Barbara Stahura's Brain Injury Articles

Barbara’s Brain Injury Articles

The War on Terrorism’s Signature Injury

(Saluting the Spirit of American Unity, a 9/11 remembrance published in September 2011)

Never have we seen more troops arrive home with traumatic brain injuries than through the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Barbara Stahura, certified journal facilitator, discusses the impact of the injury – and how veterans and their families are restoring their lives through the power of the pen. (See pdf here.)

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Excerpt from “Brain Wreck” (in What I Thought I Knew)

The nurse left Ken’s room. I watched her out in the ICU’s central area for a few minutes, hoping she wouldn’t be back for a while. I didn’t want her to see what I was about to do.

My husband was finally asleep, his delirious thrashing temporarily eased, thanks to morphine and exhaustion. Someone had neatly stitched the Y-shaped cut above his left eyebrow. His blackened eyes were mostly swollen shut, and the bridge of his nose was broken. A heavy plastic cervical collar pushed his chin up and immobilized his neck. Now that aspiration pneumonia threatened his breathing, small tubes in his nose, or sometimes an oxygen mask, whooshed air into his lungs. The respirator’s unwavering cadence meshed with the longer rhythm of the plastic cuffs around his calves, inflating and deflating to keep the blood circulating through his supine body and prevent clots. A horrendous bruise ran from the inside of his left elbow, down that arm and ribs and hip, all the way to his knee, where a wound the size of a quarter dug almost to the bone. Brilliant blue tape secured a temporary cast around his right hand and lower arm, an eye-catching spot in the flat light of the pale room.

And then there was the biggest shock of all: his His doctor had mentioned a brain injury, possibly a serious one, although we wouldn’t know for sure until Ken was more alert. (continued)

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An Insidious Enemy: Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
(Veterans Affairs and Military Medicine, 2008-2009 Edition)

The number of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) continues to mount and take its toll on warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. While severe TBIs took the spotlight in the beginning, mild TBIs (mTBIs), which affect far greater numbers, are finally beginning to receive the attention they deserve. (see pdf here)

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The Silent Injury Comes Home from War
(Veterans Affairs and Military Medicine, 2005-2006 Edition)

The term “IED” has found its way into common parlance as the war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues. It stands for “improvised explosive device.” While the word “improvised” seems to suggest a thrown-together, homemade bomb that might or might not work, the reality is much more terrifying. At least one IED produced enough deadly force to lift and flip a 25-ton armored vehicle off a roadway, killing the 14 Marines inside. Others turn cars into bombs that explode on street corners, killing or injuring civilians and military personnel who happen to be nearby. Others strapped to people become living bombs. IEDs have become the signature weapon of the insurgents. And one of the injuries they cause is becoming the Iraq war’s signature injury: traumatic brain injury, or TBI. (See pdf here)

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Riptide
(This essay appeared in the Jan.-Feb. 2005 issue of Science & Spirit)

In my favorite photo of us, we’re astride Ken’s BMW motorcycle in our Tucson driveway. Ken is laughing at the camera as I, sitting behind him with arms clasped around his waist, kiss his ear. We wore none of our usual protective equipment—full-face helmets, boots, jackets, gloves—because we had jumped on the bike strictly for the photo. Months later, Ken was wearing all his gear when he took his other motorcycle, a Ducati sport bike, to run some errands. But when a white sedan turned suddenly in front of him, there was nothing he or his equipment could