After Brain Injury: Survivor Stories Embracing Hope After Traumatic Brain Injury: Finding Eden, (Paperback)

Finding Eden sheds encouraging light on the challenging subject of TBI. Writing like a true qualitative researcher, Dr. Arthur is both storyteller and analyst, drawing us in with his conversational style of writing, while anchoring his vulnerability and personal trauma with facts and statistics. His relationship with the outdoors provides an emotional landscape of nurture, reminding us that nature has a hand in recovery if we allow it to be a part of our healing. His poetry selections offer additional reminders of how love triumphs over loss and loneliness. While he credits friends, family, and medicine for his recovery, the hero that emerges from this story is his wife Kindra, whose constant comfort and encouragement serve as a model for unconditional love and patience. For anyone who is walking alongside someone with Traumatic Brain Injury, this is the book that can offer light in the darkness. In addition, as a high school teacher I have witnessed the ways in which ever-increasing instances of concussions, suffered by high school athletes, dramatically affect a student's academic performance and emotional well-being. These teens suffer incredible losses as they must learn to let go of their dreams to be collegiate athletes and navigate their “new normal” at such a vulnerable age. Finding Eden is a must read for the parents of those students as well, the coaches who coach them, and the teachers who teach them.

In the blink of an eye, one man's life is forever changed. A victim of Post-Concussion Syndrome, Dr. Mike Arthur takes you on his journey, documenting his roller coaster ride that is now part of his “new normal”. He holds nothing back and shares how his injury has affected his life, his work and his family. Dr. Arthur paints a picture of his experience and ultimately offers some tips on how to cope with traumatic brain injury. Struggling to verbalize the right words, ironically, it is through the written word that Mike ultimately finds his new voice – the one that will help others going through similar issues. This is an enjoyable read and is not written from a clinical perspective, but rather from someone who is striving to find himself again. Dr. Arthur relies on his strong faith, his family, his friends, and the medical community to learn how to live this new life that fate has handed him. Once you start reading this book, you won't be able to put it down.