Kelly Bouldin Darmofal suffered a severe TBI in 1992; currently, she holds a Masters in Special Education from Salem College, NC. Her memoir, Lost in My Mind: Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), tells her story of tragedy and triumph. Kelly will be teaching "TBI: An Overview for Educators" at Salem College. Kelly's "tips" were learned during two decades of recovery and perseverance.

Who hasn't had a rough day? What if that 'rough day' ended up spanning the course of years? And, it was invisible to others? Hannah's life was going great. She was a stylist with high profile clients in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, and Miami. Her talk show host career was taking off, but in one split second, everything changed. She was in a serious auto accident, left with a traumatic brain injury - and post-concussion syndrome, which results in threatening depression.

To Root and to Rise is a powerful resource for anyone living with a traumatic brain injury, post-concussion syndrome, stroke, brain tumor, or other brain trauma, for family caregivers and friends of brain injury survivors, for brain injury support groups, and for medical and neuro-rehabilitation professionals.

It's October of 1993 in Hawaii. A drunk driver hurtles toward a bend in the road. From the opposite direction, accomplished advertising creative and triathlete Phil Slott takes a routine drive. As he eases into the bend, he meets the drunk driver skidding into the wrong lane and, in one second, Phil's life takes a dramatic turn. As he struggles to stay alive in the ICU, Phil's organs, bones, and much of his brain are broken. What he and everyone else come to realize is that his creative drive and passion remain intact.

A traumatic brain injury is a life-changing event, affecting an individual's lifestyle, ability to work, relationships - even personality. A severe blow to the head results in acute and, often, lasting symptoms. People with brain injury benefit from understanding, patience, and assistance in recovering their bearings and functioning to their full abilities. Neuropsychiatrists Drs. Vani Rao and Sandeep Vaishnavi - experts in helping people heal after head trauma - explain how traumatic brain injury, whether mild, moderate, or severe, affects the brain.

Often misdiagnosed and misunderstood, traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be a life-altering event that can produce a wide range of symptoms affecting physical as well as psychological health. Now, a physician shares her personal journey with TBI after suffering a life-changing accident. In this touching and informative book, Dr. Chrisanne Gordon chronicles her struggles - the high points as well as the lows - as she is challenged to make sense of what happened and realizes that her medical training did not prepare her for these struggles.

Want to optimize your brain function? This book teaches you about specific brain-supporting nutrients, how these nutrients affect us, and what we can eat to support our brain function. This book is not only for someone with a brain injury or disease but also for anyone seeking to improve their brain. Ready to get started? How to Feed a Brain will give you the nutritional tools to optimize your brain function.

In The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge described the most important breakthrough in our understanding of the brain in 400 years: the discovery that the brain can change its own structure and function in response to mental experience - what we call neuroplasticity. His revolutionary new book shows, for the first time, how the amazing process of neuroplastic healing really works. It describes natural, noninvasive avenues into the brain provided by the forms of energy around us.

Losing your memory? Can't focus or concentrate? Do you have brain fog or tire easily? Have you lost your zest for life or motivation? Do people tell you this is all a normal part of aging? If so, your brain may be growing old too fast, or degenerating. Modern diets, a stressful lifestyle, and environmental toxins all take their toll on the brain. This doesn't just happen to seniors - brain disorders and degeneration are on the rise for young and old alike. The good news is the brain is extremely adaptable and wants to get well.

In 1999, Clark Elliott suffered a concussion when his car was rear-ended. Overnight his life changed from that of a rising professor with a research career in artificial intelligence to a humbled man struggling to get through a single day. At times he couldn't walk across a room, or even name his five children. Doctors told him he would never fully recover. After eight years, the cognitive demands of his job, and of being a single parent, finally became more than he could manage.

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world.

In this intimate, haunting, literary memoir read by the author, an American icon tells her story for the first time, in her own gorgeous words - about a challenging and lonely childhood, the craft that helped her find her voice, and a powerful emotional legacy that shaped her journey as a daughter and a mother.

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, MD, traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable.

Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary—awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears—seemed to need more protection from the world. Six years after Rosemary's death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage's stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted.

Laura Lynne Jackson is a wife, a mother, a high school English teacher—and a psychic medium. Where most believe an impenetrable wall divides the world between the living and the dead, Jackson sees brilliant cords of light. She has dedicated her life to exploring our connection to the Other Side, conversing with departed loved ones, and helping people come to terms with loss.

Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be defeated. With a strength and force of will that most can only imagine, Saks reclaimed her life and went on to achieve great success.

David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons.

At the age of two, Carly Fleischmann was diagnosed with severe autism and an oral motor condition that prevented her from speaking. Doctors predicted that she would never intellectually develop beyond the abilities of a small child. Although she made some progress after years of intensive behavioral and communication therapy, Carly remained largely unreachable. Then, at age 10, Carly had a breakthrough....

When Schuyler Rummel-Hudson was 18 months old, a question about her lack of speech by her pediatrician set in motion a journey that continues today. When she was diagnosed with bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria (an extremely rare neurological disorder), her parents were given a name for the monster that had been stalking them from doctor to doctor, and from despair to hope, and back again.

What makes you happy? Others share how they found their passion, purpose, and joy in life in these 101 personal and exciting stories that are sure to inspire and encourage listeners to find their own happiness. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness will encourage listeners to pursue their dreams, find their passion and seek joy in their life with its 101 personal and inspiring stories. This book continues Chicken Soup for the Soul’s focus on inspiration and hope, reminding us that we all can find our own happiness.

Leaving a life marked by crippling setbacks and his father's doubt, in 1967 a 20-something doctor from India arrived in America with only five dollars and the desire to claim his American dream. Faced with an entirely new culture, racism, and the lasting effects of disabling childhood injuries, through hard work and perseverance he overcame all odds. Now having performed over 15,000 open-heart surgeries, more than nearly every surgeon in history, Dr. Singh reflects on his most memorable patients and his incredible personal life.

When Edward M. Hallowell was 11, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, an alcoholic mother, an abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behaviour from those around him and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control.

Born with cerebral palsy, Geri Jewell inspired a generation of young people when she became the first person with a disability to appear in a recurring role on prime-time television, with her groundbreaking character, Cousin Geri, on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life. The book's title - I’m Walking As Straight As I Can - has a double meaning, referring to both Jewell's sexuality and her extraordinary struggle growing up with cerebral palsy.

Thirty-four-year-old Rebecca Alexander is a psychotherapist, a spin instructor, a volunteer, and an athlete. She is also almost completely blind, with significantly deteriorated hearing. Not Fade Away is a deeply moving exploration of the obstacles we all face-physical, psychological, and philosophical. Rebecca's story is an exquisite reminder to live each day to its fullest.

Lauren Marks was 27 when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital soon after with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, dramaturg, and pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up...different.

Julia Fox Garrison refused to listen to the professionals she called Dr. Jerk and Dr. Panic, who - after she suffered a massive, debilitating stroke at age thirty-seven - told her she’d probably die, or to Nurse Doom, who ignored her emergency call button. Instead she heeded the advice of kind, gifted Dr. Neuro, who promised her he would “treat your mind as well as your body.” Julia figured if she could somehow manage to get herself into a wheelchair, at least she’d always find parking. But after many, many months of hospitalization and rehab, Julia not only got into a wheelchair, but she got back out.

Life as Kim and Krickitt Carpenter knew it was shattered beyond recognition two months after their marriage when a devastating car wreck left Krickitt with a massive head injury and in a coma for weeks. When she finally awoke, she had no idea who Kim was and no recollection of their relationship.

Our preteen years, ages nine to 13, can present some of the most difficult times in our young lives, a period of tremendous physical and emotional change. We're eager to leave the "kid" stage, yet we're uncertain about what adolescence will bring; we start hearing the familiar refrain "wait until you're older" far too often. Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul is a companion guide for these transitional years.

When a patient first asked Dr. Reggie Anderson to sit at her bedside as she passed from this life, something miraculous happened. As he held her hand, the veil between this world and the next parted…and he received an astonishing glimpse of what awaits us in heaven. Little did he know this was just a foretaste of what was to come - a lifetime of God-given "appointments with heaven." Join Reggie as he shares remarkable stories from his life and practice, including the personal tragedy that nearly drove him away from faith forever.

One day in 2002 the 50-year old body of former Pittsburgh Steeler and hall of famer Mike Webster was laid on a cold table in front of pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Webster's body looked to Omalu like the body of a much older man, and the circumstances of his behavior prior to his death were clouded in mystery. But when Omalu cut into Webster's brain, it appeared to be normal. Something didn't add up.