“Memory loss does not mean loss of intelligence.”

After my stroke, I learned something I had never really thought about before: memory loss is not just a medical issue — it's a social one.

People notice memory problems quickly. You repeat something, forget something, lose your train of thought, and the reaction is almost immediate. People start to assume. They don’t always say it out loud, but you feel it. They talk to you differently. They explain things differently. It’s like the moment memory slips, people believe everything else has slipped with it.

That assumption isn’t always true.

My stroke was a hemorrhagic stroke — what is known as an acquired brain injury (ABI). It didn’t come from a fall or an accident. It came from inside my body. What it left me with was not a loss of who I am or how I think. What it left me with, among other things, was some difficulty with short-term memory and fully remembering who I have been.

And that’s where the misunderstanding starts.

Because when people hear “memory loss,” many of them think of dementia. They assume decline. They assume confusion. They assume everything is fading.

But memory loss after a brain injury is not the same thing as dementia.

Dementia is generally progressive. It can affect memory over time, along with judgment, reasoning, language, and independence. Brain injuries — like stroke or traumatic brain injury — are different. They usually come from a specific event. They can leave real challenges, but for many people, those challenges are often specific physical or cognitive functions. You might struggle with memory, but still think clearly, make decisions, and understand the world around you.

I know that difference firsthand. I’m living it.

What made that difference even clearer was the kind of treatment I received. At Shepherd Center and later through Shepherd Pathways, everything was focused on recovery and adaptation. Therapy wasn’t about expecting decline — it was about improving function, rebuilding independence, and learning how to work through what had changed.

That matters.

Because it reinforces something that doesn’t always get said clearly:

Memory loss does not equal loss of intelligence.

At the same time, this experience has also shown me something else.

Even though the medical differences between dementia and brain injury are real, people don’t always treat them differently in everyday life. If someone forgets things or struggles to keep up, the response can look the same regardless of the cause.

That’s where my perspective changed.

This experience has given me a deeper sense of empathy — not just for people living with dementia, but also for the caregivers around them. Caregivers are often trying to help while dealing with uncertainty, stress, and incomplete information. They may not fully understand what’s happening neurologically, but they’re still navigating it every day.

And that’s not a failure — that’s reality.

Once you understand that, it becomes easier to see why frustration shows up on both sides — patients and caregivers alike.

That’s why support matters. Education matters. Sharing our perspectives matters.

Because sometimes the issue isn’t just memory loss itself — it’s what people assume memory loss means.

If there is one thing I hope people take from this, it’s simple:

Not all memory loss is the same — and it doesn’t mean a person has lost who they are.

Marcus M. Johnson, Jr. is a stroke survivor and former Shepherd Center patient. Drawing from both personal experience and research, he writes about brain injury, recovery, and the importance of understanding memory loss beyond common misconceptions.

In October 2024, Ryan, then 30, had a hemorrhagic stroke. As he was getting ready for work one morning, he got lightheaded and lost his balance. After falling a few times over the next several minutes, he realized it was time to call 911.

“That took a lot of courage for me to do because before, I was never one to ask for any kind of help in any way,” he says.

Ryan dragged himself 45 feet to the front door and unlocked it for the paramedics before losing consciousness. In hindsight, he says things could’ve been worse, since 15 minutes earlier, he would’ve been asleep, and 15 minutes later, he would’ve been driving to work. “God's timing was shown in that situation,” he says. “So, I've come to terms, and I'm glad it happened when it did.”

He spent the next 20 days in Huntsville Hospital, 10 of them in the ICU. While there, he had surgery to remove part of his skull to reduce the pressure from the bleeding in his brain.

Ryan’s mom, Terri Edwards, remembers how overwhelmed she felt immediately following Ryan’s stroke.

“I had no idea what to do,” she recalls. “One of our friends in the ICU waiting room that night or the next day said, ‘Well, what's going to happen? Are they going to send him to Shepherd Center?’ And I go, ‘Oh my God, what is Shepherd Center? Where is it? I wanted to crawl under a chair, and I'm not kidding because … I could not see through the next day.”

Once Ryan transferred to Shepherd Center, it didn’t take long for Terri to feel certain they had made the right decision.

“So, we get there, and we're sitting outside of his room because the doctors are still assessing him and getting him settled. And we look like deer caught in headlights,” she recalls. “And I would say nine out of every 10 staff persons, from a janitor to a doctor, a tech, a nurse, whoever, walked by and they would say, ‘Are you okay? Do you need anything? Are you waiting on somebody?’ They would talk to us. And by the end of the first two hours … I knew we were in the right place.”

Terri stayed at the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences while Ryan was inpatient so she could support him throughout his rehabilitation. Her husband and Ryan’s siblings and friends came to visit many weekends and for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but often, it was just team Ryan and Terri, working through the fear and frustration and celebrating small victories with each other and Shepherd staff.

Terri says that it brought her closer to Ryan than ever. “I will take that to my grave as a special time with my son. But,” she jokes, “I do not recommend that kind of bonding.”

Therapy and Beyond

Ryan and his therapists got right to work to rebuild his physical strength and address his cognitive issues. Ryan was using a wheelchair and had weakness in his left side, especially his left arm.  

His long-term memory was intact, but his short-term memory was a challenge, as was fatigue from mental strain and difficulty with problem-solving.

“I had planning issues early on in the therapy exercises. I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. I kind of breezed through high school, in a manner of speaking. And the type of worksheets I was working on in speech therapy, I knew they were easy for me to do, but at the time, it took a lot of mental strain, and that was one of the most frustrating parts,” he recalls.

Other tasks were also a challenge. “I had a very difficult time practicing filling my pillbox and working through my medications, especially during my time at Shepherd Center,” he says. “It took until 3 months after we got back home from Shepherd until I started doing it all by myself without any help.”

Ryan says that all his therapists were fantastic. But other parts of his time at Shepherd stood out as well. For one, he enjoyed getting to know other patients.

“We got to go out to a couple of the restaurants down the street with some other patients, and we got to meet up and make some friends with a couple of the other patients and share experiences with them,” he says. “I think that's really good — getting the patients together is really good.”

And he attended some of the Sunday services led by Shepherd Center’s chaplains, which he said offered “something that I needed to hear in that moment.” One example was a Bible verse from Ecclesiastes.

“’A time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to grieve and a time to dance,’” he reads. “So, especially during that recovery process, there was times that it was perfectly fine to just let it out, cry it out, and then there was times to laugh and then grieve and then have fun and dance, you know.”

Celebrating Milestones

After six weeks as an inpatient in Shepherd’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, Ryan continued therapy at Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program.

When he discharged from inpatient, Ryan was walking with assistance. Terri recalls the day he was able to walk into Pathways independently and how it felt a little like she was sending him out into the world on his own for the first time.

“I dropped him off at Pathways, and they finally cleared him to take his [gait] belt off. Actually, they said, ‘Why do you still have your gait belt on? You don't need that.’ And I'm still holding it or getting ready to grab it. I'm not walking anywhere further than one inch away from him. And so he puts his little drawstring bag on his back, and he walks in. …. And he looked at me, and I said, ‘Bye, Ryan, have a good day. Stay on green,’” she laughs. On a more serious note, she says, “I still walk beside him. If I'm not walking beside him, I'm still looking out of the corner of my eye, watching him. I don't know if I'll ever let that go.”

One of Ryan’s biggest goals was to return to work at the family business, which he partners in with his uncles, so cognitive exercises to help him prepare for the work and build mental stamina were an integral part of his therapy at Pathways.

Ryan started gradually — working half days when he wasn’t doing therapy — and now he works close to 40 hours a week, sometimes taking a power nap in the middle of the day if he needs it.

“We're in manufacturing, and I do a lot of 3D modeling and project managing. And before my stroke, I was able to do a lot of the manual labor work, fill in, but I just do a lot more computer work now.”

Ryan lived with his parents for close to a year and a half after being discharged from Shepherd. Then he bought a house close to work and to his parents’ home. He and his mom both say that managing the process of selling his old house and buying a new one is a testament to how far he has come in his recovery.

“Really, what affected him most from the stroke, brain-wise, was his processing skills. But he's doing so much better,” Terri says.

Ryan moving into his own place was another moment when Terri felt like she had to let go a bit and let Ryan do things for himself.

“I knew once he got in his own house, I'm going to have to stay away. He's going to have to figure things out and ways to do things differently … But I think he's really enjoying his independence again, of course, and I am too. I feel independent again, too.”

It’s a milestone that Terri admits she had a hard time even imagining in the early days after Ryan’s stroke.

“His speech therapist at Shepherd Center said, the first time she met him, ‘What is your goal? … Is your goal to live independently again?’ And … I'm sitting there looking at him, going, ‘How is this going to happen,’ you know? And now it's happened. So, I'm very grateful.”

At this point in their journey, Terri reflects on the early days and what advice she'd give to others in a similar situation.

“Now that I look back, I feel like it's not that I didn't have hope. I just didn't know how to look past the next 24 hours. But always have hope. There's always hope.”

As for Ryan, he has his eye out for his next 5K — he walked the first one with his mom, but now, Terri’s proud to say, he’s doing it on his own, with friends.

Now that he’s gotten back to work and driving, he’d like to start dating. He says he’s put an emphasis on faith playing a central role in his life, and he’s hopeful for the future.

“I know that word [hope] had a lot of weight in the hospital. It is just the envisioning myself getting back to work, getting back to drive, and being back home, living by myself, and then working on finding a woman to be in a relationship with and build a family.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

After her stroke, Denell, who lives in Atlanta, had brain surgery at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta, Georgia. Then she transferred to Shepherd Center’s inpatient Stroke Rehabilitation Program. In addition to cognitive challenges, she had difficulty swallowing, weakness in her left arm, and had to re-learn how to stand, walk, and dress herself.   

“My left arm was totally contracted and could not move at all. And I remember being in the bed, just staring at my arm like, ‘Come on, come on,’” she says. “I was nervous because there was a big question mark. I didn't really quite understand what happened or what was going on.”

Shepherd staff helped put her at ease, though.

“The environment here at Shepherd was very warm. The first nurse that I met, I'm still in contact with her to this day. Everyone was very compassionate. It's like their heart goes out to you because they know you've been through this devastating, life-altering thing. It's not that they pity you, but they love you.

They didn't just treat me like a person with a brain injury. They treated me like an intelligent person with something to say,” she explains. “I appreciated that because a lot of times with a brain injury, people treat you like you're dumb, and I'm not dumb, and I don't want to be treated that way.”

And that support was important as she came to terms with her injury.

“Recognizing how much things had changed [was challenging]. I thought that if I could work really hard, I could just push past the barrier and, you know, once your brain is damaged, your brain is damaged — there's no pushing past certain things — you could work around things, but … some things are the way they are, and so that was a bit tricky.”

She recalls her first outing — a trip to a Chick-fil-A just down the street from the hospital.

“I remember being extremely emotional because I was deeply insecure about how the stroke had changed me,” she says. “[My recreation therapist] taught me how to cross the street and how to feel confident in my own body as I was out in the community as my new self. And so it was a small outing, but it meant a lot to me.”

In therapy, Denell worked on moving from sitting to standing position, walking, and learning to compensate for her visual-spatial challenges.

After graduating from inpatient rehabilitation, Denell went to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program, to continue therapy.

She says Shepherd prepared her well for life after discharge, giving her the tools she needed for success.

While at Shepherd Pathways, Denell learned about Side by Side Brain Injury Clubhouse, a day program for people who have sustained a brain injury. Her therapists urged her to give it a try.

“I'm so glad they recommended that to me because I find a lot of personal fulfillment at Side by Side,” she says.

Denell visits Side by Side twice a week, where she spends much of her time working in their business unit, which allows her to flex her marketing skills. She has also helped organize group gatherings — getting people together is another passion. And she returns to Shepherd in a peer support role for Side by Side’s game days at the hospital, playing board games with current patients with brain injuries.

“It's really important for me to share my experience with others because I feel like I was able to keep my voice for a reason,” she explains.

She has moved back into the home she lived in before her stroke. Now, her brother’s family lives with her, which means she gets lots of time with her baby nephew.

“He is just a joy. He's a ball of sunshine,” she says.

Denell is hoping to take a trip to Mexico City for her 40^th birthday, a trip she had planned to take when she turned 35.

“My plan was to be in Mexico City with a group of girlfriends and family to celebrate my 35th birthday. And I ended up celebrating that birthday at Shepherd Center, as I'd had my stroke a few weeks prior to my birthday,” she explains. “I was a bit disappointed not to be in Mexico City, but I was happy to be having a birthday. And so, when I turn 40, that will be my redemption trip in Mexico City. And I'll be eating all the delicious elote that my heart could desire.”

Written by Ruth Underwood 

“You can replace drywall. You can have carpenters come in and fix it. We were working on fixing a brain there for a while. That's different,” she explains.

The brain Kimberly is referring to belongs to her son, Hawthorne. In August, the 26-year-old, who lives in Franklin, Tennessee, fell and hit his head during a brief illness that had caused his sodium levels to drop. A neighbor found him soon after his fall and called 911.

After transferring from a small local hospital, Hawthorne spent 19 days in Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s ICU, and for 10 of those, he used a ventilator to help him breathe. He had three skull fractures along with brain bleeds.

Kimberly said three things pointed them toward Shepherd Center for Hawthorne’s rehabilitation. A friend who worked at Shepherd texted them to check in and see what she could do. A co-worker whose husband had sustained a traumatic brain injury years before called Kimberly to recommend Shepherd. And the trauma surgeon who worked with Hawthorne also recommended the hospital.

She remembers the day they arrived at Shepherd for the inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

“Our first nurse was Bob Suter … He was awesome … He was so helpful and informative. We had literally just followed an ambulance from Nashville to Atlanta. We had not been in our home in five weeks. We have been living in Franklin, Tennessee. My sister would ship us boxes because we packed in a minute and a half, thinking we'd be back in a few days based on the information we had, and we got up there, and we didn't go back home. We just didn't. So, Bob was super helpful. He gave us the grand tour. He was able to tell us what was what, and we were able to get moved into the Blank Residences. That was a godsend for us.”

Hawthorne’s brain injury led to increased anxiety for him, so even with housing down the street, Kimberly and Radney took turns sleeping on an air mattress in his room.

“My husband and I would just swap out. One would go sleep in the Blank Residence, and one would sleep on the floor in his room. He was still on a feeding tube at that point… still on the trach…

“Therapy started almost immediately,” Kimberly says. And that's what the trauma surgeon mentioned as one of the reasons that Shepherd was so important to him … he could start therapy. He could go ahead and start a lot of the things that would help him get better, even while still having the trach.”

Hawthorne worked on balance, memory, verbal processing, reaction time, and fine motor skills. He could walk without assistance but wanted to get back to running, something he did often before his injury.

Initially, Hawthorne’s medical team thought he’d need four to six weeks of inpatient rehabilitation. But Hawthorne improved so quickly that he graduated from the inpatient program and moved on to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program, after just 11 days.

At Pathways, he continued with physical, occupational, and speech therapies and began vocational rehabilitation to prepare for a return to work. After his discharge from Pathways, he attended speech therapy and completed return-to-drive testing closer to his parents’ home.

Just seven months after his injury, Hawthorne is living independently again, has returned to work full-time, is back to running, and has returned to driving. Kimberly has had some time to reflect on the journey she has been on as a parent.

“It's unlike anything I've ever experienced — seeing your child injured in that way,” she says. “I mean, we've had broken bones. We've had the normal kids’ stuff. We've had surgeries. … This was a new level, I think, having absolutely zero control as a parent of how this is working for your child and how they are healing and what is happening to them. Letting go of that for me personally is difficult. I'm a type triple-A … but I had to learn that I was in the best hands in the country for what was happening to us.”

Caring for Yourself as a Caregiver

Kimberly says their family really pulled together and supported each other, and that friends were also a huge support.

She remembers Hawthorne’s nurse at Vanderbilt telling her that he needed her to sleep and to remember to eat. “He said, ‘I’ve got him. I promise I’ve got him…But I need you to not pass out on my floor…I don’t need to be taking care of you, too,” Kimberly recalls.

“So, after that, that was in the forefront of my brain. So, we made some decisions based on that to help us make it the long haul, you know, this is a marathon, not a sprint,” she says.

Once Hawthorne transferred to Pathways, Kimberly started exercising again, sometimes with him once he was cleared to walk outside.

“I'm a four-day-a-week exercise person, and that got shut down immediately. And I could feel that. I could feel my stress levels, you know? So, I made sure that that got back into my life as quickly as possible as a way for me to just kind of cope,” she says.

“I also journaled a lot. I decided that this was too much information to build up every day, with what we would learn in rounds every morning from the five specialists who were his team. So, I would do a brain dump into a journal of all this information. I haven't gone back to read it, but I did that all the way through Shepherd Center, every day, just to kind of clear my head a little bit.”

She has shared what she learned about taking care of herself with other parents she knows whose child is facing illness or injury.

“I have been giving this advice to parents,” she says. “‘I don't know what care looks like for every person but sleeping and eating are a given. … Please find out what it looks like to care for yourself, even though it feels like it's nearly impossible because you are not your focus. Your child is your focus. But as Shaba (Hawthorne’s first nurse) said, if I don't take care of myself, I'm not going to be able to take care of him.

“‘So, looking through that lens, remember to take care of yourself somehow, whatever that looks like. If it's just going for a walk for 30 minutes, or if it's just going to a restaurant and getting something to eat in a different setting than a hospital. Let the medical team do their job and … that gives you, hopefully, permission to, in small ways, take care of yourself.’”

Written by Ruth Underwood

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

Years at Shepherd: 9
Training: Secretary Duties, The Atlanta College of Medical and Dental Careers
Fun Facts:
- Matilda is a motorcycle enthusiast.
- She is an avid Disney fan, with Mickey Mouse being her favorite.
- She is a Barbie doll collector and has over 100 Barbies!

What is your role at Shepherd, and how long have you been here?
I've been at Shepherd Center for nine years as a unit secretary. What drew me to Shepherd was my mother, who had a brain injury. She passed away in 2021. I got to see all those different aspects of living with someone with a brain injury and working with someone with a brain injury. It’s had a big impact on my family. [Now] I listen to the patients, who can be having it tough, and you try to be here and be positive for them. That's really why I came here to work.

What does a typical day in your role look like?
Sometimes, it starts out very smooth and easy. But when you log in to the computer and get orders where you have to call different places, like [Piedmont Atlanta Hospital], to schedule consultations and procedures for other patients, it can get busy. It can be very hard to schedule appointments — sometimes outside clinicians have room for 20 appointments, and I’m the 21st person to call. Sometimes you don’t know how long it will take to get an appointment for a procedure, but one thing I do is call every day. Even if they say it will be a week, I’ll call every day to see if there’s been a cancellation or another way to fit in one of our patients. We also work closely with case managers, for example, if we have a discharge at 6 a.m., case managers won’t be here at 6 a.m., so they leave packages for me to give to the ambulance driver, to the patient’s family, to be sent to the patient’s home, etc. 

You’re known for coordinating Atlanta Police Department visits for patients who are police officers. How did that start?
My dad was an Atlanta police officer. So, people will come to me and say, “Matilda, we have an officer here. Maybe you can talk to the family and let them know how Shepherd works, what we're doing, and what's going to happen.” Some of the officers are patients far from home, nowhere near home, and they want an officer to visit them and say, “Hey, that’s my brother. They know what I’ve been through.” So, I have a contact at APD, and we let him know what we need and when. Sometimes patients may want to see a chaplain — we have our own chaplains [at Shepherd], but they may feel more comfortable with the police chaplain. Or some officers may come by on their bikes for the patient to see. The visiting officers want to support our patients — they’ll do anything for them.

In addition to coordinating the officer visits, you do some volunteer work at the hospital — what does that look like?
In order to be in my motorcycle club, you have to do volunteer service. So, for mine, I come to Shepherd Center, pick a patient that’s in need, and do something for them. We do a big thing for Christmas — we’ve done that for the last six years. And the patient isn’t necessarily in my unit — they can be anywhere. If someone says to me, “Hey, we have this guy on my floor who needs a little help,” we’ll do something for them and their family. We’ve done gifts, given custom helmets, and thrown pizza parties. 

What is your favorite part of working at Shepherd Center?
I have some wonderful, wonderful coworkers. When I see myself all backed up and the phones are ringing, and the doorbell is ringing — because we're a locked unit, and not everyone can enter and exit — my coworkers are a big, big help. They’re always willing to step in.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Interview by Erin Kenney

“It’s fascinating,” Heather says. “They were having him do circus tricks, it seemed like, but he did a great job.” Jeff’s room is “their” room. While their kids and Jeff’s parents have stayed on and off at the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences down the street, Heather has opted to stay in the room with Jeff, fashioning a makeshift mattress out of pillows and a fitted sheet (her advice on mattress options later).

The Millicans arrived at Shepherd Center just a couple of weeks earlier. On Sept.14, Jeff sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) along with broken bones and multiple internal injuries when he was hit by a car while helping with a crash on the interstate. After a month at Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers, Florida, he transferred to Shepherd’s Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit, where he has been participating in physical, occupational, and speech therapy, with Heather by his side.

“I love how involved I can be,” Heather says. “I mean, I'm here. I love that I can spend the night. That was not the case in the ICU (in Florida) after the first three days. And that was really hard on both of us, because we've been together since I was 18. Literally, we've grown up together, and so that was really difficult. So, it's been nice to be able to be here, kind of in the rhythm of everything.”

It's a new rhythm, of course, and while they’re fully focused on therapy, both Heather and Jeff are eager to get back to their “normal.” Heather, a teacher and librarian, and Jeff, a fire battalion chief, live in Bradenton, Florida. They have two boys, ages 20 and 24, and Heather says, with both boys now out of the house, she and Jeff are “empty nesting pros.” When not working, they have been traveling, going to concerts, and enjoying time outdoors together.

“We like adventures. We like traveling, kayaking, hiking, paddleboarding, biking, college football, we don't sit still very well,” she explains.

She says that after Jeff’s injury, getting to Shepherd marked a milestone for them.

“One of the hardest things, I think, was watching Jeff recover in the other hospital. They 100% saved his life, and they did a phenomenal job. But as he was recovering, wanting rehab, wanting more to happen for him, neurologically, physically — and they're not a rehab hospital, which I totally understood,” Heather explains. “We kept saying, ‘Okay, here's a checklist of things we need to do. We need to get off this. We need to get off this. We need to do this so we can move to Shepherd. And so getting to Atlanta became our mantra.… It was a big milestone in his recovery because we knew he was stable enough. We knew we were ready for it.”

And she was thrilled when things began to happen soon after they arrived.

“Once we got here, we were in therapy all day and all the things, and it's so tailored to what Jeff wants to do and what we used to do. It's so heartwarming … you know, we keep talking about our normal. We just want our normal back. And it will never be the same because WE won't be exactly the same. But to know that they want that for us, too. They want him to ride his bike, and go kayaking, and go paddleboarding — and they’re making exercises specifically for that is amazing.”

Shepherd Center encourages caregivers to be involved in their loved ones’ care and to learn as much as possible during their recovery. Heather is an essential member of Jeff’s care team, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I go to the therapies, I get the homework or tips or tricks and things to work on for now and in the future, even keeping a running list of things we're going to need for the house for exercises and stuff like that. Because we're a team in this, you know, if we're going to get better every day, we've got to both be working for it.”

She also says joining Jeff for therapy sessions, taking notes, and soaking in the information has felt empowering.

“I think that's been my biggest outlet because it allows me to be very active during the day. Do you know what I mean? There's not a lot of languishing.”

And she gets to see Jeff’s progress.

“I'm proud of him because he's doing things that would not be in his comfort zone and doing it willingly,” Heather says. “You know, asking for help if he needs it, waiting a second to try to understand something, or doing something that seems like it should be easy, but it's a tool.”

‘Get Better Every Day’

Heather probably wouldn’t call herself a “caregiver” — maybe a teammate or, she jokes, a “drill sergeant.”

But shifting roles has been just one part of the rehabilitation journey, layered with uncertainty, impatience, medical milestones and setbacks, overwhelm, gratitude, and hope.

“I am not responsible for many things, apparently, in our lives, besides working,” she laughs. “He does a lot of our bills and our travel plans. So, I had to learn.”

Part of the learning process involved canceling plans the couple had for concerts, sporting events, and travel in the near future, plus paying bills, navigating insurance, and making sense of reports on Jeff’s medical condition.

And dealing with uncertainty.

“Just the unknown,” she says. “We both want our regular life back, and it's going to take time. What does that look like — him returning to work when trying to fit in the therapies, and me going back to work at some point?

And it's been hard, but our mantra is ‘get better every day.’ So we're getting better every day, and we have each other, and we're blessed beyond measure for that.”

She’s grateful for the support of family and friends at every stage of the journey and is glad their kids and Jeff’s parents can stay nearby in family housing, helping with logistics and just being there to spend time as a family.

Accepting that support has been another transition. As a firefighter and a teacher, Jeff and Heather are used to being the helpers. “We're not used to being the center of attention. We're the givers, we're the helpers. So that role reversal kind of feels weird,” she explains.

With all the support she and Jeff have received, Heather shares another outlet that she has found helpful.

“This may sound silly, but … writing thank-you notes. … The fire community has been astounding for us. [Jeff’s] union has always been a brotherhood, but they just swooped in and, when I couldn't stand, made sure we were going to be fine. … And then my school community and our friends. So just being able to write, it’s almost like journaling, so that's been a really big outlet for me.”

She also attended a peer support group for family members of people who have sustained brain injuries. “Been There, Done That” is led by Kim Ross, Family Member/Caregiver Peer Support Lead Liaison, whose son sustained a TBI several years ago.

“I really did find that powerful,” Heather reflects. “My husband's trajectory is so positive, and both of us have talked about perspective, right? Like he knows he probably shouldn't have survived. The reality is, most people getting hit by a car going fifty-plus miles an hour wouldn't. And so, taking that perspective and turning it into your power, and [recognizing] that we are further ahead of where anybody would have expected him to be at this point.”

In a couple of weeks, Jeff will graduate from CRU and continue therapy at Shepherd Pathways, where he and Heather will share an apartment. Heather is especially excited that she’ll have a real bed again. While she and Jeff are still on his recovery journey, Heather has some advice to share based on their experience.

“I think getting connected — we have connected with some of the people on our floor and their families. It’s just that shared struggle, that shared goal. There's something to be said about that. So don't isolate yourself. You know, we all want the same goal. We want the best life possible moving forward. And so that has been inspiring.

“I also think counting on your team and talking to them, and [knowing that] it's okay to ask questions.”

On the lighter side, Heather adds,

“Download Uber Eats…

“Eat the banana pudding in the cafeteria…"

And if you’re staying in the hospital room, “probably buy an air mattress.”

Written by Ruth Underwood
 

Mitch Parker

PT Goals — Golf, pickleball, work

It’s Thursday afternoon, and Shepherd’s Spinal Cord Injury Day Program gym buzzes with activity. 54-year-old Mitch Parker, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, maneuvers his wheelchair to one of the therapy mats, grabs his crutches, and stands up beside the mat, ready for the activities that his physical therapist, Daniel Schaeffer, PT, DPT, has planned for their session. This is Mitch’s first week in the Day Program after a month as an inpatient. He came to Shepherd Center after sustaining an incomplete spinal cord injury when he hit a curb while riding an e-bike and went over the handlebars.

Mitch says that when he arrived at Shepherd, “I kind of looked like a fish out of water. I could hardly move, my hands either. Even turning myself in bed was impossible.”

Since then, Mitch has made considerable progress. Today, he’s working on stance stability and building up his overall strength and endurance. He wears a brace on his right foot that helps him keep his toes from dropping. Schaeffer explains that therapists aim to use bracing that provides the necessary stability and support, but allows for as much flexibility as possible so that patients can safely increase their strength and range of motion.

From a duffle bag, Schaeffer pulls a set of light-up buttons that nestle into rubber gaskets. This reaction light training system is often used to train athletes to increase speed and agility. Schaeffer spreads them out on the gym floor and demonstrates how Mitch should step on each button as it lights up.

“We figured out we could use these for various purposes, working on balance, working on reach, I mean, you name it, whatever you can come up with, you can do,” explains Schaeffer, adding that he enjoys taking a creative approach to physical therapy.

Mitch tries the exercise, seeing how many lights he can stomp out in a 30-second window. He tries a second round and improves his “score.” Mitch likes the competitive aspect of the therapy, joking, “He [Schaeffer] has found out what motivates me.”

His workout continues with other variations that incorporate side-shuffles, squats, and stepping backwards — all focusing on balance and strengthening Mitch’s right side.

Mitch is excited to get back to his active lifestyle, which includes golf and pickleball. He also wants to return to work full-time at his drywall business.

“It’s demanding, and I don’t do so much of the hands-on, but the repairs and the field management work, I usually do it, so I’ve got to be able to get in and out of kind of rough terrain, in new construction. But I’m going to get there,” he says. “The people here are so professional, but they push you, but it’s kind of like with love, they’ve got a good spirit, which makes you want to do better and push yourself harder.”

Schaeffer, meanwhile, is busy setting up another exercise.

“This one looks harder,” Mitch observes good-naturedly. But he’s ready for the challenge.

Teana “Tee” Jackson

PT Goals — Walking independently, hand grip

Later the same afternoon, Teana Jackson uses her power chair to cruise over to a mat in another corner of the gym. She has a big smile and her mom, Wanda, by her side. Teana greets the team of therapists and aides who await her by name or by nicknames she created for them. They help her into the harnesses she needs for locomotor training, cracking jokes and laughing with her as they prepare. The harness will support some of Teana’s body weight and aid her in improving her muscular strength, endurance, and neurological coordination while practicing her gait pattern on the treadmill.

Teana’s physical therapist, Sandy Alexander, PT, DPT, NCS, has her start by using Bioness functional electrical stimulation on her lower leg to help her improve her leg swing with gait training. After a few minutes of working with the team to guide her as she walks on the treadmill and evaluating her gait, Alexander switches gears and outfits Teana with alternative leg braces, explaining that the electrical stimulation was good for part of her stride, but not all of it. The braces will help her maintain improved knee stability in stance and provide her greater independence when walking.

“Neurological rehab is about appropriately balancing the encouragement of natural movement patterns from prior to injury, for recovery, with compensations as needed to maintain safety and promote independence,” Alexander explains.

Teana has come a long way since she arrived at Shepherd about three months ago. She sustained an incomplete spinal cord injury and mild traumatic brain injury when she was involved in a car crash with an 18-wheeler.

“I really should not be alive,” Teana says, “But by the grace of God, I’m here.”

“[When I got here] I wasn’t able to move anything besides my hands. I could just clap my hands, but not move anything else,” she says. “Within the first three months of being here alone, I can now move fingers; I just can’t grip anything still. I can walk a little bit with help, and I can do a mean squat pivot.”

Teana says she keeps a positive attitude for herself and for the other patients around her. Her mom says Teana gives 100% to her therapy and, “she’ll have you laughing,” which seems true from the sounds of her physical therapy session.

And she is ready to put in the work.

“I’m still looking to accomplish a lot, so I give myself another three months to start moving some legs really well, as far as walking without assistance and hopefully a walker.”

Jeff Millican

PT Goals — return to work and outdoor activities like hiking, running, paddleboarding, and fishing

On a Tuesday morning, Jeff Millican and his wife, Heather Millican, are in Shepherd’s Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit (CRU) gym. Jeff, a fire battalion chief in Bonita Springs, Florida, arrived at Shepherd Center a week earlier. He sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) along with broken bones and multiple internal injuries when he was hit by a car while helping with a crash on the interstate.

Jeff’s physical therapist, Sarah Dubois, PT, DPT, guides him through a series of exercises. In the first set, Jeff practices standing on one foot, with the added challenge of a cushioned mat underfoot, engaging his ankle muscles. Heather is thrilled to see that Jeff’s stability has improved significantly since last week.

Next, they move to a mat on the floor. Using an exercise ball, Dubois demonstrates exercises designed to help Jeff keep mobility in his injured shoulder. As it heals, extra bone has grown, affecting his range of motion.

Heather sits on a nearby therapy mat table, taking notes about exercises Jeff can do in his room later in the day and on the weekends for “homework.”

Dubois says she frequently gives patients assignments to work on independently.

“I give them one or two things to do that will help them progress towards our goals for that week. One, if they have to do it with a caregiver, it helps involve their caregiver more in their rehab process, and two, it gives the patient something to do in their downtime. … It will be something they can do in five or 10 minutes, whether they do it once a day, twice a day. It gives them something to do over the weekend, too, and it gives the patient a little more of a sense of responsibility, ‘I gotta do my homework!’”

Jeff is no stranger to exercise. He and Heather have always been very active, and he wants to get back to work at the fire department and to the outdoor activities he loves, including running, hiking, fishing, kayaking, and paddleboarding.

He’s ready for the next challenge in the day’s PT session, a recumbent cross trainer, kind of a cross between an elliptical trainer and a recumbent bike — to increase strength and endurance in his legs.

He’s pleased with his progress in his first week at Shepherd.

“The first thing I remember at Gulf Coast Medical Center was, ‘We’ve got to get you stabilized and get you to Shepherd.’ That’s what they said over and over again,” Jeff recalls. “I see why now.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

On April 29, 2023, Avani was at dinner with her son, daughter, and in-laws, when she began to get dizzy and have slurred speech. She told her family the only way she could in the moment, a quick text message, that prompted them to take her to the emergency room, where she learned she had experienced two strokes. Afterward, an MRI showed she had a large aneurysm that needed to be fixed surgically.

“During surgery, blood clots formed and caused me to have multiple additional strokes that left me paralyzed. I couldn’t move or walk or project my voice,” Avani recalls.

Avani came to Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, where her team of inpatient therapists worked with her to improve her fine motor, gross motor, and cognitive skills.

“My therapists combined physical with cognitive therapies to test my body and my brain,” Avani explains. “They would have me walking and doing obstacle courses while counting or singing the ABCs to see if I could be occupied and multi-task.”

These therapies would help Avani with many goals, including returning to work as CFO of her home health business, Azalea Home Care, Inc.

"I'm the CFO of the company — billing and payroll. [I] have to be sharp with numbers. I didn't want to make mistakes when I went back.”

Near the end of her time in inpatient, Avani completed a neuropsychology evaluation to determine her capacity to return to work. It was advised she take a year off and practice work duties at home before going back full-time. For a woman who admittedly loves to stay busy, this was tough to hear, but she knew it was the right thing to do.

“I knew I needed to prioritize myself more and do the things I was told to do,” she says.

Avani completed inpatient therapy just in time to attend her son’s tenth birthday on Sept. 25. That following week, she began Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient and residential rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injuries and strokes.

“Pathways was amazing,” Avani says. “They connected with my individual needs and geared all my therapies to returning to my daily routine. They made me at ease.”

Among the life skills that Avani wanted to practice was bracelet threading to participate in an important tradition in her faith that also taps into her passion for art.

“In Hinduism, we celebrate brother/sister day, or Rakhi. Sisters tie bracelets on brothers or brother figures in their lives telling them that we are here to protect them and give them good blessings, and in return, they protect us back,” Avani explains. “You can buy them, but I think it’s special to make them for loved ones.”

While it takes her longer than it did pre-stroke, she has now returned to making up to 14 of these intricate, hand beaded bracelets each year.

Today, Avani continues to have regular check-ins with her doctors and psychologist at Shepherd Center. After taking a year off work, she is back to the job she loves.

“I love helping people, hence why I'm in the healthcare field. When I went to school, I studied pharmacy, but I didn't pursue it. Even though I do finance for a healthcare company now, I'm still helping people in my own way.”

And, she remains a committed mom to her two kids, who are in high school and middle school.

“I have an amazing support system,” Avani says. “My husband and family have been my rock throughout this. And I appreciate every single person at Shepherd. Shepherd will always be part of my life, and I’m grateful for that.”

By Damjana Alverson

Shepherd’s version, first held in 2014, really isn’t about the fashion, says organizer Ashley Kim, MPT, ATC. It’s about giving current and former adolescent patients an opportunity to get together, do something outside their comfort zone, and have a few minutes in the spotlight. No matter how nervous they feel beforehand, once the young models burst through the curtain and hear the cheers, they are beaming with self-confidence — something that can be hard to come by for teenagers, even without the trauma of an injury or illness. 

An hour before the 2024 show, professional makeup artists applied just the right blush and eye shadow to each model, and hairstylists masterfully wielded brushes and spray. Local fashion houses and national clothing lines furnished the outfits, the models chose their looks, and they got to keep the donated clothes. As models primped to an upbeat playlist, a line from John Lennon’s “Imagine” rose above the chatter. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. . . .” 

Volunteer hairstylists Morgan Hughes and Kaitlyn Radler struggled to fulfill 6-foot-6-inch Jace Raymer’s request for a blue mohawk. Despite repeated applications of mousse and spray, Jace’s soft brown curls refused to stand up. Every time the carefully sculpted ridge of hair collapsed, Morgan and Kaitlyn burst into laughter, then shrugged and tried again. But by the time Jace, 17, took his turn down the runway, there was no sign of either blue hair or a mohawk. Jace, an inpatient who was injured in a car crash in his hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee, says he decided, “It didn’t go with my outfit.

Shepherd staff and supporters transformed Shepherd's Livingston Gym into a Manhattan fashion venue for the occasion. Shiny copper and glittery gold streamers cascaded from the doorways and walls in the hallway and art therapy room, where guests at a preshow reception sipped wine and nibbled canapés. The elegant fringe was made from strips of cheap vinyl tablecloths cut and tied by Shepherd patients and staff, says Kelly Singleton, EP, who with Deb Eldred, SLP, has led the decorating effort for the past seven years. Using scissors and tying knots helps patients develop dexterity. “If we can make a decoration therapeutic, we try to, so that patients can be a part of the show,” Kelly says. 

An arch of almost 100 balloons made a festive entryway to the gym. In keeping with organizers' goal to make 2024 “feel groovy,” Kelly says, cutouts of Volkswagen buses, painted by patients and staff, hung on a wall, with photos of models’ faces looking out the windows.

Inside the gym, a long black platform — the rollway — jutted into the crowd. Huge screens displayed collages of the models as they rolled or strolled down the runway.

Each model took two or more turns in front of the crowd as counselor-turned-emcee Cheryl Linden, LPC, described their interests and aspirations. Several models had found new career goals in healthcare and rehabilitation at Shepherd. 

In the background, former Shepherd patient and regular Project Rollway disc jockey Jules Kilpatrick provided musical accompaniment with a strong percussive vibe. Jules himself was an adolescent patient at Shepherd after being thrown from a car in a crash in 2008. Cheers and applause from the audience intensified the energy of the music, which increased in volume when Cheryl was not talking. Without Shepherd, Jules says, he could not be making a living with music. 

“I love Project Rollway,” Jules says. “It’s just great for young patients who have been going through such a hard time to go out on that stage and be celebrated.” 

Dominique Ross, 17, a Shepherd alum from Knoxville, Tennessee, was both a designer and model in the 2024 show. A former Shepherd patient, she was shot 13 times in June 2023 in a case of mistaken identity. Her stepfather was killed in the incident. 

Dominique, who rolled down the runway in a neon green party dress, also designed and sewed the bright red, ankle-length jumpsuit worn by emcee Cheryl. Dominique was “a bundle of nerves” before the show, she says, but by the time she was in front of the crowd, “I was just really excited.” 

Her interest in fashion design began as a child, making clothes for toy bears. Once at Shepherd, Dominique talked about how much she missed sewing and how difficult it would be to operate a sewing machine foot pedal while in a wheelchair. 

Soon, her team presented her with a machine that she could work, courtesy of Andee’s Army, a foundation that seeks to fill gaps in care for children with brain and spinal cord injuries. The foundation honors Andee Poulos, who was treated at Shepherd at 14 after a tangle of blood vessels burst in her brain. Andee’s Army supports Project Rollway and other special Shepherd programs for adolescents. 

After recognizing Andee’s Army officials and other donors and calling Shepherd employees onto the runway to take bows for their efforts, Cheryl spoke to the parents in the audience about the people who made the evening possible. “This show doesn’t go on because it has to,” she says. “It goes on because they love your kids.” 

Dominique, for one, feels the love. “I am so grateful that there is a place where people are so kind and diligent and where they love what they do,” she says. “I think that’s something really special.”

Written by Gayle White

This story is an excerpt from “Mission Moments: 50 Years of Rebuilding Lives One Moment at a Time,” a book celebrating Shepherd’s 50th anniversary in 2025. You can explore the full eBook or purchase a hardcover copy here. 

“I lobbied to start working while still inpatient,” Trawick says with a laugh. “To Shepherd Center’s credit, they allowed me to do it.”

Her vocational, physical, and speech therapists observed her in the process — communicating on Zoom, writing on her computer, researching grant proposals — and identified the cognitive gaps she was still experiencing.

“It was very helpful,” Trawick says. “By watching me work, they figured out what I needed to work on the most based on the type of work I do. There probably aren’t many places that would do that!”

Once it was time for Trawick to leave Shepherd Center and return to campus, her vocational rehabilitation specialist — Zac Bradley, MS, CRC, NCC, CVE — got on the phone with her boss, as well as Morehouse’s HR director and facilities director. Together, they mapped out a plan for her return, which would eventually include a more accessible office.

“Zac was awesome in advocating for me,” Trawick recalls. “Everyone at Shepherd Center, what they do for patients just shows how much they care. They make you feel confident, and it’s such a holistic approach. I have so much respect for what they do.”

“I know we’re talking about work,” Bradley says, “but my role is really to assist folks in getting back to life. Because our lives revolve around our work. My goal is to make the path clearer, less confusing. To ease people’s minds and clear the hurdles between where they are and where they want to be.”

And where Trawick is today is far, far removed from the Atlanta tennis court where she collapsed that winter afternoon. Literally, far. When reached for an interview for this story, Trawick was on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, helping lead a group of Upward Bound pre-college students on a cultural tour of the islands. She secured the grant that funded the trip, too.

“This is what I love,” Trawick says. “These are first-generation college students who have never been on a flight before. Now, they’re being exposed to experiences that let them know there’s a whole world beyond their home communities.

“I’m so thankful to still be doing this. I may be a work in progress, but I know I wouldn’t be here right now if not for Shepherd Center.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

Julianna was treated for a concussion and cuts and released, and Arlene was hospitalized for a few weeks with a concussion as well as facial and pelvic fractures. But Phyllicia was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center, where she remained in a minimally conscious state—on a ventilator—for 28 days. 

The greatest survival stories start in such moments. In July 2020, as COVID-19 was raging, Phyllicia transferred to Shepherd Center. The hospital was in lockdown mode, with strict protocols in place to protect their highly vulnerable population and staff. 

For two months, Phyllicia’s father, Chris Thomas, slept on a cot in her room. But in those 60 days, he got the best gift any father could hope for—his daughter began a remarkable recovery. When she first began to emerge, she motioned for her father’s cellphone. On it, she typed a message: “Are Mommy and Julianna OK? And when do law school classes start?” 

Almost every night, Phyllicia and Chris spent time by the koi pond in Shepherd’s Anna and Hays Mershon Secret Garden. On Saturdays, Arlene and Julianna would come to the other side of the garden gate to visit—COVID-style. “Shepherd Center was busy healing my body and my mind,” Phyllicia says, “and having my father and family there really healed my spirit and my heart.” 

Phyllicia was an inpatient at Shepherd until September 2, 2020, followed by nine months of daily outpatient therapy at Shepherd Pathways, where she relearned how to swallow, how to speak, how to walk, how to write. Gradually, her short-term memory started coming back, and she got stronger every day. “I don’t think I would have improved as much as I did if my dad hadn’t been with me,” Phyllicia says. “When I started emerging, he was there to remind me who I was before the car crash and also to remind me of the goals that I still wanted to reach.”

Only one year later—in the fall of 2021—Phyllicia was back at law school. Kristian Nitsch, Ph.D., psychology supervisor at Shepherd Pathways, was instrumental in facilitating her return to classes, arranging classroom and testing accommodations as needed.

Fast-forward two years, and Phyllicia walks across the stage to receive her environmental law degree. She keeps in touch via email with about 20 Shepherd doctors, nurses, therapists, and technicians, all of whom played crucial roles in her recovery and now celebrate every achievement with her.

Even though some of the staff members’ names are fuzzy, Phyllicia remembers every act of kindness, from the nurse who gave her teal socks and coloring books when she was feeling down, to another who surprised her by decorating her hospital room with pictures of her favorite things and spelling her name in her favorite color—purple—above her bed.

Throughout her recovery, from the darkest days to the brightest, everyone at Shepherd was focused and positive. “They never said anything was impossible,” Phyllicia says.

Written by Teresa Weaver

This story is an excerpt from “Mission Moments: 50 Years of Rebuilding Lives One Moment at a Time,” a book celebrating Shepherd’s 50th anniversary in 2025. 

He doesn’t remember the accident — or the two months leading up to it and the five or six months after it. His first memory is of physical therapy at Shepherd Center. 

“I knew what I had to do to get my life back,” Clark says now, a decade later. “I had this dream of waking up in my frat house, walking across campus, hanging out with my buddies—just having my college life back. This fueled an unbelievable fire inside me. I always knew I was going to make it back,” he says. “I never let myself begin to think otherwise.” 

In 2020, Clark at last had his chance to make it back—he walked across the stage and received his diploma from Georgia Tech. “It was pretty awesome,” he says. “I felt like I was a superstar.” 

“He is a miracle,” says his mother, Mariellen Jacobs. Any proud mother might say that, but in fact, Clark’s survival story has prompted changes that make every college student in Georgia safer. “Clark’s accident happened so quickly, and it was something I had never thought about—the danger of falling out of elevated beds,” Mariellen says. “But I thought, ‘Surely, this is not the only time this has ever happened.’” 

And so, as Clark began his recovery, Mariellen started gathering facts and reaching out to other parents, eventually forming a nonprofit organization called Rail Against the Danger. The group’s rallying cry: “Do you think you’re too old for a safety rail? Don’t fall for that.”  

Mariellen’s background in graphic design and marketing helped her channel her anguish into activism, as Rail Against the Danger began advocating with the University System of Georgia to install safety rails on all loft and bunk beds in campus housing. After a few years of lobbying and many iterations, the new rule was put in place in the fall of 2019. 

Rail Against the Danger attracted the attention of Nanette Hausman, mother of a college student who died after a tragic skateboarding accident in Colorado. Along with several other parents who had lost their children to preventable accidents on campuses across the country, Mariellen and Nanette, who has since passed away, created the College Safety Coalition, which works on legislation to hold schools more accountable and transparent about campus safety. 

“Alana Shepherd was a key element in giving me the courage and the strength to really pursue Rail Against the Danger,” says Mariellen, who since 2019 has worked in Shepherd Center’s Peer Support Program. “She told me, ‘Knock down every door and don’t take “no” for an answer.’ . . . Just look at what Alana has done. She helped start Shepherd Center and now it’s two gigantic new buildings and 50 years of advocacy. You start somewhere, and you just keep going. Anything is possible if you just keep going.” 

Written by Teresa Weaver

This story is an excerpt from “Mission Moments: 50 Years of Rebuilding Lives One Moment at a Time,” a book celebrating Shepherd’s 50th anniversary in 2025. 

By Erin Kenney

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
 

Initially, Jase couldn’t move his left arm or leg, and the left side of his face drooped slightly. “It was hard to see in my 15-year-old,” Jase’s mom, Amanda, recalls. 

When Jase arrived at Shepherd, he was walking with assistance but couldn’t lift his left arm. 

“Every day it was higher, higher, and now he's lifting it above his head,” Amanda says. “I remember him seeing his progress and celebrating — every single milestone that he was regaining was such a big deal.”

Jase doesn’t remember much of his recovery before coming to Shepherd, but once he arrived, he was eager to regain function and get back home to hang out with his friends. So, he gave therapy his all — and then some. 

“On Saturdays and Sundays, the therapists gave me access to some of the workout machines, and I would just go in there and do that,” Jase says. “Just as long as you do the stuff that they tell you and don’t complain or throw a fit and just do it, then you'll make progress.”

“He was very driven,” Amanda recalls. “He couldn't wait till therapy started. He was like that every day, all day. He didn't want to sit around. He was 100% game on the whole time.”

At times, Jase’s therapists had to ask him to slow down and take things one at a time. But before he left the inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, he was kicking a soccer ball in the Anna and Hays Mershon Secret Garden, shooting hoops in the Livingston Gym, and running down the halls of Shepherd with his physical therapist at his side. 

“I think the combination of the expertise of Shepherd and his drive and determination was a perfect match,” Amanda says. 

After a week-long visit home, including some much-needed time with friends, Jase returned to Atlanta and went to Shepherd Pathways, a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. There, he continued to work hard and make incredible progress. He even had a little time to explore some of Atlanta’s sights. Three weeks later, he was ready for discharge. 

At home, he shifted his focus to another milestone he was eager to reach — learning to drive. He aced the exam and got his driver’s license. He’s also back at practice with his travel soccer team. One thing he’s not so excited about? Starting school. But watch out, 10^th grade, here comes Jase!

Written by Ruth Underwood

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 

How long have you worked at Shepherd Center, and what is your role?

I’ve worked here for seven years. I am a neuropsychologist in the inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. I work with patients to assess cognition, behavior, and emotional functioning after their brain injury. I educate patients, families, and staff about those changes. I also see one outpatient a month for general neuropsychological evaluation, including internal referrals, often from the Andrew C. Carlos Multiple Sclerosis Institute, or external referrals from primary care physicians or neurologists. I also am co-director of our Neuropsychology Fellowship training program. In that role, I help recruit, train, and supervise neuropsychology fellows.

What is the difference between a neuropsychologist and a psychologist?

Neuropsychologists are specialized in understanding the brain/behavior relationship. When most people think of a psychologist, they imagine a clinical psychologist who works with people with anxiety, depression, or trauma histories. Neuropsychologists work to understand how the brain's function impacts someone on a day-to-day basis. That includes working with people who had injuries to their brain, like strokes or traumatic brain injury, and people who have illnesses that could impact their brain function, like multiple sclerosis or dementia.

Neuropsychologists consider a holistic view of the patient, including mental health. We need to understand their medical history, any medications they're taking, and how those might impact their cognitive or behavioral functioning. We also consider things like sleep, fatigue, and pain and how those might also impact cognitive functioning. The neuropsychologist also needs a good understanding of the role of culture, educational attainment and quality, family systems, health literacy, and other factors.

How do you think your role impacts patients and their families?

As patients become more insightful, education, validation, and normalization of their experiences can be essential for coping. Educating patients and their families about what to expect, what a recovery timeline looks like, and how they can help with recovery can improve adjustment.

What's the most fulfilling part of your job?

The education piece is fulfilling — helping people have those light bulb moments of understanding how brain injury is impacting them. The teamwork—building relationships through working with the interdisciplinary team and training our fellows are also very fulfilling.

What was one of your best days at work?

When our previous inpatients come back to visit us, seeing their progress lights up the day.

Education:

Loyola University, Bachelor’s degree in Psychology

Suffolk University, Boston, Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology

University of Mississippi Medical Center-Jackson VAMC Consortium, Clinical internship

Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, Mississippi, APPCN-approved postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology

Fun Facts:

-       Dr. Jackson grew up in Trinidad but has lived in the United States as an adult.

-       She loves scary movies and “The Bachelor” and encourages everyone she knows to watch “The Golden Bachelor.”

-       She enjoys weightlifting and is a CrossFit Level-1 trainer. Her goal is to combine her love for weightlifting and brain injury rehab by becoming certified in Adaptive and Inclusive Training.

-       She loves spending time with her dog, Belle.

Unfortunately, those plans were derailed when a car she was riding in was t-boned by an impaired driver in March 2022 — just months before graduation. Maria sustained a broken hip, broken ribs, a fractured orbital bone, and a traumatic brain injury (TBI). She was in intensive care for two weeks at Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, during which a family friend recommended that she consider Shepherd Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

She transferred to Shepherd Center, and her mother, who lives in Panama City, Panama, where Maria is from, accompanied her. Because of the TBI, Maria had difficulty processing what was happening. She thought she and her mother were in a hotel room. She tried to walk, not understanding that she had a broken hip.

She worked with physical, occupational, and speech therapists to regain strength, balance, memory, and executive functioning skills. After a month, Maria transitioned to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury. She continued therapy with the goal of returning to school, graduating, and finding a job. As she improved, she was able to do her schoolwork from Pathways, and her graduation was delayed by only three months.

“I just wanted to get back to living my life,” Maria says. “And Shepherd Center gave me the building blocks to do that.”

After graduating from SCAD in August 2022, Maria followed through with her plan and moved to New York with a friend, eventually landing a six-month internship at a branding studio. She now lives in Brooklyn with a couple of roommates and navigates the subway system commuting to her job in Manhattan as a junior designer at a consulting firm.

Though she never lost sight of her plan, she credits Shepherd Center for helping her execute it.

“The staff at Shepherd Center helps you reach your goals realistically and practically,” Maria says. “They made me feel capable and fueled my ambition. None of them said, ‘You can’t do this.’ Instead, they said, ‘Let’s try this so you can do this.’”

 Written by Sara Baxter

“Andee’s Army’s support of the adolescent program has been transformative. Their partnership has allowed more opportunities for our adolescent patients, who have gone through the unimaginable, to see their future after injury,” says Paula Ackerman, MS, OTR/L Shepherd’s SCI post-acute program manager.

Andee’s Army began after Andee Poulos, then 14 years old, had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) — a tangle of blood vessels — rupture in her brain. Andee came to Shepherd Center for rehabilitation and made an incredible recovery. A committed group of supporters who helped her founded Andee’s Army to ensure that other adolescents who sustain brain or spinal cord injuries and their families have the support they need. Andee’s Army partners with Shepherd Center, offering personalized grants to patients, funding research, and backing programs to improve mental health and quality of life to help adolescents with brain and spinal cord injuries achieve the highest level of independence possible.

“We step in when insurance steps out,” explains Nina Cheney, executive director of Andee’s Army. “We support everything from durable goods or home modifications to driving education and Beyond Therapy®. As we’ve grown, we’ve realized that there are other ways we can support patients in getting back to living as fully as possible — that is what Shepherd is so great at, and that's why we sponsor things like prom and the Halloween Haunted House.”

Andee’s Army has also supported several research projects, including, most recently, Keeping Adolescents and Young Adults Connected (KAYAC). KAYAC aims to connect newly injured inpatient young adults and adolescents with spinal cord or brain injury to a peer mentor who is a year or more beyond their injury.

“It has been game-changing to have Andee’s Army’s support — it makes a world of difference,” says Katie Harris Rains, Psy.D., rehabilitation neuropsychologist and co-principal investigator for KAYAC.

Cheney says supporting adolescents’ mental health is central to Andee’s Army’s mission. 

“It is so dramatic when you are around these kids, to see the change in their outlook after they begin therapy. It goes back to that ‘I can't to I can.’ Yes, your life will be different, but you have a lot to contribute, and at Shepherd, they’ll find the best way for you to move forward. We have such a long, lovely relationship with Shepherd, and it’s very mission-driven for us. Shepherd is the manifestation of what we do,” Cheney says.

As for Andee, she just graduated from college with honors and has started working.

“It is incredible that all of this started with one little girl who is just an amazing person,” Cheney reflects.

Written by Ruth Underwood

Though Mo Maxwell, 19, has wanted to be a nurse since the fifth grade, her dream seemed out of reach in late 2021 when she started experiencing numbness in her arm. A few months later, it progressed to her back, and she developed a limp.

In June 2022, as her condition continued undiagnosed, Mo collapsed on her bathroom floor, became disoriented, and experienced paralysis. She was taken to Atrium Health Navicent in Macon, where she was diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a neurological disease that causes swelling in the brain and spinal cord. 

The team there placed Mo in a medically induced coma for nine days, and she spent the next two weeks in intensive care. As her condition improved with medication and a plasma exchange process called plasmapheresis, Mo transferred to Atrium’s cardiac unit, where she stayed until she transferred to Shepherd Center.

On July 11, 2022, Mo arrived at Shepherd Center via ambulance. She could not walk, had trouble speaking and swallowing, and had issues with her memory and word recall.

“I couldn’t hold my head up,” she remembers. “It felt like a bowling ball.”

She was in Shepherd’s Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit (CRU) and was also part of the Adolescent Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program while she was an inpatient. She spent a month and a half in therapy, gaining muscle strength and re-learning how to walk, talk, and feed herself. By the end of August, she had made great progress. Her paralysis was nearly gone, she was walking on her own, and her speech had improved. She could even dance. In fact, as she continued her rehabilitation at Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury, she choreographed a dance and got her therapy team to join in.

In January 2023, Mo achieved a major milestone when she started college at Georgia State University. Today, she is in her second semester of college, lives independently, and can drive. She credits Shepherd Center for where she is now.

“It’s such an amazing place,” she says. “The people there are so caring, and they became like a family. I am so grateful to all the therapists for how far I’ve come with their help.”

Written by Sara Baxter

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. 

 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.

After his stroke, Phillip spent seven weeks in the Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was treated for numerous complications, including pneumonia. Phillip then transferred to a long-term acute care center to begin being weaned from his ventilator. When the facility was ready to discharge him a month later, he was still unconscious and using a ventilator to breathe.

“People from two different angles were telling me he needs to get to Shepherd,” Julie says. “Our family from one side and a friend who is a physical therapist on the other.”

On December 23, 2020, Phillip flew to Atlanta in an air ambulance while Julie drove from Cincinnati. Because of precautions during the Covid-19 pandemic, Julie stayed in the room with Phillip for the 73 days he was an inpatient. During that time, he was weaned from his ventilator and emerged from his disorder of consciousness.

While therapists worked with Phillip, Julie was busy gathering information about Phillip’s condition and available resources.  

“I took advantage of every course Shepherd had, every family support group, every brain injury education class, everything,” she says.  “I thought, ‘Just give me the information because otherwise, how are we going to make decisions down the road?’ The education at Shepherd has been invaluable.”

Phillip completed the inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program and Pathways, Shepherd Center’s outpatient program for people recovering from brain injuries. He and Julie returned to Cincinnati in May 2021, but Phillip experienced a setback — he developed hydrocephalus and needed a shunt to drain excess fluid from his brain. The silver lining — insurance allowed Phillip to return to Shepherd Center for more therapy.

This time, while he was an inpatient, Phillip and his care team worked on improving his swallowing and walking, and Phillip began to talk some.

“I started functioning again as a human being,” he says.

Phillip says that his memories began again during his second time at Pathways.

“I started a second life. That's when I have a memory that is relatively coherent,” he explains.

He also started walking on his own and got his feeding tube removed.

The stroke resulted in aphasia, which affects Phillip’s ability to find the right words to express his thoughts but does not affect his intelligence. He shared how much he has felt Julie’s love and support throughout his recovery.

“I didn't really know what was wrong with me. I just knew I had some serious problems, and I was going through the motions that Julie set in place because I knew I loved her, and I assumed she loved me because there was no way anybody could be doing everything she was doing for me unless she loved me,” he explains.

Phillip says aphasia is challenging, not only because of the frustration of trying to communicate but also dealing with the way people react.

“I read people too much — I can see when people are staring at me oddly, and that throws me,” he explains.

That makes him even more appreciative of his close group of loving and supportive friends.

“I'm surrounded by a small group of people who are my best friends in the world.”

For Julie, in addition to support from friends and family, Shepherd's family peer support groups were crucial, so now she volunteers her time to help others.

“I got so much out of it, particularly early on; anything I can do to share or offer advice or support to anybody going through this, I am more than happy to do that,” she explains.

Phillip’s recovery continues – with ups and downs. One big hurdle was dealing with fatigue and brain fog, a side effect of one of his medications. But Phillip is working hard to establish new connections in his brain, while Julie connects him with all the resources she can find.

Phillip has participated in intensive rehabilitation to work on his communication skills. He also follows a home exercise program and uses apps his speech therapist recommended. He has plans for his next woodworking projects, and he and Julie are even trying hiking again. 

“I'm working every day to get it a little bit better,” he says.

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.

“I got to the hospital, and there’s a Code Blue for Michael,” Marcy recounts. “It’s one of five he had that first day. He bled out twice. The doctor’s saying, ‘If we get through these six hours, we’ll see about the next six.’”

At one point, she walked over to the windows in the waiting room and started banging on the glass, shouting to the heavens: “Don’t you dare take another son from me!”

Michael would spend more than 10 weeks in the Intensive Care Unit at Delray Medical Center, where doctors saved his life. The longer-term concern was the traumatic brain injury he’d sustained. When Michael arrived at Shepherd Center, he was in a state of unresponsive wakefulness. He was also a skeletal 110 pounds — 70 pounds lighter than he was pre-injury.

“Everyone at Shepherd Center was remarkable,” Marcy says. “They got weight back on him, they dressed him every day and started therapy right away. And they listened to our input. That meant so much.”

Michael improved during his stay and began emerging to full consciousness shortly after Marcy took him home. A friend gave Michael the classic Simon memory game to help sharpen his mental development and his manual dexterity.

“Once he mastered that and asked for my iPad, I knew he was on his way back,” Marcy says with a laugh.

As close as the two have come over the past year and a half, they each joke that they’re OK with not being roommates forever. That day may soon be approaching.

Ten surgeries removed from his injury, Michael is close to full independence. He’s also pursuing a master’s degree in geomatics engineering — something the U.S. Army veteran knows well from his service in Iraq, where he mapped coordinates for the famed 82nd Airborne Division. His next goal is a career in geospatial mapping at the Environmental Protection Agency.

“I feel like I’m the same person I was before, but needing help from others has changed me,” Michael says. “No more pride, no more inhibitions. Just go for it.”

Written by Phillip Jordan

“Since 2008, Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative has empowered post-9/11 veterans and service members with brain injury to live with hope and purpose by providing high-quality, comprehensive, and personalized rehabilitation care,” said Russell Gore, M.D., medical director of Shepherd Center's SHARE Military Initiative. “We are proud to collaborate with our network partners to advance individualized care for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries. This partnership is an opportunity to extend our national reach and ensure we can meet the needs of service members across the country.”

Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative opened in 2008 and pioneered the treatment of veteran mild TBI with multidisciplinary therapy. The Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network builds on this work along with the Marcus Institute for Brain Health and the Boulder Crest Foundation’s Warrior PATHH programs.

“When I formed the Gary Sinise Foundation in 2011, it was rooted in a personal mission to provide support, raise spirits and improve the mental wellness of our nation’s heroes and their families,” said Gary Sinise, the Foundation’s Founder and Chairman. “Always wanting to do more, as the foundation approaches its 10th anniversary this June, I am proud to announce the launch of the Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network. This cognitive health and mental wellness network will further expand our services to veterans and first responders experiencing post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries, and substance abuse to help heal the invisible wounds affecting too many of our veterans and first responders, transforming struggle into strength and lifelong post-traumatic growth."

Gary Sinise proudly joins together with the co-founders of The Home Depot and renowned philanthropists Bernie Marcus and Arthur M. Blank, who each invested $20 million from their personal foundations to lay the groundwork for the Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network. Both are personally motivated to improve and expand upon the care provided to veterans and first responders, and the Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network marks the first time that Bernie Marcus and Arthur M. Blank have partnered together since co-founding The Home Depot.

Addressing an Epidemic of Invisible Wounds

The national network’s name stems from Arthurian legend: Avalon was the sanctuary where King Arthur was taken to heal physically and spiritually after being wounded in battle. In that spirit, the Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network is designed to address and help heal the epidemic of “invisible wounds” that afflict too many of our nation’s veterans and first responders.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress (PTS) affect nearly one out of every three military personnel deployed to war zones since 2001. An estimated 30% of our nation’s first responders also experience symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress. Though dubbed “invisible wounds,” the changes in psychological health that accompany these conditions have very visible manifestations, such as depression, anxiety, suicide, and substance abuse, impacting not just the veterans and first responders themselves, but their families as well. Unlike physical wounds, invisible wounds can be passed from one generation to the next. Tragically, these invisible wounds too often can lead to suicide.

The Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network will expand on established network partners' success to create a nationwide, integrative traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress treatment and training network.

About the Gary Sinise Foundation

The Gary Sinise Foundation was established under the philanthropic direction of award-winning actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise, who has been an advocate of our nation’s defenders for forty years. The Foundation’s mission is to serve our nation by honoring our defenders, veterans, first responders, their families, and those in need. Its programs—designed to entertain, educate, inspire, strengthen, and build communities—serve America’s heroes and their loved ones 365 days a year. Learn more: www.garysinisefoundation.org.

The Veteran Wellness Alliance, which is an initiative of the George W. Bush Institute, is a coalition of veteran peer network and clinical provider organizations, including Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative, a comprehensive rehabilitation program that focuses on assessment and treatment for service members who have served in the U.S. military since September 11, 2001, regardless of discharge status. The program helps service members who are experiencing symptoms of or have a diagnosis of mild to moderate brain injury, or concussions and any co-occurring psychological or behavioral health concerns, including post-traumatic stress. The Alliance and other veteran-serving organizations have a common goal to improve access to high-quality care for invisible wounds, but until recently, there has been no shared definition of high-quality care to guide these improvement efforts.

“The veteran community represents a diverse group of backgrounds, interests and goals with the shared experience of military service,” says Russell Gore, M.D., medical director of Shepherd Center's SHARE Military Initiative and the director of the hospital's Complex Concussion Clinic. “When combat injuries cause invisible wounds, we sometimes struggle to define treatment success due to these differences.” 

With this in mind, researchers at RAND Corporation, a global policy think tank, recently conducted a literature review and interviews with Veteran Wellness Alliance partner organizations to identify standards for high-quality care, develop an initial definition, and make recommendations for implementing, refining and disseminating the definition and its associated metrics.

The findings of the research indicate that care should be veteran-centered, providing effective and timely treatment that addresses the unique needs, values and preferences of veterans. The study also addressed the accessibility of care, evidence-based care and outcome monitoring.

“The current effort, in collaboration with the Bush Institute, to define high-quality care and identify common outcome measures will hold all of our treatment programs to the high standards our veteran clients deserve,” Dr. Gore says. “It also established a benchmark for success both for each individual veteran and for our program.”

To read the full report, click here.

Shepherd Center has announced that Ashley M.F. Johnson, M.D. joined the hospital’s medical staff on September 8, 2020. She is leading four interdisciplinary treatment teams in Shepherd Center’s inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Ashley Johnson as the newest physician to join the Shepherd team,” said Michael Yochelson, M.D., MBA, chief medical officer at Shepherd Center. “I know her high level of education and expertise related to brain injury rehabilitation will benefit our patients, their families and the Shepherd Center staff.”

Dr. Johnson obtained her medical degree at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, New York. She did her post-graduate training in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She also completed a brain injury medicine fellowship at MossRehab at Albert Einstein Medical Center, also in Philadelphia.

“I am delighted to be joining the Shepherd family, and I am looking forward to supporting Shepherd Center’s mission,” said Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson assumes this role as staff physiatrist Amy Kolarova, D.O., transitions to a new position developing and managing neurorehabilitation consultation services for the Stroke Center of Excellence at the Piedmont Hospital Marcus Heart and Vascular Center. Dr. Kolarova also will serve as the physician lead for telemedicine at Shepherd Center, a role that is particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center is a comprehensive rehabilitation program that focuses on assessment and treatment for service members who have served in the U.S. military since September 11, 2001, regardless of discharge status. The program helps service members who are experiencing symptoms of or have a diagnosis of mild to moderate brain injury or concussions and any co-occurring psychological or behavioral health concerns, including post-traumatic stress.

To be considered for admission, clients must:

• Be a Georgia or North Carolina resident;
• Have access to a personal computer or tablet, as well as the internet;
• Have symptoms of mild to moderate traumatic brain injury or concussion;
• Clients may also have a co-occurring behavioral health diagnosis, such as anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress.

The virtual program includes:

• Daily, individual sessions tailored to the client's needs;
• Group sessions with other veterans and service members;
• Virtual visits with a neurologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, recreational therapist, nurse, case manager, clinical social worker, psychologist, vocational specialist, peer support specialist and transition support specialist.
• Physician visits offered through ExamMed, an Atlanta-based telehealth provider that Shepherd Center uses for its other outpatient programs. Individual and group therapy will be provided via Zoom for Healthcare. Both programs are HIPAA-compliant.

"Even as the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic, meeting the needs of our nation's service members remains a top priority for the SHARE Military Initiative," says Russell Gore, M.D., medical director of Shepherd Center's SHARE Military Initiative and the director of the hospital's Complex Concussion Clinic. "Our virtual program allows us to continue to serve veteran clients who need our program now without delay."

Shepherd hopes to continue to provide virtual support and services even after the in-person program reopens. This will allow SHARE to serve veterans throughout Georgia who need more flexibility in their schedule.

SHARE Military Initiative clients receive their treatment at no cost. Shepherd Center is able to sustain the program through individuals, families, corporations and private foundations. To support SHARE Military Initiative, contact Jon Roxland at jon.roxland@shepherd.org or 404-350-7314.

You can learn more about SHARE Military Initiative at shepherd.org/SHARE. For information related to admissions*, please contact SHARE Admissions at 404-603-4314 or shareadmissions@shepherd.org.

“I told her my life would be different from that day on,” Stroppel says. “And it was.”

Luke was born blind in one eye, and at age 12, he began losing sight in the other. He had brain surgery for an aneurysm compressing on an optic nerve and was completely blind by 16.

Yet Luke remained a top student, musician and wrestler in high school, while also raising money to distribute musical instruments to children recovering in hospitals.

After graduating summa cum laude from Belmont University in 2017, Luke founded Instrumental Horizons, a charitable organization that distributes instruments internationally. He traveled for a month that summer to South America.

When he returned with a massive headache, doctors discovered a brain tumor. Shortly after surgery, he had a stroke. Following 48 days at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he transferred to Shepherd Center’s Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

Luke arrived in excruciating pain. Yet he was resolutely uncomplaining. His rehabilitation goal was to return to his charity work. Today, Luke is raising money for marginalized communities in Cape Town, South Africa. This fall, determined to triumph over brain tumors, a stroke, blindness and chronic pain, Luke is not only re-learning to walk, but he’s doing a marathon and creating new music to benefit children in South Africa. He will be walking a mile a day for 26 days, and 100% of the money he raises will be donated to MusicWorks, a program that provides musical instruments, music education and music therapy to children in Cape Town. 

“I don’t hold everyone to the Luke Putney bar – that is so high,” Stroppel says. “He’s such a powerful, humble, beautiful soul.”

While everyone’s healing journey is unique, Stroppel says she does think of Luke whenever she encounters patients in severe pain. “It gives me hope that, though they may not see it, the end is in sight here,” she says. “It can get better. Don’t give up.”

Her experience with Luke and his mother, Nancy Hoddinott, has also altered the way Stroppel, 46, approaches daily stresses in her own life.

“I look at life differently as a parent and as a human being,” she says. “I know the power of keeping your mind in a positive state, like Luke and his mother did. I never sweat small stuff. At all.”

Written by Drew Jubera

As a speech language pathologist, Waite works with people who have cognitive-communication and swallowing disorders. Her work is both wide-ranging and part of a larger, patient-focused team that includes physiatrists, nurses, therapists and neuropsychologists.

Before talking with her about her job, we watched while Amy played cards with a patient – she often uses games to work on cognitive skills such as memory and reasoning.

Q: Watching you work, it’s clear being a speech language pathologist at Shepherd Center entails more than helping patients talk.
Of course, it includes voice work and work-ing on swallowing. But working on cognition is a huge thing here. We’ll work on paying attention, the foundation for thinking. Memory is next. You have to remember what I tell you for me to help you with anything. After that, we’ll work on judgement, reasoning, problem-solving, thought organization and executive functioning.

Q: What drew you to working with patient with brain injury? 
I find the brain-behavior relationship fascinating. I’ve been doing this for almost 27 years, and I still get patients in situations where I say, “I’ve never seen that before.” I like the challenge of that.

Q: Working with patients at all levelsof cognition, how do you talk with families about progress?
I try to be positive, but honest. You can’t kill hope. But it’s cruel to give false hope. Truth is, I don’t know how things will turn out. Families and patients need to know this isn’t the end of the road. It’s going to get better. The hardest part is not knowing whether it’s going to be a little better or a lot.

Q: What's the most fulfilling part of your work?
When a patient comes back after they’ve been away for a while and they are animated and happy, that makes it worth it. When a person calls and says, “We’re having a baby” – they’re well enough to get married and have a baby – that makes it all worthwhile. When a person graduates from high school or college or goes back to work, that makes it worth it. I don’t need a thank you. I’m humbled by the chance to play whatever small role I played to get them back to the way of life they had.

Q: What is it like to work at Shepherd Center?
From the top down, Shepherd Center puts people first. It’s why we become therapists – to help people. I love the mission and vision of Shepherd Center, to put people first and do what’s best for them. We’re allowed to do everything we can to get people as far as we can. It’s more like family in that sense.

EDUCATION

State University of New York, Plattsburgh

• B.A., Speech and Hearing Handicapped Education
• M.A., Speech and Hearing Science

OUTSIDE OF WORK

• Amy loves to travel. She’s visited six continents (Australia still awaits) and 46 states. “If I’m not on a trip, I’m planning a trip.”
• Amy calls herself “one cat short of being a full cat lady.” She has four.

Interview by Drew Jubera

A quality engineer for a defense contractor, Adam went to dinner in nearby South Lake Tahoe, California, to celebrate with co-workers. He later had drinks and got separated from the group. He called his girlfriend, whom he had started dating that month, to pick him up nearby.

But two strangers assaulted Adam before she arrived. They dragged him down a road, and believing he was dead, hid his body. The assailants were never caught.

When EMTs arrived, Adam was non-responsive and given little chance of survival. Airlifted to Renown Regional Medical Center, in Reno, Nevada, he remained in a coma for more than a week. He had sustained a severe brain injury and six skull fractures.

Adam transferred to Shepherd Center a month later. While memories of those early days remain foggy, Adam vividly recalls the empathy of Shepherd staff.

“They didn’t see me as just another customer, they saw me as a friend, as family,” he says. “They looked out for me.”

Adam spent about two months in Shepherd’s Inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program and almost five months at Shepherd Pathways, the comprehensive outpatient program for people recovering from brain injury.

Then, in February 2018, less than eight months after his brutal attack, Adam returned to work. The woman he’d met in Nevada, now his fiancé, soon gave birth to their son, Ryland. They now live in a house Adam bought recently in York, Pennsylvania, where he works. Adam credits Shepherd Center for much of what he’s accomplished in so short a time.

“Shepherd Center helped prepare me for life after a brain injury, and essentially restarted my life,” he says. As for future wedding plans, while Adam and his fiancé haven’t finalized the year yet, they have picked a date – June 26. It’s the anniversary of Adam’s injury. “I want to take a tragic day and make some good out of it,” he says.

Written by Drew Jubera

“Plain and simple,” Randy says, “my bell got rung too many times.”

Today, as the founder of the Molly Frank Foundation, a nonprofit that trains servicedogs for disabled veterans, Randy does things he never imagined. The training is easy. But media interviews, fundraising, interacting with lots of people all day? Randy says he can handle those stress-inducing tasks thanks to his time in Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative, a comprehensive rehabilitation program for service members with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.

It also helps that whenever Randy would prefer to lay low, his buddy Cole convinces him otherwise, with some slobbery licks to the face. Cole is Randy’s service dog, a Corgi-Collie mix that Randy describes as a corgi with long legs and a tail.

Five years ago, Cole was a gift from Randy’s former fiancée, Molly, a longtime trainer of service dogs. In 2015, the couple was in a car wreck together, and Molly passed away. By the time Randy entered SHARE in 2016 – on the recommendation of a fellow platoon member who graduated from the program – he couldn’t tell which post-traumatic stress was worse.

“You think you can’t go through anything worse than you did in the military,” Randy says, “and then sometimes you do. It was survivor’s guilt on both ends.”

At Shepherd Center, Randy received treatment for his brain injury, learned to recognize and handle his symptoms and went on outings that taught him to formulate plans to better handle high-stress, public situations.

“I’m not perfect,” Randy says. “This isn’t going to magically heal you of everything. But I understand what I’m dealing with now. I have my confidence back. It’s all about learning how to deal with the things going on in your life, accept them and manage them.”

To make a gift in support of the SHARE Military Initiative, contact Jon Roxland at 404-350-7314 or jon_roxland@shepherd.org, or visit shepherd.org/share. 

Written by Phillip Jordan

Nearly 20 years ago, a car accident left Ann Boriskie with a serious brain injury. With limited resources and no one to guide her through the traumatic experience, the recovery was long and painful. Not wanting others to be without support, she vowed that when she got better she would help others going through the same ordeal.

In 2006, Boriskie joined Shepherd Center as a volunteer peer visitor, and three years later, had logged an impressive 4,000 volunteer hours. Around this same time, she created the Brain Injury Peer Visitor Association, which is modeled after the American Stroke Association's Peer Program for stroke patients and their families. Her volunteers began visiting brain-injured patients at Shepherd Center in 2009.

At Shepherd Center alone, Boriskie’s team visits patients, families and caregivers five days a week. All team members have either recovered from brain injuries themselves or are family or caregivers of brain injury survivors. The volunteers lend a supportive ear to patients and their family members while modeling how it is possible to thrive after sustaining a serious brain injury. Volunteers also distribute packets of information about brain injuries that Boriskie developed after struggling to find information about her own injury.

Today, the Brain Injury Peer Visitor Association has 150 trained volunteers who conduct peer visits in 41 hospitals and rehabilitation facilities in the Atlanta metropolitan area and throughout Georgia, as well as in Florida and Wisconsin. As of December 2016, approximately 40,000 peer visits have been completed and more than 41,000 volunteer hours have been donated, with Boriskie personally donating more than 10,000 hours.

“Recovery from a brain injury is a difficult and arduous process,” said GHA President and CEO Earl Rogers. “Thanks to Ann Boriskie and her volunteer efforts, many of these patients have found the support they need to ensure a full and complete recovery. She is most-deserving of this award.”

About GHA

Founded in 1929, GHA serves more than 170 hospitals in Georgia and promotes the health and welfare of the public through the development of better hospital care for all Georgia’s citizens. The mission of GHA is to advance the health of individuals and communities by serving as the leading advocate for all Georgia hospitals and health care systems. GHA represents its members before the General Assembly and Congress, as well as state and federal regulatory agencies, and is an allied member of the American Hospital Association. For more information, please call 770-249-4500 or visit gha.org.

“For the longest time, I didn’t understand what I was doing there and why I was in groups with patients talking about their brain injuries,” Caleb says. “I knew I was in a wheelchair and my knee was messed up, but it took me a while to understand what was going on in my head.”

During his time at Shepherd Center's Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, mental exercises and activities got his brain firing again. Speech and vocational therapy tested his recall and deductive reasoning skills. His long-term memory proved to be fine, but his short-term memory was a work in progress. By January 2014, he was back up to processing speed and plotting a return to life.

It took another year and a half, including ongoing vocational therapy, major surgery on his right knee and additional physical therapy, but by August 2015, Caleb was back at work, same job as before. He was also back to scuba diving and being a foodie, alongside his wife Danielle. He also earned his bachelor’s degree from Charleston Southern University in May 2016.

“It’s taken a lot of adjusting to the way I do things now,” Caleb says, “and to the way I remember and communicate, but it’s all working.”

He takes extensive longhand notes to keep his short-term memory sharp, and he has calendars that surround him everywhere. Of course, he might need those calendars even if he didn’t have a brain injury. Caleb and his wife Danielle just had their first child, Eli, in March 2017. “I’m adjusting again,” Caleb says with a laugh, “this time to his schedule!”

For more information on Brain Injury rehabilitation at Shepherd Center, click here. 

Written by Phillip Jordan