learn all I can about traumatic brain injury (TBI) so that I can help my daughter recover as fully as she can from it and also educate others about it.

My daughter had an appt. with the TBI director here at our house 2 days ago. She had to answer the same questions she has already answer time and time again on an application which has to be renewed each year. At least this time an appt. will be set up for an evaluation with a doctor for Rachel. Also, she has moved up on the waiting list to # 74 which is an improvement from a year ago of being way past 100. Rachel also got her medicaid provider changed and I’m hoping she can now see one of the Rehab doctors where she originally received rehab after her injury.

It is titled ‘Teen’s football injury reshapes future, family’. I tried to create a link to it and even tried to copy the whole article to post but I couldn’t save it for some reason which tells me our pc may still be screwed up or some other problem. All I know is that other than how the injury occured, word for word, it could have been written about our daughter and the last four years of our family and rage and the destruction to our home.

I think I’m going to recheck that book Children With Traumatic Brain Injury: A Parents’ Guide from the library agin and photo copy all the resourses and phone numbers at the end of the book where I can possibly find help for my daughter.

I spoke with a woman named Kim on the phone last night who offered to help get Rachel into a regional program that she may qualify for since her injury happened before she turned 18. Kim also asked if she was signed up for the State Vac. Rehab. program and I informed her that Rachel was on a waiting list and that current funding was the reason she wasn’t already in the program. I told Kim that I had recently spoken with the head of the Voc. Rehab. who said that Rachel needs to see a rehab. doctor instead of a psychiatrist for her behavioral problems which are part of her brain injury and that while I made an appt. with a doctor from the Rusk Center in Columbia, they don’t take the Healthcare, USA medicaid that Rachel has and she cant get it switched until June, 2009 during open enrollment. So now we are looking for a doctor who will take the insurance. Kim told me she would talk with a doctor who might see Rachel with her medicaid or might even see her for free if need be. His Name is Wolfe and is a brain rehab doctor who often see patients who cannnot pay.

It finally has a name. All the doctors and rehab therapists mentioned the front part of her brain as being where the damage was and talked about the damage to the filters that control her emotions and reasoning abilities but they never gave us a name that we could ‘take to the bank’.

I came across an unopened letter addressed to my daughter from that woman from the state of Missouri who deals with TBIs. I was postmarked September and was forwarded to Rachel’s house and got mixed up with one of her housemate’s mail. It was returned with some other things that got taken when Tara moved out. Anyway, Rachel has been enrolled in the Adult Head Injury Program and is now on a waiting list. Tuesday, I called her and left a voicemail to get in touch with me about Rachel’s situation of possible. I also left a # for her to call Rachel. She called me back Wednesday and left a message with George to have me call her back at my convenience. I tried her office and her cell Friday but the office is closed for the holiday weekend so I’ll try again Monday.

Social Security denied Rachel benefits already because she hasn’t worked enough quarters to invest. They did send a big manilla envelope as a record of their phone conversation with her to kepp and if there are any changes, she is to notify them. She may still get SSI, but not likely.
Also, she received another, even bigger manilla envelope from Disabilities Determination in Jefferson City which was mailed on August 14 and which she had 14 days to fill out the lengthy questionier and either faz it or mail back. She went to the disability assessment class last week and we put this aside until this week. I told her last weekend she needed to get it filled out so it could be mailed back. She started to fill it out but quit and told me it was tedious and kept asking some of the same questions numerous times worded just a little differently and that they were trying to make her look like an idiot. I told her just to do the best she can but she decided not to do it. And that is that. They will have to make their determinations without it.

Soc. Sec. called and spoke with Rachel this week. She told me she was on the phone for at least an hour answering questions. They sent her some documents summing up their conversation with her. She is suppose to notify them asap if any of it is inaccurate or if anything changes.

We went to the Social Security Office in Sedalia so Rachel could apply for SSI disability. We argued on the way up about her inapropriate behavier towards just about everyone. She claimed I was constantly judgemental of all her friends, telling her how to live her life, etc. I told her she needed to change before Paige got much older. All I got out of her was She didn’t care . . She was a good mother. .She liked the way she was now. . I didn’t understand. . . I never went thru what she has. . .Her life sucked. . She didn’t have any money of her own. . . She went on and on So I didn’t go thru what she did . . . Did she think it was fun for me? . . I relive the nightmare of what happened to her everytime she fails at something. . . gives up out of frustration, . . .gets angry and verbally abusive for no real reason other than she is unable to handle a simple argument or critisism . . Is told she shouldm’t expect a lot . . . the worse part is being told by others that even with therapy and/or medication there might be no changes in her . . . this is how she is going to be.

I took off work today to make sure Rachel made it to her appt. with Voc. Rehab. She is now signed up for a week’s voc. job training beginning August 18. She also met with the head of TBI Rehab. and she had to sign all kinds of releases for her med. records, etc. The woman, also named Rachel, does nothing but help adults age 21 and older who had TBIs as children. She repeatedly asked Rachel how old she was (she’ll be 21 this Sunday) and at what age she had her TBI. To me it got annoying. She also suggested that Rachel apply for Social Security disability (SSI). She said it might take up to 2 years for her to qualify if she wasn’t totally denied, but with her present attitude and anger management problems, she would have problems keeping a job and would feels she would eventually qualify. She also urged Rachel to apply for medicaid again.