Military & VeteransHaving full awareness of her long-term issues from TBI has helped Dr. Kelli Gary adapt strategies that work and make choices that better order her life.
What is different about me now is that I do have full realization of what I can and cannot do. I know my limitation areas, and I've learned how to compensate for those deficit areas. I--I still have short-term memory problems, but then I know that I have to write everything down. So I live by my date book, or--you know--I live by those things. I knew that if everything is in chaos--you know--where I'm staying or where I study or where I am, then I won't be able to find anything. Hence, clean up your room. Don't be as messy. You know--organize things better. And so everything I do I organize. I make sure that there's some sense of order to it, because it helps me to think a lot easier, and it helps my processing a lot better.
Posted on BrainLine December 2, 2009.
About the author: Kelli Gary, PhD, MPH, OTR/L
Kelli Williams Gary, PhD, MPH, OTR/L is an assistant professor in the department of occupational therapy at Virginia Commonwealth University. She sustained a severe traumatic brain injury in 1991.
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