06/12/2024
On Monday, I'm releasing a new episode that focuses on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
Recording it was really meaningful to me: I was diagnosed with TBI in 2021, but my journey with it started long before that. Back in 2013, I received a 0% disability rating for TBI from the VA. I remember my conversation with the doctor at Matsunaga VA Medical Center in Oahu. I described my symptoms: constant headaches, vision loss and couldn’t read road signs after Afghanistan, difficulty focusing, getting lost in thought, and needing to read things multiple times to retain information. His response? “It sounds like you were nearsighted and didn’t realize it until you were blown up. And TBI is like a hot stove—when a kid touches a hot stove, they can feel uncomfortable in a kitchen or fear the stove.”
At the time, I was in my “peak as***le years”—I loved confrontation—and I broke down how that analogy didn’t compare to disarming IEDs or recovering fallen comrades from vehicles. I was convinced that what I was experiencing wasn’t PTSD but something distinct, a TBI caused by the physical trauma of war.
It became clear to me that the VA didn’t have a solid understanding of TBI. I gave up on appealing my rating because TBI wasn’t even openly discussed in my community. We heard whispers of friends collapsing at malls or at home with seizures, but no one educated us on symptoms or what to watch for. Many of us, including my team members and myself, had been exposed to countless blasts, including several direct hits on our vehicles. I figured it was only a matter of time before I experienced something similar.
In 2018, while at a Cracker Barrel with my family, I had my first obvious seizure. I didn’t know where I was, couldn’t speak, and felt completely lost until it eventually passed. Even then, I didn’t get any real answers or support. Finally, in 2021, I was rated for TBI due to seizures. Still, no one within or outside the VA has ever sat me down to explain what TBI means, its symptoms, or its long-term effects. When I asked about the effects of my seizure medication, the only answer I got was: “If you take it, you don’t have seizures. If you don’t, you will.”
Looking forward to sharing more of my story and my chat with you next week!
