The Courageous Life of a Full-time Caregiver: Loving a Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor
By Melanie Vadzemnieks
God's Brave Women - Melanie's Story
Life as a caregiver is not a path anyone willingly chooses. Rather, we are often thrust into this role through a traumatic event. In my case, it was a car accident caused by an impaired driver.
A young lady under the influence of prescription narcotics and alcohol plowed into my husband’s car at a high rate of speed. The impact caused my husband, David, to spin across the highway median and he was hit head-on by a semi traveling 65 mph in the opposite direction. It’s a miracle he survived.
If you had told me the day before June 7, 2011 that we would endure such a major upheaval, I would have said that God would never allow such a thing to happen to me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle the aftermath. That’s what I know now to be a faithless answer.
"If you had told me the day before June 7, 2011 that we would endure such a major upheaval, I would have said that God would never allow such a thing to happen to me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle the aftermath."
We have experienced nearly every scenario possible for a traumatic brain injury survivor – trauma ICU, rehabilitation hospital, brain injury treatment facility, in-home care, and nursing home care (where my husband has resided for the past 8 years). Our children have grown up with the realities of brain injury, having been only 10 and 12 when their dad was injured. I’ve moved from stay-at-home mom to part-time work, to full-time plus a side gig to meet our fina