March 12 is National Brain Injury Awareness Day. In Washington DC, a Brain Injury Awareness Fair and a congressional briefing will take place. A Bi-partisan Congressional Brain Injury Task Force exists Co-chaired by Reps Bill Pascrell Jr (D-NJ) and Tom Rooney (R- Fla). I have not heard much news about this issue or this day in Washington. I do not expect to. However, the fact that people are keeping politicians in the loop and giving a day for the issue to at least be briefed is important. News may not cover it, and that is ok.
According to the Brain Injury Association of America, 75% of brain injuries are concussion or mild TBI's.
In our case, our older son Ben received a concussion during the accident. Concussions are not uncommon, and can be over come with the proper medical treatment. It is when you receive concussion after concussion that the serious problems can occur. I am a huge football fan, and appreciate a strong hit on the field (well, when it is my team giving the hit). However, it is hard for me to imagine that anyone would want to get back on the field after getting a concussion. Hard to imagine us letting Ben play football if he wanted to. Luckily, he is not interested in doing so.
I was proud to see the Georgia Southern Eagles being proactive in using new technology in trying to prevent concussions. They received some national publicity about that earlier in the season. Here is a link from the Georgia Southern Marketing Department:
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| Georgia Southern Football Team working to prevent MTBI. |
Certainly the Eagles got a lot more national press for beating the Florida Gators latter in the season. IMO; preventing concussions is much more important than beating the gators in the swamp (though It is great to do both).
March 12 is also my Birthday. I look forward to going to a birthday dinner with my family on my birthday. I know that no matter where we go, Brian will be charming to the waiter/ waitress/ and anyone else that he sees. Ben will be embarrassed by Brian doing this. I may embarrass Brian with my singing or actions...and we all embarrass Ellen with our actions. I would not have it any other way.
I want to finish this post with some additional stats about Brain Injury recovery. Costs of recovery/ rehab are staggering. These do not even include the initial hospital visits. All I can say is thank goodness for insurance. Sometimes it has been a pain to keep all the EOB's and bills straight. However, I can not imagine not having the insurance at all. Please keep this in mind when you hear about someone acquiring a TBI or MTBI.
• Average hospital-based acute rehab is about
$8,000 per day
• Range for post-acute residential is about $850 to
$2,500 per day
• Day treatment programs (e.g., 4 hours of therapy)
are about $600 to $1,000 with no room/board
• According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, in the U.S., direct medical costs and
indirect costs of TBI, such as lost productivity,
totaled an estimated $76.3 billion each year
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