Targeted Search

Use the filters to browse the information we have available or to narrow your search results for a specific audience (e.g. caregivers, military, children), a preferred type of content (e.g. videos, blogs, articles), or by topics of interest (e.g. family concerns, legal issues, symptoms).

You have selected:Family Concerns Personal Stories and Blogs

An Old Rag Doll and Family Love

A song Rosemary's father used to sing around Christmastime taught her the power of empathy.

All About My Mother

"My mother is amazing. Sometimes I tell people she’s an alien because there is no one I know like her," says Janna Leyde about her mother in the wake of a TBI that changed their family.

Reclaiming Intimacy After Brain Injury

David Grant takes on the tough topic of sex and intimacy after brain injury.

The Not-So-Secret Confessions of the Caregiver

Abby says that sometimes we wish others could read our minds, but the only real option is to stay honest with the people in our lives.

The End of Childhood

Rosemary Rawlins believes, sadly, that the day her twin girls' father was hit on his bike and sustained a severe brain injury was the last day of their childhood.

Can Children Cope with Both Parents Lost in the Trenches of TBI?

Rosemary talks to her twin daughters about what life was like after their father sustained a severe TBI and the years that have followed.

Help Us Get Through "Fussy Time"

For anyone, especially someone living with PTSD and TBI, having a new baby is both joyful and exhausting. Caregiver Cheryl Gansner talks about the challenges of having a new baby in the house.

Add new comment

Renewed Gratitude

BrainLine's blogger Abby Maslin asks: Can you be mostly grateful but still wish this terrible thing would go away?

Parenting After TBI

Rosemary feels that her daughters lost both her parents on the day of Hugh's crash.

Reinventing the Family

Abby Maslin shares her thoughts on how her husband's brain injury is helping them become even better parents than they could have imagined.

Daughter Love

Janna Leyde talks about a big puzzle piece that fell into place when her injured father realized he had to love himself in order to love others more fully.

Do You Need an Empathectomy?

Do you feel your loved one’s pain and sense of loss like it’s happening to you? Maybe, like Rosemary, you need an "empathectomy."

The Expectant Caregiver

"Caregiver expectations can cloud over concrete facts. I now find it amazing how many times I had to be told that we would not go back to our old life before I believed it."

He Never Liked Cake

A brain injury can turn a family's life upside down. Add in adolescence. Read an excerpt from Janna Leyde's coming-of-age story — raw, honest, funny, heart-breaking and heart-affirming.

Add new comment

The Father He Always Was

Hugh taught the girls how to walk, to ride a bike, to swim and surf. When a car struck him just days after their fourteenth birthday, he slept in a coma after two emergency brain surgeries in three days. One word woke him up: Daddy.

Unfreezing Grief

"Growing up with a father with a TBI is complicated, un-ending grief without closure. It’s the opposite of resolution. It’s missing someone like hell who’s still alive and with you."

Reflections on Motherhood

Mother’s Day is a holiday that is meant to be full of love and appreciation, but Rosemary has found that the day itself varies intensely from year to year, depending on family dynamics, age, and life circumstances.

Creativity in Caregiving

Loving wife and teacher Abby Maslin uses her creativity and teaching skills to help her husband recover from a severe TBI.

Succession Planning

Rosemary talks about how planning for life’s unexpected emergencies is never easy or comfortable, but in the long run, it can save a lot of heartache.

Help for Couples After TBI

Rosemary's sister once told her, “There’s the truth we tell others, the truth we tell ourselves, and the truth we won’t even tell ourselves” It wasn't until she was in therapy after Hugh's crash that she fully understood her sister's words.

Life Out of Order: A Story of Sibling Loss and Living with TBI

Sally Laux has lost her three brothers — two to death, one to a severe TBI — and yet, as she walks on a landscape of new textures and colors, she somehow continues to find meaning in her life.