like quicksand, and I want to help all those people who are in my shoes.”

Now that the family is settled in Tampa, Joshua plans to focus on school. He’d like to get a degree related to nutrition to complement his personal training certification and enhance his ability to help others. As he reflects on his time at Shepherd, he says, “They gave me my life back.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

After a lot of hard work, determination, and faith, Alexander made impressive progress in Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program and was eventually cleared to return to work as an engineer back home in Orlando, Florida. In addition to returning to work as a full-time structural engineer, his road to recovery was marked by three significant surgeries and many hours of physical and neuropsychological therapy sessions.

“Returning to work has been a significant milestone, signaling not only my physical recovery but also my ability to overcome challenges. Each day working is a testament to my resilience, reminding me of how far I've come since being a patient at Shepherd,” Alex reflects.

This year, at the Paradigm Catastrophic Clinical Summit in Chicago and the 2024 National Comp Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, Alex used his voice to raise awareness about the importance of an integrated support network to help patients navigate catastrophic injury and the path to returning to work.

“I am no longer defined by my injuries but by the courage with which I faced them with the help of healthcare professionals, friends, and family. My experience has taught me the true meaning of resilience, the power of unwavering determination, and the importance of embracing every challenge as an opportunity for growth,” he explains.

Gloria Fagan, RN, BSN, director of workers’ compensation at Shepherd Center, says collaboration is essential to achieving extraordinary outcomes.

“Shepherd Center’s partnership with Paradigm allows us to work closely to create a comprehensive support system for patients as they navigate their rehabilitation journey. Together, we ensure they receive the care and resources they need, from the initial stages of recovery all the way through their successful return to work.”

You can read more of Alex’s story here.

In this issue of Spinal Column, we explore the many ways our therapists, academic coordinators, and vocational rehabilitation counselors smooth the transition back to school, work, or “adulting” — teaching patients to advocate for themselves and let their schools and employers know what accommodations they may or may not need.

The magazine also features these stories, among other patient profiles, staff highlights, honorariums, and memorials:

Instilling Confidence through Education and Expertise

In her role as transition support case manager, Kathleen Levenson, RN, CRRN, guides, educates, and advocates for patients.

Ten Tips to Ease the Transition Home

Practical ways to help ease the transition to home so you can optimize recovery and help prevent rehospitalization.

Man on a Mission

Robby Barbieri’s spinal cord injury set him on a path to advocacy.

Subscribe here for Shepherd Center's Spinal Column magazine print and/or e-newsletter versions.

Written by Erin Kenney
 

Mike sustained a brain injury in a bicycle accident in the fall of 2003. He came to Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program just before Thanksgiving that year. In the inpatient program, Mike worked on regaining his short-term memory and executive functioning skills.  He continued his therapy at Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient program for people recovering from brain injury.

After leaving Pathways in March 2004, he was eventually able to return to work and resume his active lifestyle.

“I don’t think I would be living the full life I am now if it hadn’t been for Shepherd Center,” Mike says. “I will be forever grateful for their treatment.”

Wanting to do more for the place that saved his life, Mike extended his support beyond financial donations and began volunteering at the hospital after he retired. He served as a volunteer for four years until the pandemic.

While Mike concentrated on giving back, he also committed to pay it forward. He and his wife, Tammy, who now live in Bluffton, South Carolina, decided to include Shepherd Center in their estate plans.

“By giving in the future, we’ll be helping them continue to provide the same first-class treatment that Mike received,” Tammy says. “They do so much to help patients, and they couldn’t do it without the help of donors. Hopefully, giving into the future will allow them to help them continue to expand their facilities and their capabilities. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of people who need Shepherd Center.”

Mike wholeheartedly agrees.

“Donating to Shepherd Center makes me feel that I am helping to make sure that others can be treated there in the same first-class manner that I was,” Mike says. “I also want to help Shepherd Center keep their standards at the level they had when they started. They gave me back my life, and I want them to continue to do that for others into the future.”

Written by Sara Baxter

Ole survived and, two weeks later, transferred to Shepherd Center’s Disorders of Consciousness Program, part of the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

For his mother, Mihret Hamda, getting to Shepherd Center gave her hope.

“The minute we got there, therapists started working with him,” she recalls. “I had this tremendous sense of relief that things were progressing.” She was even more relieved when he emerged from his disorder of consciousness after seven long weeks.

“When I woke up, I remember being terrified,” Ole says. “I didn’t know where I was, and it was hard to fall asleep.” He couldn’t speak, breathe independently, walk, or do anything for himself. He spent three months at Shepherd Center relearning how to do everything before transferring to Shepherd Pathways — Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury  — to continue his rehabilitation.

Ole continued to improve and credits the “super chill” therapists at Shepherd Center and Pathways for his progress. “They made it fun so I could work hard to regain my cognitive and physical abilities,” he says. “They sometimes played The Weeknd, my favorite artist of all time, during my therapy sessions.”

Through it all, he was focused on one goal: As president of his senior class at Providence Christian Academy in Lilburn, Georgia, he wanted to give a speech at his graduation.

In May 2022, just eight months after the crash, Ole walked up to the stage and gave that graduation speech, and included a thank you to his therapists. He received a standing ovation.

Ole continued to work hard at therapy, returning to Shepherd Center several times to improve his function.

Two years later, Ole is a freshman at Georgia State University studying biomedical sciences. He hopes to one day design machines like the ones that helped him learn to walk again. His next goal is to move to on-campus housing and live on his own.

Believing that Ole's love for fitness and access to personal training played a crucial role in his recovery, Mihret founded Ole’s Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting adolescents and young adults with brain and spinal cord injuries. Ole's Angels provides access to physical training and nutrition consulting with the goal of enhancing the recovery and overall well-being of its participants.

Ole and his mother are grateful to Shepherd Center for his incredible recovery.

“God gave us so many miracles, and one of them was Shepherd Center,” says Mihret. “Thank you just doesn’t seem to be enough.”

Written by Sara Baxter 

“No kidding, I don’t remember pain or anything. I just remember seeing all my deceased loved ones,” Dusty says. “Truly, my Mamaw Mac came up to me and gave me one of those Little Debbie Zebra Cakes. Then my Granddaddy Bill, daggum cigarette in his mouth and a cup of coffee. And he leans down to me and just says, ‘Not yet.’”

And that’s all that Dusty, now 35, remembers from his accident or many of the days and weeks before and after it. Following numerous surgeries at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, the Stockbridge, Georgia, resident had a similarly surreal experience when he arrived at Shepherd Center in March 2020.

“I began to wake up right as the COVID lockdowns happened,” Dusty says. “My wife Julie and the rest of my family couldn’t be around because of the protocols. But I didn’t understand that. I’m seeing all these strange faces in masks and protective equipment. It felt like, ‘Is this purgatory?’”

Adding to the dreamlike vibes, one of Dusty’s ICU nurses was Michael Ellis, RN — a good friend and someone Dusty’s known since high school. Dusty credits Michael and Suzie Goggin, RN, CRRN, with helping him gradually understand his situation.

Dusty’s most significant challenge to a full recovery was the traumatic brain injury he’d sustained. At Shepherd Center, his care team helped Dusty re-learn how to talk, walk, eat — in short, everything. He also received vital care for his wounds. While many people with complex injuries and illnesses face an increased risk of obtaining wounds as a secondary complication, Dusty’s expert wound care team helped prevent further complications and additional surgeries that could have derailed his rehabilitation.

“Honestly, I felt like a child at first,” Dusty says. “The progress felt slow, but with everything they were doing, my brain eventually started kicking into gear.”

Dusty also completed outpatient therapy at Shepherd Pathways, and he utilized Shepherd’s Driving Evaluation and Rehabilitation Program to re-learn how to drive. Today, he’s once more taking his kids — Madison, 8, and Rhett, 5 — to and from school each day. Dusty’s also flying again with his pilot father-in-law. And the longtime Atlanta Braves fan is excited about a new baseball season.

“I could very easily be dead,” Dusty says. “I never forget that. So, I’m just happy every day to be alive and well.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

In a 2006 tour, Steven's armored vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED). He escaped without any visible wounds, but the impact resulted in fluid leaking from his ears. He received a diagnosis that downplayed the severity of his condition.

"I was evaluated, and it was deemed I wasn't hurt enough to be flown out of theater," Steven says.

So, he did what many soldiers do: ignored his survivor's guilt and used the loss of his comrades as motivation to continue the fight.

Once he left the army and connected with the VA Medical Center in 2012, he started to address his struggles through therapy.

“It wasn't working by myself," Steven explains.

In 2019, Steven acquired a service dog named Ike through Fidos for Freedom, a program in Maryland dedicated to improving the quality of life for veterans with combat-related PTSD and other mobility and hearing issues. Ike changed Steven’s life by providing emotional support and helping him navigate social situations that previously overwhelmed him.

"From the first time I took him out, I knew I had a battle buddy. What happened to me was a sensory overload when I was in public, but when Ike was there, he was checking me out to keep me focused. Because of Ike, I can go to concerts again," Steven explains.

In 2023, when a representative from Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative visited Camp Southern Ground in Georgia while Steven was there, things finally clicked for him. He knew he needed more help. Steven came to Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative, where his care team performed an MRI and balance tests. The tests revealed that Steven had sustained a TBI in the explosion, which affected his cognitive skills, balance, speech, and even some of his memory – symptoms he continues to cope with. Steven recalls the diagnosis as both shocking and enlightening, as it finally explained the difficulties impacting every aspect of his life.

Steven says SHARE surrounded him with a "bubble" of support, allowing him to focus on his healing journey and connect with other veterans in similar situations. He noticed a positive change because of his time with SHARE and implementing what he learned there. While Steven was at SHARE, he rediscovered his love of art, finding refuge as he put his feelings and experiences on paper. He expressed the contrast between his cognitive symptoms and creativity in the drawing above, which he says represents his cognitive struggles – wires going haywire – and his creative side – everything in its place.

"Instead of panicking, worrying, and overthinking. I trusted the process. I trusted that what I learned from Shepherd matters and that I could feel good about myself again," he explains. 

By Dominique McPhearson

In January 2022, on his way home from work managing an Atlanta restaurant, Yusef swerved to avoid an object in the road. He then overcorrected and crashed, sustaining a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Yusef spent a few weeks at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta before transferring to Shepherd Center. For months, Yusef worked with his care team to regain strength and relearn how to walk and talk — and eventually, as his father, Will Smith recalls, to dance.

“He had a dance session in therapy and got to dance and move and got his groove back, so to speak, with his therapy team,” says Will.

Yusef doesn’t remember much of his time at Shepherd but says he eventually started to piece things together.

“I woke up one day in June and thought, ‘Why am I here? What is this? This is just a dream. I'll go back to sleep.’ I eventually came to grips with the idea I was actually in the hospital,” he says.

“Once I became aware of what was going on, I do remember my nurses and the people taking care of me. I’m thankful for them — very thankful. And they didn't take any mess from me, which was good. I couldn't get one over on them,” he laughs.

“They were making sure that I was getting better. They were finding ways to keep me up and keep me in motion, and I appreciate that,” Yusef says.

Yusef remembers the dance session with his therapists, as well as playing games, and meeting other patients.

“The experience of going to different areas and seeing other people who have similar situations to me. That was very enlightening.”

Yusef’s mother lives in Pittsburgh, and his parents each stayed in family housing during parts of his rehabilitation.  

His father says that again and again, their experiences as family members confirmed that Yusef was in the right place.

“We were always informed of everything that went on with Yusef. And the resources offered to parents, from how to deal with TBI, the websites, the meetings, the support groups, and the perspective of parents who had similar experiences, were all great,” Will recalls.

“The therapists said, ‘Let us work with Yusef and trust the process. He does the work, and you'll see the results,’ and that's where we are now,” Will says.

After several months of therapy, Yusef walked out of Shepherd Center.

Getting Back to Work and to Life

Last fall, Yusef and Will were featured in a public service announcement (PSA) for the Buckle Up Georgia campaign. Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety produce the PSA in collaboration with Shepherd Center. Yusef says the reason he’s here today is because of his seatbelt.

Now, he’s living with his mom in Clairton, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and working at a pharmacy down the street. He’s also continuing to build a small business based on a product he developed before his injury, Bee Butter, a beeswax-based body butter for skin, hair, and lips.

“I was looking for something different than the products in the store because they have too many chemical components, and they irritated my skin,” he recalls.

He says that while his long-term memory is strong, he still has some difficulty with his short-term memory.

“What’s funny is my short-term memory is bad, but one of the first things I remembered — how I used to make the Bee Butter, the proportions and all that.”

He hopes to sell Bee Butter online and at the pharmacy where he works. But his bigger goal is to return to Atlanta so he can see his son more.

“I’m working and trying to figure it out right now. I can make a better life — not just for me but for my son.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

In a research study recently published in Brain Injury, researchers from Shepherd Center’s mTBI Brain Health & Recovery Lab aimed to gain an understanding of evaluation practices, post-injury recommendations, and referrals to allied healthcare professionals by first-line healthcare professionals providing care for people with mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI).

First-line healthcare professionals are often the first to diagnose and provide supportive care to children and adults with mTBI. While many people experiencing mTBI will recover within a few weeks or months without specialty care, others will continue to experience challenges with dizziness, balance, memory, visual perception, and sleep, among other disruptive symptoms.

“When a person has a prolonged recovery after a mild brain injury or concussion, they can benefit from a multidisciplinary approach involving specialized expertise of allied professionals,” said Tracey Wallace, MS, CCC-SLP, FACRM, projects and education coordinator for the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center and principal investigator of the study. “Our study showed that these professionals are often highly underutilized among family health practitioners for the management of mild traumatic brain injuries, which include concussions.”

The study consisted of an online survey completed by 126 first-line healthcare professionals, including physicians, physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, and athletic trainers, on their practices related to mTBI evaluation, management, and referrals to allied health professionals. For the purposes of this study, allied health professionals included physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and behavioral health professionals such as neuropsychologists or counselors.

Reported rates of referrals to allied health professionals by first-line healthcare professionals were extremely low, as was the perceived knowledge of the roles allied health professionals can play in mTBI rehabilitation.

“Our findings suggest a need for collaboration across disciplines on research, education, and rehabilitation efforts to best care for people with mTBI,” Wallace said. “Programs like Shepherd Center’s Complex Concussion Clinic and SHARE Military Initiative pull experts from multiple allied health professions to care for patients who experience persistent symptoms after mTBI so they can return to their activities and enjoy life again.”

Shepherd Center researchers Tracey Wallace, MS, CCC-SLP, Amber Schwartz, MHS, OTR/L, CDRS, April Hodge, PT, DPT, NCS, Greg Brown, Psy.D., Russell Gore, M.D., collaborated with researchers Kelly Knollman-Porter Ph.D., CCC-SLP, and Jennifer Beardslee of Miami University, and Jessica Brown, Ph.D., CCC-SLP of Olentangy Schools.

Learn more about mild brain injury research at Shepherd Center.

The dinners were born in 2016 from the hope of Anna Elmers, M.D., to help patients connect and build community.

“When people are going through this catastrophic event, they need to know they're not alone, and not just the patients, but the families need to know they're not alone,” Dr. Elmers explains. “It's all about community and giving people more support.”

Dr. Elmers pitched her idea to Renee Houle, who participated in outpatient physical therapy at Shepherd and was eager to give back after discharge. Renee accepted the challenge — and in August 2016, she and a friend, Joan Marie Hyland, worked with Dr. Elmers to hold the first family dinner and followed the first with many more.

“It was pretty simple. We didn’t think twice about it. We would cook the meals, lay them out, and put out tables and chairs. Then we’d let everybody know dinner was ready. It was great to see how much it helped the patients and families to have each other, to talk about what they were going through and how to solve problems they were facing. And it gave us a chance to sit down with them and learn their stories — all the heartbreak and all the good stuff that happened through them being there,” Renee recalls.

COVID safety precautions stopped family dinners for a time, but recently, Jennifer Heffron, engagement coordinator for Shepherd Center Foundation, revived the tradition, with groups volunteering to make or order meals, set up, and serve. After everyone’s plate is full, volunteers or staff lead the dinner guests in introductions and an icebreaker question — asking guests to share things like a favorite movie, hidden talent, or someone who inspires them. Introductions are sometimes followed by friendly — or heated — competition in a game of Bingo — with a bag of much sought-after prizes.

“The dinners are super fun,” Jennifer says. “I’m so charged up after each one of them. People are so kind to each other. It really makes a difference in people’s day.”

Courtney Alderman, a Shepherd patient, says the dinners and games give patients something to look forward to. And even though he technically hasn’t won at Bingo yet, “I smiled very hard one night, and the person who won gave me her gift card,” he laughs.

The dinners make for a fulfilling experience for volunteers as well.

Ben Bunyard, a project executive for Choate Construction, has hosted several family dinners with teams from Choate and groups affiliated with designing and constructing the new Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation on Shepherd’s main campus.

“One of the best parts is getting to experience the interaction of the patients and the families.

Everybody there is so genuine, and they open their hearts. It seems like everything is left at the door, and everybody comes together as one family, and I've never experienced that before. It’s heartwarming,” Ben says.

Alana Shepherd, Shepherd Center co-founder and chairman, often joins the group for conversation and fellowship.

“It's an important way for our volunteers to have direct contact with our patients.

And I think it's very rewarding for them. Sometimes, their children come, or a scout troop or sports team will volunteer. The kids love scrambling around, serving drinks, or helping carry patients' plates to the table. They run Bingo and give out the prizes — even the very young kids help out.

“For the patients themselves, it's exciting to see them go from their first dinner, where they're a little bit shy, to the other dinners, when they’ve gotten to know people, they open up and realize it's a social occasion for them. They get to know people and have a real bond that is beyond their therapy expectations,” she says. “Their children attend and see that they are not alone in the family journey,” Alana adds.

Family brunches for caregivers of patients with an acquired brain injury (ABI) are a recent off-shoot of family dinners. Shepherd staff chose a Saturday brunch to give patients and families something to look forward to on what is often a quiet day.

After the first brunch, a former brain injury patient and his wife, eager to provide much-needed support to caregivers, volunteered to host more.

The quarterly brunches are open to caregivers and dietarily approved patients. And the response, especially from caregivers, has been one of gratitude.

“Caregivers come with their loved ones or on their own, but across the board, the reaction we're getting is, ‘Thank you for thinking of us,’” says Lauren Tucker, grateful patient and grants senior manager.

For more information about hosting a family dinner, contact Jennifer Heffron, at jennifer.heffron@shepherd.org. 

Written by Ruth Underwood

“We're positioned as an innovation hub because we are leaders in the field. The Innovation Institute is a natural extension of that – giving us more capabilities, space, and resources to foster ingenuity,” says Deborah Backus, PT, Ph.D., FACRM, Shepherd Center’s vice president of research and innovation. “We collaborate with like-minded partners to advance rehabilitation medicine and find better, more efficient ways of delivering care to improve the lives of the people we serve.”

The new 30,000-square-foot Innovation Institute, which will occupy the top floor of the Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation on Shepherd Center’s main campus and is slated to open in 2025, will be a hub for collaboration, allowing Shepherd researchers to form more of these robust partnerships to advance patient care. The following are just a few of Shepherd’s partnerships that are improving patients’ and their families’ lives.

Virtual Visits

In 2020, Shepherd Center’s Recreation Therapy Program partnered with Aetos Imaging, a technology company that takes scans of real-world locations such as restaurants, stores, and stadiums. Then, they create a 3D digital replica of the location. Shepherd’s recreation therapists label the scans, flagging potential barriers that people using wheelchairs, for instance, may need to consider when visiting the venue — including locations of accessible entrances, table or counter height, or type of flooring. The scans are invaluable for patients and care partners who are anxious about navigating life outside Shepherd. Therapists also use the images as a follow-up after an outing to cover anything a patient or caregiver might have missed during training sessions.

Kelly Edens, CTRS, recreation therapy manager at Shepherd, compares the experience to playing a video game.

“It's a tool to provide education for patients and families to get from A to B on outings to places like a doctor's office, a library, a church, or a stadium. Reviewing the scans lets patients sharpen problem-solving skills, prepare for outings, and even advocate for themselves. We never want a former patient to avoid going somewhere just because they use a wheelchair. We want them to have access to their community,” she explains.

Connor Offutt, CEO of Aetos Imaging, says that working with Shepherd Center to help patients rebuild their lives resonates with the company’s core values and allows Aetos to explore a different application of the technology.

“People are increasingly using the Aetos Operate platform to reintegrate within their communities and gain confidence in the real world. Like Shepherd Center, it’s our hope — and responsibility — to utilize technology in ways that benefit our neighbors,” he says.

Accessible Wellness Content

Another innovative partnership that builds community and allows Shepherd clinicians to reach patients after they return home is Shepherd’s partnership with burnalong®, an online platform that offers on-demand health and wellness tools. The hospital and online wellness platform are collaborating to create and distribute specialty programming that makes wellness accessible to all.

Shepherd’s highly trained specialists are developing live and on-demand content geared toward people with spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, spine and chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and other neurological conditions. Currently, Shepherd patients, staff, and Burnalong users can access the classes.

“The great thing is that these classes span across all our specialties and are appropriate for many neurological diagnoses and patients who we serve at Shepherd,” says Marina Moldavskiy, ACRP-CP, Shepherd Center’s tele-wellness program manager and exercise physiologist.

Among the more than 50,000 classes are yoga, exercise, and financial wellness courses, among others, for people of all abilities.

“Alongside the unparalleled range of classes and programs, one of the biggest things that sets Burnalong apart is the social experience. You can see and hear each other live. You can join communities. It ensures people get the support they need,” says Daniel Freedman, president of commercial health and fitness, Tivity Health, and co-founder of Burnalong. 

“We are always thinking of ways to empower our patients before they return home,” Moldavskiy says. “When our patients are at Shepherd, there’s always a rehabilitation professional there to guide them or give them information. We hope this platform can help them feel empowered to continue when they leave our walls.” 

While Burnalong™ is creating an inclusive community, it also opens opportunities for further research. Shepherd Center’s Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute is piloting two studies to better understand the program’s benefits. One focuses on people with multiple sclerosis (MS). If you are interested in participating in MS research, scan the QR code for more information.  

A second study focuses on people who have sustained an acquired brain injury (ABI) and have been discharged from a hospital-based ABI program. The purpose of the study, conducted in collaboration with Moody Neurorehabilitation Institute in Texas, is to evaluate the potential efficacy of tele-wellness delivered through Burnalong™. For more information on ABI research or to volunteer, contact Erica Sutton at 404-367-1305 or erica.sutton@shepherd.org.

Written by Lindsey Rieben and Ruth Underwood

And twice, he’s had to overcome traumatic brain injuries to keep his love of learning alive.

The first came from a ski accident on Valentine’s Day 2015. The second injury occurred after brain surgery to remove a benign tumor in 2020, resulting in significant ataxia — a loss of muscle control that especially affected Bobby’s physical mobility and speech.

In each instance, Bobby came to Shepherd Pathways, a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. In addition to physical therapy, Bobby fully committed himself to Pathways’ full range of vocational services and occupational and speech therapy — to get back to learning and work.

“I’ve always been a data-oriented person,” Bobby says. “What I enjoy most is that it allows you to find hidden truths that aren’t always self-evident about what creates value in a situation.”

If you’re wondering – yes – that curiosity and desire to dig deep for creative solutions came in handy during Bobby’s rehabilitation at Shepherd Center.

“Although Bobby’s motor speech was affected, he maintained his extraordinary cognitive abilities,” says Zac Bradley, a vocational therapist at Shepherd Center. “I’ve been so impressed with his resilience and pursuit of the life he wants to lead despite the challenges.”

Like most Shepherd Center patients, Bobby learned how to adapt to new ways of doing things and to advocate for himself effectively.

Case in point: In 2021, Bobby failed in his first attempt to earn a data analyst certificate from the Georgia Institute of Technology, primarily due to his speech issues and the difficulty of keeping pace with the accelerated program. Bobby successfully argued for fair accommodations and reapplied for the 24-week program. In 2023, he earned his Data Science and Analytics Certificate from Georgia Tech.

That certificate has already helped Bobby get a new job as a senior data analyst at Genuine Parts Company in Atlanta.

Bobby wasted no time before further enlightening his new colleagues about his experience at Shepherd Center. And recently, Genuine Parts Company took its longtime support of Shepherd Center to the next level.

On August 30, 2023, Shepherd Center formally launched the Genuine Parts Company Vocational Rehabilitation Program. The partnership will enhance Shepherd Center’s vocational services that help patients identify their challenges in returning to work, practice problem-solving, and find available career resources in their communities. In addition to its philanthropic support, Genuine Parts Company also hosts tours for Shepherd Center patients to give them in-person experiences navigating office, retail, and warehouse environments.

“I’m very grateful for the support both Genuine Parts Company and Shepherd Center have provided me to return to work,” Bobby says. “I couldn’t do my job without accommodations, and I’m appreciative of what GPC is willing to provide and how Shepherd Center has educated me on what’s reasonable.

“My advice to others is to keep working hard and keep learning new things,” Bobby says. “Don’t let injuries stop you from obtaining your goals or pursuing what interests you.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

During my childhood, wearing a helmet to ski was decidedly uncool. Perhaps more telling of that era was the idea that skiing in jeans was very cool.

Out of the 10 million or so people who ski and snowboard in the United States, 600,000 injuries occur annually. Of those, head trauma accounts for 20 percent and is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in these winter sports. (Haider 2012)

Thankfully, in the past few years, helmet use in winter sports has become the norm with an almost 70 percent compliance rate – almost triple the number in 2003. (McMillan 2013) The rate of helmet compliance is encouraging, but it has brought to light some troubling statistics. Despite the number of people wearing helmets, the number of skiers and snowboarders sustaining brain injuries or fatalities has seen no reduction. Worse, studies have claimed that head injuries have actually increased.

According to a Western Michigan University School of Medicine’s 2012 study, head injuries have increased by 60 percent in seven years. The University of Washington furthered those results in its 2013 study, showing a 250 percent increase in snow-sports-related head injuries among youths and adolescents.

Experts have debated several theories that may explain the simultaneous rise in helmet use and head injuries. Perhaps the most convincing argument relates to risk-taking behavior. It is telling to examine who is getting hurt: 70 percent of snow-sport fatalities involve males in their late teens to early 30s. (McMillan 2013) As snow sport technology has yielded better, faster skis and snowboards, a push for more extreme sporting has followed. Resorts have opened more dangerous trails and are accused of propagating the risk-taking skier/boarder mentality with sponsorships and promotions of ever-more dangerous flips and tricks.

Often, people are surprised to learn that brain injuries can occur even when wearing a helmet. That leads researchers to believe there is a false sense of security that is leading to an increase in risk-taking behaviors.

Snow sports are a fun and great way to spend a winter afternoon, but like any sport, these activities come with some risk involved. Arm yourself with these tips (and helmets) to prevent a brain or spinal cord injury. Knowledge that leads to better decision-making is the key to prevention.

There are several, other smaller safety precautions that everyone should consider before hitting the slopes.

1. Stay at your level. Trails are always marked with a green circle, blue square, or black diamond. Staying in control of your skis or snowboard is key to preventing injury.
2. Constantly scan. Watch out for those who are going too fast, and/or have lost control and get out of their way fast.
3. When going down a mountain, if you have to stop for any reason, move to the side of the trail. This prevents collisions with other skiers or boarders.
4. Take a break when tired, and skip the last run of the day. Injuries happen when you are tired and not paying full attention to your surroundings.
5. Skiing off-piste exposes you to hidden rocks, ledges, and avalanches, and is not worth the risk. Trees are not your friend when skiing, sledding, or boarding.
6. When sledding or tubing, always go down feet first. Breaking a leg is far better than hitting your head.
7. Wear your helmet. Even when sledding. Keep your head warm and avoid concussions and more serious brain injuries.

For more information on Shepherd Center's Injury Prevention Program, click here.

Sources
Haider, Adil H. "Helmets Save Lives of Skiiers and Snowboarders." Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, 2012.
Mayo Clinic. 2015. www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/spinal-cord-injury/basics/causes/con-20023837
McMillan, Kelley. "Ski Helmet Use Isn't Reducing Brain Injuries." The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2013.

EMMA HARRINGTON is the director of injury prevention and education services at Shepherd Center. Previously, Emma started the injury prevention program at Grady Memorial Hospital in the Trauma Department. She holds a master of education degree in international education policy from Harvard University. Originally from Boston, Emma is a licensed social studies teacher.

On a rainy day in June of last year, Taylor’s car hydroplaned and hit a light post. Taylor sustained multiple injuries, including a traumatic brain injury (TBI). She was admitted to UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, where she spent close to three weeks before transferring to the Disorders of Consciousness Program, which is part of Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

Taylor does not remember much about the weeks she spent inpatient at Shepherd but says she does remember re-learning how to walk — and feeling that the staff really cared.

“I was so confused about why I was there, but I remember everyone was really sweet, and they provided me with more things than I even asked for,” Taylor recalls.

Tyler appreciated the continuity of care for Taylor.

“The nurses were amazing,” he says. “Having the same nurses was big for me because they knew Taylor, and they knew me, and we were able to build a relationship. They were invested — all the nurses in inpatient, all the therapists, you could tell they were passionate about it, and they cared.”

While Taylor worked on swallowing, talking, and walking, Tyler turned to peer support and family education programs to learn more about how to support Taylor and handle the uncertain path of her recovery.

One program in which he participated, called “Getting There,” was part of a brain injury patient caregiver research study. To assess the value of peer-led intervention, Shepherd's staff adapted a curriculum created at the Self-Management Resource Center in Stanford, California, to fit Shepherd’s acute rehabilitation setting. For “Getting There,” Tyler was assigned a peer mentor, Mariellen Jacobs, whose son had previously sustained a brain injury. 

“I looked forward to talking to Mariellen every week. That was the best therapy I could have asked for because I didn't know what was going to happen,” Tyler recalls. “Typically, when you go through an injury, say, a broken arm, there’s a standard recovery time. The brain is completely different, so hearing Mariellen’s experience and knowing that some of the things I was experiencing weren’t uncommon and that there was hope encouraged me.

Taylor and Tyler also relied on their faith and were glad to be able to attend services at Shepherd, led by Shepherd Center’s chaplains.

“Having a church service in-house, once Taylor was able to go, it was good getting back into the routine and getting the encouragement,” Tyler recalls.

The couple focused on Taylor’s recovery, and their parents pitched in, staying nearby and helping take care of the girls. After six weeks inpatient, Taylor graduated and transitioned to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. She and Tyler took advantage of Shepherd family housing for a month to ease the transition.

At Pathways, Taylor shared a goal with her therapist.

“I told her that I wanted to get to a point where I could play with my girls and carry them,” Taylor explains.

So, Taylor’s youngest joined a therapy session. 

“We played outside, and I practiced carrying her because I was so weak at the time — she was really heavy,” Taylor laughs.

As parts of Taylor’s memory return, she’s rebuilding and rediscovering her relationship with her daughters.  

“Before the accident, anything that they would do, I would do with them — we had an intense relationship. But for a few months after the accident, I did not remember our relationship, so I felt like I was building a new one. It wasn’t until February of this year that the memories of the relationship that I had with them started to come back.”

Taylor is spending time with her girls, embracing her baking hobby, and running. She has returned to teaching, and she’s continuing therapy close to home. She and Tyler are working with a team to start a nonprofit to provide support, including funding for transportation and housing, to families of people who sustain multiple traumatic injuries in the Gainesville area. One of their goals is to raise awareness and funds by hosting a 5K run. They hope to hold the first 5K in spring 2024.

“We want to use what we learned in the worst times of our lives to help other people while they're going through the worst times in their lives,” Tyler explains. “I'm still learning —learning how to adapt and how to overcome. It’s an ongoing process.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

1. A Better Frame of Mind

From a terrifying fall on an Icelandic mountain to rising above his doubts — Daniel Hund credits Shepherd Center with putting him on a more positive path to the future.

2. Still Dancing and Dreaming

In her desire to help others, Mo Maxwell has always wanted to be a nurse. Her experience at Shepherd Center may help that dream come true. 

3. From Uncertainty to Clarity

Iliana Bermudez says the care of the Andrew C. Carlos Multiple Sclerosis Institute staff at Shepherd Center helped her understand and manage her autoimmune disease, neuromyelitis optica (NMO).

4. Persevering Through PTSD: A Veteran’s Journey

At Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative, Marine Corps veteran, Michael Cataldi, learned to cope with the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

5. From Idea to App

With hard work and a willingness to take a risk, Brandon Winfield turned his experience after sustaining a spinal cord injury into an app that helps people with accessibility needs find new places to explore.

6. Finding Balance

Care from Shepherd Center’s Complex Concussion Clinic helps Jana Smith get back to what she loves.

7. Making Progress – and a Proposal: Kaytlin Marquess’ Story

During rehabilitation for a spinal cord injury at Shepherd Center, Kaytlin Marquess’ therapy team helped her pop the question.

8. Construction Connections: Taylor Nester’s Story

As project manager for Shepherd Center’s Arthur M. Blank Family Residences building, Taylor Nester is helping build hope for others like Shepherd helped build hope for her dad.

9. Dr. Woody Morgan Returns to Shepherd Center – This Time as a Doctor. 

Former spinal cord injury patient Woody Morgan returned to Shepherd this year, where he now leads the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit.

10. Finding Community

After Amy Ewing sustained a spinal cord injury, she found a community she has returned to again and again for a physical and emotional boost. 

 “I started each of those as little seeds in cups on my windowsill there,” Kendall says. “It was through gardening as recreational therapy. When I came home, I brought those seeds in a planter with me and transferred them to my garden. Watching them grow throughout the season reminds me of how far I’ve come.”

On February 23, Kendall, 30, had a hemorrhagic stroke at the elementary school where she is a librarian. She spent 10 days in the ICU at Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital, where she had a craniotomy to relieve pressure and pain from brain swelling.

Kendall arrived at Shepherd Center shaken by the sudden events, desperately missing her two young daughters, and devastated by the loss of function in her left hand and arm.

Her turning point came when she learned Shepherd Center had an arts and crafts space.

A self-described “Jill of all trades,” Kendall says crafting is a core part of her lifelong identity, from sewing and knitting to jewelry and art. It’s why she prioritized anything that would help her regain mobility in her hand.

Kendall’s therapists emphasized recreational therapy to improve her motor skills and uplift her spirits. She made mosaic tiles. She painted. She made bracelets she would give her daughters, Cara, 5, and Gwen, 2, when they visited each weekend. And, yes, she gardened.

“Getting down to that arts and crafts room and seeing what I was capable of was really good for me,” Kendall says. “All the recreational therapy was mentally what I needed to make it through a really hard time.”

She also grew her love for beading while at Shepherd Center. The craft proved painstaking at first, stringing one tiny bead at a time. Eventually, as her hand function returned, her beadwork blossomed. She’s carried her new passion home, too. This summer, she began selling handmade beaded earrings — initially to friends and family, but now they’re available in a local hair salon.

Better yet, beading is another activity she and her kids do together, along with watercolor painting and sewing.

“I’m so thankful to be with my kids again,” Kendall says. “Being away from them was the most painful thing of all.”

She’s also reunited with her “other” kids. Kendall returned to some of her library duties at the end of the last school year. This August, she’ll take on a full load of classes as the school librarian, doing the things she’s passionate about with her students — teaching about different genres, talking about how to evaluate reliable sources, and reading the graphic novels many kids love these days.

It’s something Shepherd helped prepare her for, too. Her recreational therapists organized an outing to a local bookstore to practice scenarios she’d eventually encounter back at school.

“That outing made me aware of how things would be different to some degree when I went back to work,” Kendall says. “It helped me anticipate some of the challenges I might face.

“Of course, it also was nice just being around books again. I’d missed that. I remember I bought quite a few books for me and my kids! That was a really nice outing for this librarian’s soul.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

Memorize 988. 
If you are currently in an emotional crisis or concerned about someone who is and need immediate assistance, call 988 for 24/7 help. Veterans can press “1” after dialing 988 to connect to the Veterans Crisis Lifeline. 988 is designated as the nationwide three-digit number for mental health crisis and suicide prevention services.

Know the symptoms of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. 
Research shows that sustaining a traumatic brain injury can increase the likelihood that a veteran will be diagnosed with certain mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress. And, U.S. Army soldiers with a history of TBI who died by suicide did so 21% sooner than those without brain injuries after returning from deployment. 

Getting an accurate diagnosis of brain injury, post-traumatic stress – or both – is key in helping your loved one or yourself get help.  Here's a tool to help you understand unique and overlapping symptoms in traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.

Be observant about behavior changes. For many veterans, the physical symptoms of TBI are not obvious. Be on the lookout for loss of interest in meaning­ful activities, personality changes, social isolation, and substance abuse, especially in increasing amounts.

Reach out and spend time together. Let a veteran know he or she is not alone. Meet for coffee or go for a walk. Listen and encourage them to seek help.

Tell veterans and their families about helpful programs, including the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center. Encourage caregivers, spouses, and friends to seek help on behalf of a veteran. Since 2007, SHARE has provided rehabilitation for military veterans, service members, and first responders who are ready to accept help and healing for their daily struggle with traumatic brain injuries and mental health concerns. SHARE is the only comprehensive rehabilitation program with:

• flexible programming options
• collaborative care
• transition support
• community reintegration

This is all available at no cost to military veterans, service members, and first responders, so they can embark on a truly individualized and impactful path to renewed relationships, purpose, and life. For non-emergencies, call 404-603-4314 between 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. to speak with a representative from our admissions team. If you call after hours, please leave us a message, and we'll return your call during our regular operating hours. You can also email us at SHAREadmissions@shepherd.org.

In 2008, Woody Morgan – then a sophomore at UGA – waded into the Gulf of Mexico. He handed his sunglasses to a friend, dove into a cresting wave, and didn’t return to consciousness until the next day in the ICU at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. His dive into what turned out to be very shallow water resulted in a paralyzing incomplete C5-C6 spinal cord injury. A week after his injury, Woody came to Shepherd Center.

Now, 15 years later, he’s back – but this time as the attending physician in Shepherd Center’s Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit (CRU), where he will provide care for patients experiencing the most complex conditions, including spinal cord and brain injuries, multi-trauma, traumatic amputations, stroke, MS, and other neurological conditions.

“Dr. Morgan has a wealth of experience and is board certified in both brain injury and spinal cord injury medicine, which makes him the ideal physician to care for patients in our CRU,” said Michael Yochelson, M.D., MBA, chief medical officer at Shepherd Center. “As a former Shepherd Center patient, Dr. Morgan also can connect with patients and families in a unique way because he understands what they’re going through at this point in their lives. We’re excited to have him join us as we help patients and families begin again after injury and illness.” 

Dr. Morgan attended medical school at Tulane University School of Medicine, after which he completed his residency training in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) at Harvard Medical School, followed by a fellowship in spinal cord injury medicine at Craig Hospital/University of Colorado. Most recently, Dr. Morgan served as assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and medical director of the spinal cord injury program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 

Before his injury, Dr. Morgan planned to study orthopedics and sports medicine. His career changed course after working with the physiatrists while he was a patient at Shepherd Center. John Lin, M.D., medical director of the Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program, in particular, inspired Dr. Morgan. Dr. Lin has paralysis and uses a wheelchair due to an aneurysm-like condition known as epidural arteriovenous malformation. He also was a patient at Shepherd Center nearly two decades ago.

“Just seeing Dr. Lin doing his job was big,” Woody says. “He has a different injury level than I do, but watching how he made things work, I realized I'm not the first; I'm not reinventing the wheel. I saw what was possible.”

Watching Dr. Lin use creative solutions to accommodate his abilities also prepared Woody for the juggling he’d have to learn in medical school. As Woody puts it: “First, I had to learn the textbook way of doing something. Then, I had to figure out how to adapt that approach so that it could work for me.”

Of course, using a wheelchair also has its advantages when working with patients who have spinal cord injuries.

“We go into a room, and we have some credibility right away,” Dr. Morgan says. “It can help you connect quicker, can mean a little something extra with patients sometimes, knowing that you’ve been where they are.”

Woody remembers public outings as a patient, such as attending an Atlanta Braves game, that helped him learn to navigate the outside world again. He also remembers the bonds he formed with patients and staff – a game-changer he hopes to replicate as a physician.

"It’s a sense of community we build,” he says. “I understand that patients still have the same dreams and wants out of life. As a physician, I don’t want to discourage. I want to help patients adapt and facilitate ways for patients to make their goals possible. I want to facilitate hope.”

Written by Phillip Jordan and Kerry Ludlam

Below are resources and information to help make sure your family is prepared in case of an emergency. 

Important Things to Consider When Creating an Emergency Preparedness Plan and Supply Kit:

• Have enough food and water to last at least three days (per person). Non-perishable and can foods are best in case of a loss of electricity. An average person needs about one gallon of water per day. And don’t forget to have three days’ worth of food and water for your pets.
• Have enough prescription medication on hand to last a minimum of three days.
• Make sure you have necessities like a manual can opener, battery-operated light sources, portable weather radio, a first aid kit, and hygiene products.
• Keep cell phones and electronic devices charged (and have portable battery devices charged) in case there is a loss of electricity.
• Make a family plan that includes how to evacuate and/or reach/assist family members who may need additional assistance such as older family members or family members with disabilities/access and functional needs.
• Discuss and practice your family communication and evacuation plan with all of your family members (including children).
• If you have to evacuate, make sure to take your emergency supply kit with you, and don’t forget to include flares, physical maps, jumper cables, extra cans of gas, and blankets.
• Keep all trees and shrubs well-trimmed to make them more wind-resistant.
• Plan to bring in all outdoor furniture, decorations, garbage cans, and anything else that is not tied down.
• Know your area’s flood risk.
• Make sure your homeowners' insurance is up to date and includes the necessary protections, like flood insurance.
• Remember if there is a loss of electricity, ATM machines and debit/credit cards will not work. If possible, have an emergency cash fund that you can access during an emergency or prior to evacuating.
• Secure your windows/doors and know how to shut off the gas or power to your home if it becomes necessary.
• Stay on top of the latest news.

For more emergency preparedness and planning tips and how to stay safe during a hurricane, please visit Ready Georgia.

For emergency preparedness and planning tips for individuals with disabilities/access and functional needs, please visit: http://ready.ga.gov/make-a-plan/georgians-with-access-functional-needs/ 

For tips on driving smart, please visit the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Resource links to help you plan and prepare in the case of a weather emergency: 

For Georgia weather-related mobile alerts, please download the Ready Georgia app, which can be found here: http://ready.ga.gov/

For customized Emergency Preparedness supply checklists for families, pet owners, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and businesses, please visit Federal Emergency Management Agency’s webpage.

“I absolutely fell in love with it,” Michael explains. “The Marine Corps was everything.”

In 2004, during his first tour in Iraq, he started experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but was not officially diagnosed. Michael began to feel detached and started losing sleep after he witnessed a horrific helicopter crash involving multiple marines and sailors. His psychiatrist prescribed medication to help with the symptoms, but Michael still struggled.

“I would be missing parts of my day where I didn’t remember what I did,” Michael explains. “My career started suffering because I would fade out and come to and not remember what I did in between. I became more reckless. I would have nightmares at night and flashbacks during the day.”

When he returned home from Iraq in Spring 2005, Michael felt like a different person. He was taking several medications and seeing a psychiatrist who was not the right fit. During training for redeployment, he pinched his sciatic nerve. When his command discontinued his prescription for pain medicine suddenly, he experienced withdrawal and turned to alcohol.  

Before Michael was deployed to Iraq for a second time, he was diagnosed with PTSD.

 “I was sent on a convoy movement and hit my head on a machine gun mount. I was sent back to base, and I lost all sense of time and space.” 

As Michael transitioned out of the Marine Corps and back to civilian life, things got worse.

“I wanted to re-enlist, but everything declined. I began experiencing irritability, blurry vision, migraines, and I had issues troubleshooting,” he says. “Along with PTSD, I was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. I ended up homeless at a truck stop in California until my stepdad found out I was homeless and drove me home to Maine.”

In Maine, Michael continued to abuse alcohol and became homeless again before moving back in with his mother and meeting his wife in 2014. In 2015, he sustained another traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a moped crash that resulted in a three-week medically induced coma, which led his medical team to take him off his medication.

“They were just focused on keeping me alive,” says Michael. “But with the withdrawal from the medication, I was in a deep hole and was very depressed.”

Michael and his wife knew it was time to do something when his depression led him to consider suicide. The couple called Semper Fi and America’s Fund, and within 48 hours, a representative visited and connected him with Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative. This comprehensive rehabilitation program delivers world-class, interdisciplinary care at no cost to veterans, service members, and first responders dealing with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and mental health concerns.

While Michael attended SHARE, he learned the positive effect of exercise on his mental and physical health. A few years after he graduated from SHARE, he began experiencing a need to move constantly, so he returned to SHARE to find a healthy, balanced exercise routine. 

“SHARE helped pull me out of the deepest darkest hole,” says Michael. “Before SHARE, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t care about what I ate or drank or if I moved my body. Then I was go, go, go. SHARE helped me find a middle road, and they continue to provide care. I’m so grateful.”

Michael is continuing to stay active, even training for marathons.

“I like to push myself to see what I can do. I just finished the Marine Corps Marathon,” says Michael. “My new mantra is depression hates a moving target. I’ve found where it can be too much, but in the right balance, movement is vital for being healthy, both mentally and physically.”

Michael worked with his doctor to safely get off medication. The SHARE team continued to help Michael develop tools to mitigate symptoms of PTSD and identify his core values, which include being of service to others – human or otherwise.

“One thing SHARE did this time was to really help me focus on my core values, which is giving service,” explains Michael. “It’s important for me to continue serving in one way or another, whether it’s to people or to animals. I volunteer as a holistic veterinary assistant for my father-in-law, which I find very meaningful, and it has opened up my eyes to holistic care. I’ve seen it help so many animals. Now, I get acupuncture, chiropractic adjustments, and Reiki regularly.”

Today, Michael continues to serve others by telling his story, hoping to help anyone in a similar situation.

“I’ve got purpose,” he says. “I’ve got a place in this world, running marathons, helping animals, and helping other people. If sharing my story helps someone else get through the same situation, then it’s worth it.”

Written by Lindsey Rieben

When they married in 2020, the pandemic wiped out their honeymoon plans to ski the mountains of Iceland’s Tröllaskagi Peninsula. Two years later, the couple — then 22 and living in Lynchburg, Virginia — finally made it to Iceland. When they arrived on the evening of March 16, 2022, the future seemed as limitless as the frozen fjords and snow-capped peaks that dominated the majestic landscape around them.  

“Neither of us expected life was about to change so drastically, so quickly,” Daniel says.

Less than 12 hours later, while on a solo morning hike, Daniel’s skis lost traction on a steep, glassy slope. He skidded, then plunged more than 30 meters down a deep ice chute. The fall resulted in a complete T-3-to-T-4 spinal cord injury, along with multiple traumas.

By the time members of a nearly 100-person rescue team located him six hours later, Daniel had gone into cardiac arrest and experienced a stroke caused by hypothermia and internal bleeding. He’d also sustained a traumatic brain injury due to the stroke, and his prolonged hypothermia would eventually require the amputation of his legs, just above the knees.

“What I remember most is believing wholeheartedly that I was going to die,” Daniel says. “The feeling that it was over. That feeling has stuck with me ever since the injury. It’s hard at times. I’ve gone through depression. I still have to consciously resist that urge to think that life is over for me and instead focus on new possibilities. The good things in my life. The things that I can do.”

Daniel credits Shepherd Center with helping him reorient his thinking.

“I made big strides in occupational, physical, and speech therapy there,” Daniel says. “But what impressed me was they went above and beyond in so many ways emotionally. Everyone at Shepherd Center just cared so intensely and spent the time with me that I needed.”

“Everybody was super positive at a time when it’s so easy to be super negative,” Sierra explains.

Daniel spent three months in Shepherd Center’s inpatient Comprehensive  Rehabilitation Unit, learning adaptations to regain physical independence. He followed that up with two pivotal months at Shepherd Pathways, a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injuries.

Daniel’s stroke had resulted in severe aphasia, affecting his ability to express and understand both written and spoken language. Those would be serious concerns for anyone, but especially for someone who loved reading and writing and had just completed a year of law school.

Daniel credits the cognitive improvements he made at Pathways for pushing him to where he is today. He can easily engage in conversation now, and his reading is up to a fifth-grade level. New career avenues open each day.

In the meantime, Daniel and Sierra are building their life together anew. The couple has moved back to their hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they’re looking at houses. They’re talking about kids. And they’re figuring out how to get back into camping and other outdoor adventures — including a return trip to Iceland to replace old memories with brighter ones.

Above all, they’re thankful for this second chance to be newlyweds.

“When we got home from Iceland, a lot of people encouraged us to do Danny’s rehabilitation somewhere close to where we were living in Virginia, or back home in New Mexico,” Sierra says. “But we wanted to get the best care possible, no matter where that took us. We’re so grateful that the opportunity opened up, and we chose to make the journey to Shepherd Center. It was the home away from home that we needed.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign. Click here to learn more.
 

Through them all, Rachel’s husband John kept recalling Rachel’s earliest post-injury runs that seemed even more miraculous than the 26.2 miles that Rachel ran in a cold Boston rain. As John sees it, Rachel’s marathon began on an oval, indoor track lofted above the Livingston Gym at Shepherd Center in Atlanta — where she spent more than three months in inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation.

“I can’t count how many hours she spent up there,” John says. “As soon as she was able to run again, you couldn’t stop her.”

Rachel started by alternating two running and two walking laps, building up to a mile. By the time she left Shepherd Center, she was covering 10 miles at a time.

“Running was my biggest personal goal in physical therapy,” Rachel says. “Not just for the marathon, but because running has always been a joyful part of my life. And I had lost it in an instant.”

Back in November 2022, John and Rachel had snuck in a rare date, taking a break from the daily grind that comes with owning a small business. (In their case, an Italian restaurant named Moni’s, where John oversees business operations and Rachel is the chef.) The couple’s date ended prematurely when Rachel crashed on her electric scooter. She sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, broke 17 bones, and was placed on life support with a ventilator doing her breathing.

After 10 days in an unresponsive coma at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center, Rachel’s care team advised John that Rachel was unlikely to regain consciousness — and unlikely to eat or breathe again on her own even if she did. While John was considering the way forward, Rachel woke up. As she slowly but steadily improved, her neurosurgeon described her recovery as miraculous.

Rachel reached Shepherd Center in mid-December. Soon, a serious secondary complication emerged. Almost half of Rachel’s skull had to be removed during her initial emergency surgery in Oklahoma City to make room for the swelling in her brain. But without her skull in place, she developed sinking skin flap syndrome, a known complication with craniectomies. In Rachel’s case, her symptoms were severe headaches that got worse out of bed, making physical therapy nearly impossible.

Ford Vox, M.D., medical director of Shepherd Center’s Disorders of Consciousness Program, diagnosed the syndrome and brought in Gary R. Gropper, M.D., consulting neurosurgeon, to address the issue. The team mapped her skull and created a 3D-printed replica of the missing sections. Dr. Gropper then implanted the new cap to restore the structure of her skull. The operation provided the pain relief Rachel needed without interrupting her stay at Shepherd Center.

From there, she was off to the races.

"What was incredible to me was how quickly things could change with Rachel and then how quickly her doctors and care team would respond to find the next solution,” John says. “When you work together in a place with all the services and facilities Shepherd Center has, and the wealth of experience there, it’s an incredible advantage.”

Case in point: While Rachel poured herself into physical therapy, she discovered an unexpected benefit in Shepherd Center’s psychological services.

“The toughest things for me were the mental battles, just being frustrated with myself and mad that my body wasn’t able to do what I knew I could do,” Rachel says. “I’d never done [psychological] therapy before, and it made me uncomfortable at first. But once I started talking, it helped so much. Tim Riggins (her rehabilitation counselor at Shepherd Center) did such a good job of making me feel calm, comfortable, and accepted."

After six weeks of inpatient care, Rachel extended her rehabilitation through Shepherd Pathways outpatient rehabilitation while staying in an accessible Shepherd Center apartment next to campus.

And three weeks after leaving Shepherd Center, Rachel Foster crossed the Boston Marathon finish line.

Today, Rachel sees many more marathons ahead. She and John will stay busy with Moni’s, too. And the couple plans to keep sharing Rachel’s improbable comeback to give others hope.

Those storytelling plans include a book, and Rachel knows one story that will surely be included.

While at Shepherd Center, she became fast friends with one of her inpatient nurses, Bella Truong. The duo became so close that they decided to get matching tattoos. “I kind of talked her into it,” Rachel says with a laugh. “It was her first, but definitely not mine!”

When the ink was dry, each woman had a new mantra on their arms framed by a morning sun rising over the horizon. Above it, the words: And, too, I rise.

“That was so special to do with Bella,” Rachel says. “And those words are true. There is always hope. It sounds cheesy, but it’s important to hold onto that when there are so many things that can take your hope away and take your happiness away.”

“No matter what life throws at you, you still can rise.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this one, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign.       

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts (AKA ruptures). When this occurs, brain cells are deprived of oxygen and begin to die. When brain cells die during a stroke, abilities controlled by that area of the brain, such as language or muscle control, are lost. How a person is affected by a stroke depends on the severity and the location of the brain where the injury occurs.

There are two types of stroke: ischemic and hemorrhagic.

• Ischemic stroke occurs when there is a blockage in a brain artery. The brain tissue that is supplied by the blocked artery can become damaged or die. They are the most common type of stroke and occur in over 80% of all strokes.
• Hemorrhagic stroke is caused by bleeding in the brain. The blood can put pressure on surrounding brain tissue and damage it. Hemorrhagic strokes occur in 15 to 20% of all strokes.

How does a stroke affect mobility or cognitive function?

The impact of a stroke can vary widely.

The majority of the brain is divided into two hemispheres. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, along with skills like spatial awareness and aspects relating to insight. A stroke on the right side of the brain can impair these skills or cause weakness or paralysis on the left side of the body. Alternatively, a stroke occurring in the left hemisphere of the brain may cause weakness or paralysis on the right side of the body and difficulty understanding and expressing written and spoken language. Additionally, if an individual has a stroke further down in the brainstem or cerebellum, they may experience problems with balance, coordination, vision, and body and facial muscle movement and sensation.

While any variety of functions can be affected, with 80% of stroke survivors experiencing weakness or paralysis, rehabilitation hospitals or clinics like Shepherd Center can optimize the recovery process and return patients to the highest level of function possible.

What is the best way to prevent a stroke?

According to the CDC, 80% of strokes are preventable. Risk factors like high blood pressure, obesity, tobacco use, and diabetes can increase your risk of stroke. Working toward a healthy lifestyle with physical activity and a healthy diet may help reduce your risk of stroke.

How is a stroke treated?

The earlier a stroke can be treated by medical professionals, the better. Knowing stroke signs and symptoms can save your life or someone else’s. The trick to remembering these signs and symptoms of a stroke is the acronym “BEFAST,” which stands for balance, eye, face, arm, speech, and time. New technologies are constantly developing and if administered in the first critical hours after symptoms develop, these technologies may give an individual with stroke a markedly improved chance of a better recovery.

Following emergency treatment, stroke survivors can have complex and unique rehabilitation needs. Because stroke therapy may look different for each person, it’s important to plan individualized, person-centered care for stroke patients based on their health and recovery goals. Specialists may design a rehabilitation plan for ischemic stroke treatment or hemorrhagic stroke treatment. 

Visit our website to learn more about Shepherd Center’s approach to stroke treatment and rehabilitation. 

 On the morning of Monday, April 16, 2018, Otto had a violent coughing fit due to undiagnosed pneumonia and began to experience stroke symptoms. His wife, Clyde, rushed him to the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Doctors sent him by helicopter to Grady Memorial Hospital, where a neurologist examined him.

 “I had suffered a massive left-brain stroke,” Otto says. “The doctor gave my wife two options. One was to leave me alone with a major brain injury, which I would probably not survive. Or two, undergo a neurological intervention to restore circulation to my brain, but because of the blood thinners I was treated with, this procedure carried a high risk of causing me to bleed out and die.”

Faced with what seemed like an impossible decision, Clyde chose to give Otto the best chance at survival: surgery. When Otto returned from surgery, his condition seemed bleak. So, his children flew to Atlanta, and a priest joined the family to give Otto his Last Rites.

 Fortunately, Otto survived the procedure. As he began to improve, the family started looking into rehabilitation hospitals with a clear choice in mind.

 “Shepherd Center was my first choice,” Otto says. “After 10 days in Grady’s Stroke Center, I transferred to Shepherd Center.”

 With his sense of humor and optimism intact and Clyde by his side, Otto began his recovery process, spending just over two months in Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

 “I went through physical, occupational, and speech therapy every day,” Otto says. “My progress was impeded by severe nerve pain resulting from the stroke. I didn’t know strokes came with nerve pain, but boy howdy, they can!” Otto’s pain finally resolved seven months after his stroke.

 Otto graduated from inpatient rehabilitation and progressed to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. He also began participating in Georgia State's Aphasia Choir, where he connected with other stroke survivors.

From near death and complete dependence, Otto has made remarkable progress. Today, five years after his stroke, he can walk with a cane, perform daily tasks independently, and he continues to work on his speech. Although he is doing well, Otto participates in therapy programs to improve as much as possible.

 “My progress has been the result of skilled help and prayers,” Otto explains. “I can honestly say the past five years have been the best years of my life. I got to quit practicing law, and my faith in God has deepened. Also, my wife never asks me to do the dishes.”

 Written by Lindsey Rieben

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this one, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign. 

“Person-centered goal-directed care helps us determine what is most important to our clients so we can personalize their care and get their full investment in getting better,” said Tracey Wallace, MS, CCC-SLP, FACRM, projects and education coordinator for the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center, associate director of the mTBI Brain Health and Recovery Lab, and principal investigator of the study. “While our clients may have similar traumatic brain injuries, they all have different experiences, histories, and goals that shape how they respond to care and how we need to provide care for them. This study provides evidence that this population responds to person-centered goal-directed care.”

SHARE Military Initiative is a comprehensive rehabilitation program that delivers world-class, interdisciplinary care at no cost to veterans, service members, and first responders dealing with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and mental health concerns through flexible programming and collaborative care, transition support, and community reintegration. 

More than 450,000 traumatic brain injuries (TBI) have been documented among U.S. service members since 2000, according to the Traumatic Brain Injury Center of Excellence. While most recover from a single mild TBI within weeks, as many as 20% of adults have a more prolonged course of recovery, negatively affecting their physical and mental health, ability to function, and participation in important roles in their families and careers – all factors that make treatment complex and challenging.

At SHARE, clients identify between one and three person-centered program goals, which the SHARE team uses to develop a comprehensive, PCG-directed plan of care. The team determines the program length of stay and the type and amount of therapy provided based on given strengths, barriers, symptoms, resources, comorbidities, and other factors unique to each patient. Treatment interventions address barriers to goal attainment, and additional services are added to match goals. 

Over the course of the study, 146 participants set 281 goals. 252 goals – or 89.68% – were met or exceeded by program discharge. Goal attainment increased at six, nine, and 12 months post-discharge from SHARE Military Initiative with transition support from a transition support specialist at SHARE.

“In this study, we also found that longer, sustained participation in treatment was the most important predictor of goal attainment,” said Russell Gore, M.D., medical director of the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center, director of the mTBI Brain Health and Recovery Lab, and co-principal investigator of the study. “Our treatment program has a flexible length of stay that is individualized based on the client’s needs and goals. We were pleased to see that the study results validated this approach to care.” 

SHARE researchers Tracey Wallace, MS, CCC-SLP, Katherine McCauley, Ph.D., April Hodge, PT, DPT, NCS, Maya Whaley, and Russell Gore, M.D., collaborated with researchers Tim Moran, Ph.D., and Stephen Porter, M.D., from Emory University School of Medicine on the study.

Learn more about mild brain injury research at Shepherd Center. https://www.shepherd.org/research/acquired-brain-injury/mtbi-lab

 In July 2015, Ryan laced up his shoes and mounted his bike, ready to race at Prince William Forest Park in Virginia as part of an event for the World Police and Fire Games. During the race, as he started down a hill at speeds over forty miles an hour, he was in a three-person crash, resulting in one fatality and severe injuries for Ryan and another racer. In addition to a TBI, Ryan sustained a broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs, and nerve damage in his left arm. After spending time at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Virginia, he transferred to Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program in August 2015.

 After graduating from the inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program in September 2015, Ryan was ready to participate in Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury.

 “It was a great outcome, finding Shepherd Center,” Ryan says. “I’m very lucky. I had some of the best doctors, nurses, and therapists at Shepherd Center. I’m sure I gave them a hard time, and there were days I didn’t want to do what they were asking me to, but they never gave up on me. I have fond memories of them all.”

 With the help of his family, friends, and co-workers, he began to recover. One member of his support system was MaryJo, a friend he worked with at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. Nearly three years after his injury, Ryan and MaryJo got married.  

 In 2016, Ryan was released to work on light duty, unsure if he could pass the rigorous medical requirements required to carry a firearm and fully return to his job.

 “My therapists at Shepherd Center pushed me,” Ryan explains. “They were all tough, but they had to be in order to get me to walk again and get me back on the job. I remember writing to one of them and saying ‘You were tough, but you had a purpose to get me back to where I am today.’”

 It was a mentally and physically trying time for Ryan, and he began looking for ways to build his confidence and relieve stress, so he turned to spin biking and yoga. Ryan was inspired to try yoga by the film “The Crash Reel,” a documentary following the story of Kevin Pearce, a professional snowboarder who sustained a traumatic brain injury and found his pathway to healing. Kevin later founded the Love Your Brain Foundation, a non-profit organization that works to improve the quality of life for people affected by traumatic brain injury and raises awareness about the importance of brain health. Ryan fell in love with the practice and continues to attend yoga classes through local yoga studios.

 “Before brain injury, I would have never thought about yoga, but now I am into it,” Ryan says. “I learned about the benefits of yoga, calming the mind through meditation and mindfulness, and continued to heal as I began to work out. It really helped with my balance issues and getting back on a bike.”

 Ryan’s hard work, dedication, and yoga practice paid off. Two years after his injury, he was cleared by the National Park Service Medical Review Board and approved to return to work on full-duty status.

 “Now that was the information I had been waiting over two years to see and hear,” he says. “I certainly had a good cry after seeing that email. That was what it was all about.”

 Today, Ryan is once again chief ranger at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, overseeing the law enforcement program for the park that sits in three states. He is also back on his bike and rides the roads around his home in Pennsylvania. He attributes his gains to his team at Shepherd Center, family, friends, and support from the National Park Service. Now, he hopes to help others during their recovery by sharing his story and advice.

Here is some of Ryan’s advice based on lessons learned on his path to recovery:

1.     Family, friend, and co-worker support is essential. My family was a rock for me. They put their lives on hold and supported me in my good and bad times. I’ve also had great support from my National Park Service family.

2.     If you have access to Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), use them. These programs have been helpful to me when I got down.

3.     Take advantage of support groups in your area. Talking to others with TBI and caregivers is comforting.

Shepherd Center’s Peer Support Program provides resources to patients and family members. To learn more about Shepherd Center's Peer Support Program, click here! 

4.     Wear proper safety gear for on-the-job tasks or personal recreational activities. Be prepared. In both Kevin Pearce’s and my experience, we were saved by our helmets.

5.     Learn as much about TBIs as you can, and don’t rush the process. Approach your therapy with as much positivity and resiliency as you can. Stay strong!

Written by Lindsey Rieben

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign. Click here to learn more.

Mary and Eric Busko spent many days in the Secret Garden in 2021 as Mary recovered from a stroke at Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. Mary loved the outdoors and always looked forward to spending time with her husband in the garden or waving to their children, Mae and Harper, on the other side of the fence while COVID restrictions limited visitation.

In these quiet moments, Eric got the perfect idea for a 22^nd-anniversary gift for Mary: a new Secret Garden gate to show their love and appreciation for each other and Shepherd Center staff.

The Buskos didn’t take anniversaries lightly. Eric and Mary celebrated each anniversary with a themed gift crafted from metal by their family friend, Andrew Crawford of Andrew T. Crawford Ironworks. For example, on their 12^th anniversary, also known as the “silk anniversary,” Eric gave Mary a handmade metal hook shaped in the number 12 with some of their favorite sayings engraved on it. The hook was adorned with a silk robe.

The Busko household overflowed with love. Eric and Mary would hide notes with words of encouragement, love, and gratitude for each other around the house. Remarkably, the day after Mary’s stroke, when Eric finally returned home from the hospital, he found Mary had placed a new note for him in a drawer. That note read, “I love you, Eric. Everything will be all right. God has you in his arms. - Love, Mary.” Mary’s note carried Eric through the rough months ahead, leading to the exact moment he dreamed of a gate to show his gratitude.

Eric took his idea to Andrew, and the two designed the gate with details curated for Mary. One of the most notable is twenty-two cardinals, representing each year of the Busko’s marriage, complete with engravings of “ISDLY,” meaning “I sure do love you,” and “You Are My Sunshine.” Unfortunately, before the gate was finished, Mary passed away at age 52 due to complications from her stroke.

Mary’s personality was effervescent. She was creative, kind, humorous, and selfless. That warmth shined through to her care team during her time at Shepherd Center.

“Mary was an absolute delight to work with! Her thoughtfulness and compassion were evident in that she would always thank the staff for their care, ask about the wellbeing of her family, and counter questions about her own needs with what she could do for you,” says Alexes Venuti, M.A., CCC-SLP, Mary’s speech-language pathologist. “She was witty, offering dry, humorous remarks with a smirk and a twinkle in her eye. Mary was a fighter—she never quit and approached everything we asked her to do with grit and determination.”

Determined to express gratitude to the dedicated staff at Shepherd Center and honor Mary’s memory, Eric worked with Andrew to finish the gift he had planned for his wife. The gate was installed on October 7, 2022, bringing new energy to the Anna and Hays Mershon Secret Garden.

“I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to express my gratitude to Shepherd in such a tangible way,” says Eric.  “I love that Mary will be associated with such a meaningful and uplifting piece of art. The gate is unique. It’s beautiful. It’s funky yet also elegant. It’s impactful but not overstated. It’s meaningful in many ways, and it’s bound to bring joy to people. Every single one of those things can be said about Mary. My hope is the gate brings joy and inspiration to patients and employees for many decades.”

This tribute to Mary’s legacy doubles as a beautiful symbol of Shepherd Center’s culture of hard work, humor, and hope. In a time of growth and change for Shepherd Center with the launch of its Pursuing Possible campaign, this gift to the beloved Secret Garden is a reminder of how that culture will endure, even as the hospital expands to deliver unmatched care to more patients.

Written by Lindsey Rieben

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this one, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign. 

“We asked her if we could still get someone to come to marry us at Shepherd Center,” Nargis says. “She didn’t even hesitate. She said, ‘We can do that.’ And she got it started right then.”

On August 13, 2022, just two days after their planned wedding date, Muraad and Nargis tied the knot in Shepherd Center’s board room. They followed that up with wedding portraits in the Anna and Hays Mershon Secret Garden and a surprise reception with family and friends.

“I thought our officiant was going to come and just do a quick ceremony,” Nargis says. “But when we got there, the nurses and staff had actually set up desserts and drinks and decorations for a reception, too. My mother brought in a cake. We had no idea they were doing all that. They really made it special.”

For the couple, the day provided more than a wedding certificate. It offered hope.

“It was really emotional,” Nargis says. “After Muraad’s injury, I didn’t know if this day would ever happen.”

“Life,” Muraad says. “It showed life was still ahead of us.”

Today, Muraad and Nargis are home in Tucker, Georgia. Muraad continues to use what he learned at Shepherd Center to maximize his recovery, working on exercises to improve his decision-making and his ability to multi-task and find the exact words he wants to say. He has already come incredibly far since the car crash that caused a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and pelvic fracture and also led to a lung infection.

The couple attributes his gains to the customized rehabilitation plan that Shepherd Center created for Muraad as soon as he arrived.

"They’re so dedicated and completely hands-on,” Nargis says. “They make you feel like your loved one’s in the best hands possible. And they’re so committed to each patient’s family, too.”

Muraad is relieved and grateful to be looking forward now. He’s already back at work as a document control specialist and is eager to resume his role as a high school and college basketball referee.

He’s also excited to be home with his wife.

This August, the two will throw a big celebration they’re calling a “second wedding ceremony and first anniversary party” at the venue where they’d planned to wed last year. The guest list is rightfully long.

As for the vows, those come easily, especially after their journey this past year.

“I just appreciate her being her,” Muraad says of his bride. “She’s loving, caring, and down-to-earth. She’s already been there for me when I needed it most.”

“He’s my best friend, my other half,” Nargis says. “When I’m upset, when I’m overwhelmed, he knows how to calm me down and make me laugh. I’m so thankful I still have him.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this one, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign.            

In 2021, one such solution took shape when Shepherd Center announced its partnership with Burnalong, a digital health solution offering live and on-demand health and wellness content. The hospital and online wellness platform are collaborating to create and distribute world-class, specialty programming that makes wellness accessible to all.

“As a non-disabled person, you can go online or choose any gym you want. The same is not necessarily true for those with disabilities,” says Deborah Backus, PT, Ph.D., FACRM, Shepherd Center vice president of research and innovation. “This partnership came from a desire to offer people choices while providing expertise, support, and community aspects as well.”

Burnalong is designed to meet users where they are by featuring more than 30,000 classes, including yoga, exercise, and financial wellness courses for people of all abilities.

“Alongside the unparalleled range of classes and programs, one of the biggest things that sets Burnalong apart is the social experience. You can see and hear each other live. You can join communities. It ensures people get the support they need,” says Burnalong CEO Daniel Freedman. “You can do classes alone or with others, whether friends, family members, or people at a similar stage of life as you so you can find kindred spirits and social motivation.”

Shepherd’s highly trained specialists are developing live and on-demand content geared toward people with spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, spine and chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and other neurological conditions. Currently, Shepherd patients, staff, and Burnalong users can access the classes.

“The great thing is that these classes span across all our specialties and are appropriate for many neurological diagnoses and patients who we serve at Shepherd,” says Marina Moldavskiy, ACRP-CP, Shepherd Center’s tele-wellness program manager and exercise physiologist.

Meg Stevenson is a physical therapist at Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative, a comprehensive rehabilitation program that delivers world-class treatment at no cost to veterans, service members, and first responders who are dealing with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and mental health concerns. Every other Thursday, she leads a gentle yoga livestream class on the Burnalong platform. Her patients log on from home to attend the live class, which helps them stay in shape mentally and physically while also connecting with each other.

“Clients really enjoy being able to stay in touch with me,” she says. “We end up doing 45-50 minutes of yoga because we spend 15 minutes catching up. I think they honestly enjoy that piece as much as the yoga.”

Although not all of Stevenson’s SHARE clients can attend the live stream, they can access all the recorded classes on demand.

“I’ve recorded several guided meditation sessions,” Stevenson says. “They’ve been a game changer. I have one client that was so blown away by his experience, he uses it two to four times per night to help him sleep.”

All of Shepherd Center’s virtual fitness and wellness classes can be prescribed by rehabilitation experts to patients once they return home.

“We are always thinking of ways to empower our patients before they return home,” Moldavskiy, says. “When our patients are at Shepherd, there’s always a rehabilitation professional there to guide them or give them information. Our hope is that this platform can help them feel empowered to continue when they leave our walls.” 

While Burnalong is creating an inclusive community, it also opens opportunities for further research. Shepherd Center’s Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute is piloting a multiple sclerosis (MS) study to better understand the program's benefits and if it changes a participant’s quality of life. If you are interested in participating in MS research, click here.

“We are incredibly grateful for Shepherd Center and their shared mission and values,” Freedman says. “We’re excited to explore new areas and bring on new content and programs, and together make an impact globally with Shepherd Center.  

Written by Lindsey Rieben

On the morning of July 31, 2021, John woke up ready to train. He put on his bike shoes and made his way out on the road. While on his ride, John’s life changed forever. He was injured by a hit-and-run driver, sustaining a shattered C-1 vertebra, a broken C-2 vertebra, and a traumatic brain injury.  

“I don’t remember the exact details, but I planned for a two to three-hour bike ride, and it turned into this life-changing event,” John explains.

John was admitted to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where he spent two weeks. While at Grady, he had surgery to fuse his C-2 vertebra to the base of his skull. From there, John transferred to Shepherd Center, where he began therapy with his team. Due to his brain injury, John says he does not remember the first six or seven weeks after his injury.

“One of my first vivid memories was hearing the therapists pushing my wheelchair say that we were turning to the left. So, I would start singing, ‘To the left, to the left,’” John laughs.

With his sense of humor and his athletic drive intact, John began to train with this care team, this time from a new starting line. After seven weeks in Shepherd Center as an inpatient in the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, he continued his rehabilitation with five weeks at Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. Slowly, he began to swim, walk, and run again.  

“John’s perseverance and determination are remarkable,” says Lydia Schubert, John’s recreational therapist at Shepherd Center. “He got in the pool his last week on inpatient at Shepherd Center and just a few months later he was back to swimming with his master's team. He hasn’t let anything stop him; he is truly inspiring.”

In July of 2022, almost a year after his injury, John ran The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, which led him right past Shepherd Center on Peachtree Road, getting back into the swing of racing. He continues to improve, working with his physical therapists to pursue more races in the future.

“I’ve run a couple of 5Ks and 10Ks since then. I even swam in a swim meet, which was fun to get up and race in the water again,” he says. “Right now, I’m shifting my activity levels a bit because of some tightness in my neck, but I’m hoping in the future to do some more sprint-style triathlons.”

While he says he only vividly remembers the last few weeks at Shepherd Center, he does remember his therapists, Shepherd staff, and all the extraordinary work they put in together.

“I give a lot of credit to the therapists, doctors, and to everybody at Shepherd Center. They pushed me in the right direction, and I think the world of them.”

Written by Lindsey Rieben

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign. Click here to learn more.

Kenny is a veteran – he served four years in the U.S. Army, completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Richard is an OB-GYN – throughout his career, he has delivered thousands of babies. Kenny is a native Atlantan, and Richard, 35 years Kenny’s senior, has lived in Atlanta for more than four decades.

In December 2021, Kenny was on the job as a sanitation worker, riding on the back of a garbage truck, when another truck hit him, pinning him between the two vehicles. Both of his femurs and pelvis were broken, and he sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

A couple of weeks later, in January 2022, Richard woke up and couldn’t move his arm. When he got up to walk to the bathroom and lost his balance along the way, he realized he was experiencing a stroke.

Both men were admitted to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where they were in the ICU at the same time, and both later transferred to Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. But it wasn’t until their time at Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury, that their friendship grew.

Kenny, who affectionately calls Richard “Doc,” recalls bonding with Richard over ice cream, one of Kenny’s favorite treats. Apparently, the pair ate LOTS of ice cream at Spring Creek House, the residential unit at Pathways.

“I guess the staff got annoyed because while we were there, we ate all the ice cream,” Kenny jokes.

Kenny even convinced his therapist to make a trip to an ice cream shop during therapy — and, of course, he convinced Richard and his therapist to come along.

Kenny describes the way he and Richard would wrap up their therapy sessions. “At the end of the day, we always went outside and tried to race our wheelchairs — it's kind of a double trouble story,” he explains.

“We had fun together,” Richard recalls. “In our wheelchairs, we would push each other and help each other out, or race and make a mess of everything. We just tried to have a good time laughing.”

Richard and Kenny would spend the evenings together at Spring Creek House. “He became part of my family. He would sit and eat dinner with my family when they would visit us each night,” Richard explains.

Along with the fun, Kenny and Richard supported each other as they made great strides at Shepherd. Richard had weakness in his left side and problems with his vision after his stroke. In therapy, he worked on walking, regaining strength in his left arm, and correcting his vision. Now, he’s participating in Beyond Therapy® at Shepherd Center. After his injury, Kenny also worked on walking, and although he still uses his wheelchair sometimes, he can now walk with a cane.

While they joke about their shenanigans, Kenny and Richard praise each other’s progress and express a deep admiration for one another.

“Kenny is just a compassionate, caring, kind man, and I have so much respect for what he's accomplished,” Richard says. "He served in Fallujah and Afghanistan. That is so amazing to me. And to have watched him make progress and be able to walk again — it was his drive and desire that helped him accomplish so much. His life experiences are so different from mine. But we really connect.”

And according to Kenny, the feeling is mutual. “Doc's great to be around and to talk to. He’s an all-around stand-up guy,” Kenny explains. “I’m quiet with everybody else, but I feel comfortable talking to him. He helped me keep my head up when I was down in the hospital. When I was depressed, talking to him and eating ice cream with him was perfect for me.”

Kenny and Richard continue to root for each other and celebrate one another’s progress. They look forward to more high jinks — and ice cream — as they continue their rehabilitation.

Written by Ruth Underwood

Pursuing Possible with Shepherd Center

To support patient stories like this, please consider contributing to Shepherd Center's Pursuing Possible campaign. Click here to learn more.

He met that goal, achieving yet another milestone in a year and a half filled with them. 

Shawn sustained a traumatic brain injury on December 31, 2020, when a car he was riding in slammed into a telephone pole, and his airbag did not deploy. He was taken to Regional One Medical Center in Memphis where he immediately underwent brain surgery. He remained in a coma for two months. 

His prognosis was bleak, but his mother, Melissa Hewitt, refused to accept it. She remembered hearing about Shepherd Center from her father who was a professional football player and a firefighter. 

“He always said, ‘If you have a catastrophic injury, the best place to go is Shepherd Center,’ and that just stuck with me,” she says. 

When Shawn arrived at Shepherd Center on March 18, 2021, his eyes were open, but he remained unresponsive. He eventually was able to walk with assistance and could respond to “yes” and “no” questions. After three months, he hit a plateau, and both his care team and Melissa thought it would be best for him to take a break and go home. 

“The light came on when he was back home with his family,” Melissa says. Shawn did weekly physical, occupational, and speech therapy and made progress every day. In April 2022, he returned to Shepherd Center to continue his treatment in the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. 

Nearly two years after the accident that almost took his life, Melissa says Shawn has almost fully recovered. Both she and Shawn credit Shepherd Center for giving them hope and care, especially after being told he would never live a normal life. 

“Just the atmosphere alone was motivating,” Melissa says. “It was the worst time of my life and they just made it easier.” 

As for the future, Shawn, who grew up working on cars with his father, plans to start a business building and restoring high-performance race cars. It was something he was working toward before his accident. He also hopes to one day be a race car driver. 

“That’s what kept me going,” Shawn says. “I wanted to get back to working with and driving race cars. Thanks to Shepherd Center, I think I will be able to do that.” 

Written by Sara Baxter

Whether injured on the job or elsewhere, for many patients at Shepherd Center, one of their primary goals after injury or illness is to return to or join the workforce in a job that both accommodates their needs and fulfills them professionally. Fortunately, Shepherd Center now offers comprehensive vocational evaluations (CVE) onsite.

“A CVE assists an injured worker in setting a structured vocational goal by utilizing a battery of assessment tools and a complete review of medical information, work history, and labor market information,” says vocational specialist Laura McDowell, MS, CRC, CVE, NCC. “A CVE will help determine if and how an injured worker can return to work.”

CVEs at Shepherd Center include:

• Measurements of vocational interests and aptitudes
• Measurements of learning abilities and academic levels
• Measurements of physical and mental capacities
• Analysis of transferrable skills and strengths
• Labor market survey
• Recommendations for accommodations and additional supports
• Transportation needs

Assessment reports will also identify employment barriers and loss of wage-earning capacity and provide a detailed plan to return to other suitable employment, with or without accommodations, if possible.

“Having a CVE done at Shepherd Center offers many benefits for both case managers and Shepherd Center patients,” McDowell says. “We can assist your clients in discovering a feasible return-to-work goal consistent with their abilities, interests, and aptitudes while also streamlining their care in one place and creating momentum in reaching their vocational goals more quickly.”

For more information or to schedule a CVE for your client, contact vocational specialist Laura McDowell, MS, CRC, CVE, NCC at laura.mcdowell@shepherd.org or 404-350-7588.