Before I jump in to creating a blog about me and what I do, I’d like to introduce myself. I want to tell you what it is that brings me to this passion for life coaching people whose lives have been touched by brain injury.
My name is Pat, and I am the sister of a TBI survivor. His injury was from a freak accident when the cable TV company sent a crew near the place where he worked to take down old telephone poles and lines along a railroad track that ran through his company’s property. They cut the wires but did not realize that one pole had a guy wire and was rotten at the base. It broke off and swung around and hit him in the head while he was sandblasting. The tank of the compressor prevented the pole from finishing its fall right into his face. The cross arm was right above his face.
We have a photo from the front page of the newspaper when that happened. He was 34 years old and it was 1992. It shows paramedics all around him. He was only unconscious for a short while. He came to as he was being worked on but does not remember how long they were there. The newspaper story caption has this last line “Was treated at the hospital for head lacerations and released.” Isn’t that disturbing given what we all now know?
The week following the accident he had crippling headaches. He called the ER doctors to ask what to do. They told him to take Tylenol and see his primary care doctor if it got worse. It got worse, but he didn’t go as he was now more confused, sick to his stomach and sleeping a lot. His young wife didn’t understand what was happening so didn’t do anything else. The family never learned of the accident for weeks.
Of course we know now that his brain was swelling and damage was being done. Today he is doing fairly well but it was a long road getting here. As a person with what started out as a moderate TBI now milder, he could not get services that would have helped him. The best thing that he got was some counseling. The woman he saw did help with his grief and loss but did not have any supports or strategies to offer for any type of rehabilitation. So he got none.
In the last few years our state (NY) had developed a Medicaid Waiver for services for people with TBI. There are some great supports there and many people have come home from nursing homes and others never had to go. But the services are for people who would otherwise need to be in a nursing home so aren’t available to others. Most of the available services do not fit with his needs as he has been able to (with difficulty) keep his job, raise his now teen-aged daughters, and continue his hobby of building hot rods (he is somewhat well known for his wonderful skills in this!) I am grateful that our many conversations, often over the telephone, were helpful in listening, discovering and celebrating his still wonderful inner resources, reaching for new goals and finding strategies to keep him moving forward in his recovery.
A Bit More about Me:
I am a teacher who was looking for work in 1994 when I was hired by an agency that provided services to people with developmental disabilities. By 1996 I had started a nice day program that people really enjoyed. When that agency decided to become a provider for the TBI Waiver, they asked me to start a day program for people with brain injury. It was then that I became really educated in what that is all about. Since then I have had other positions including directing an agency that strictly provided services to people with TBI.
Last year when I was researching some new training for the life skills coaches I ran across the life coaching model and it immediately began to attract me. There is so much in this model that would be ideal for so many if the service could be developed for people with TBI.
Are you familiar with what that is? It is not counseling or therapy but a coaching approach to supporting personal growth. I am combining some of the skills supports I have learned in my professional work and with my brother. So, to that end, I thought, why not become a life coach? I found a wonderful training program, and found some other agencies and coaches providing services. I am in the beginning stages of forming collaborative relationships with two that are outstanding.
My plan is to develop life coaching services to people whose lives have been touched by TBI, survivors, families and caregivers. I already have a job so this is not about making money but about making something available that has been needed for a long time. Coaching support for people who want to move forward, get back to having dreams and purpose, finding strategies and make your own plans and working toward them with a life coach that understands brain injury.
I’d love to have any feedback and suggestions. It is my plan to find funding through grants and other gifts to help those who cannot afford coaching, to begin to design a program that can be duplicated so that there are more coaches familiar with brain injury so that they can provide coaching, and develop other resources as they appear.
I am about to put out my first newsletter this weekend. There will be articles of interest, some free resources and the charter subscribers will be invited to participate in BETA groups to help develop teleclasses (groups by telephone) and other resources in development. My goal is to make this great new style of personal life coaching available and accessible to folks like us.
In my professional career I have made close friends in the brain injury association, the department of health, families and friends, other professionals and provider agencies. Best of all I have support of many wonderful friends with TBI who have graciously allowed me to partner with them on their journey and taught me all we both know about living with brain injury.
Thanks for reading my long story. I hope it will get longer and better with time - and – I hope to be able to count many of you among my friends.
If you’d like to subscribe to my newsletter you can get it at this link:
http://www.tbicoach.com/newsletter.htmlThanks again and all the very best to you and those you love,
Pat
Pat Fountain
Life Coach
New Perspectives for
People whose lives have been touched by Brain Injury
www.TBICoach.com
