Happie Heads

Jeff has a story very similar to my own. He was in a car accident in the middle of college, and actually seemed to get back to school quite rapidly. He was also in a coma for several weeks, part of this time including a partial coma in which he appeared awake but was functionally unconscious. He has gone on to do many great things like create a popular blog about life with a TBI, and write a book...

  On January of 2017 was in a car accident on her way to work in McMinnville, OR. After being life-flighted to the local hospital, she was flown to Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, OR. She was comatose for one week, and contracted double pneumonia twice in her 6 months in ICU. We talk about depression, memory, and pain management. If you battle chronic pain, this is the podcast f...

In March of 2016, Dami drove her car into the trailer of a semi truck in Albany, OR at 78mph. You read that right, 78mph. The craziest part is she only broke two bones and one of them was her left ring finger. She was comatose for 2 weeks, and went through months of rehab. Her story is great and addresses the social, physical, and mental ramifications of such an accident.   Her story starts at 8:2...

Dr Deshaw has lived an incredible life. His career in chiropractic medicine began in the nineties. After seven years of practice, he realized how insurance laws constrained some of his abilities to practice medicine, and he decided to become a lawyer. So he quit his practice to attend law school, right? No! While operating as one of six total chiropractors in Ireland, he also attended Pepperdine L...

Karl Moritz (Kajomo) is a trooper. In June of 2010 he was struck head on by a vehicle while cycling on a neighborhood road in Southeast Portland. As if this wasn't devastating enough, he was dragged 32 feet underneath the car. He was given a 90% chance of being in a vegetable state if he did indeed survive the accident. He spent over 30 days in a Coma and several months in the hospital. Miraculous...

Joe has done a lot so far in his life. Here are a few examples. He is a certified Performance Enhancement Specialist and Corrective Exercise Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. He has also been trained at the CHEK institute (which is extremely difficult) as a Holistic Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach. He also cofounded Spartan Coaching, the first ever certification for obstacl...

Matthew Kampfe is the owner of Kampfe Independent Living Center in Gladstone, OR. This episode is thus more centered around his lifelong experience helping BI survivors. His parents started helping BI survivors in their home decades ago, and now it has grown into the incredible living center it is today. He has some greats tips not just for survivors but their family/support systems as well. Enjoy...

These two Functional Neurologists have changed the way I think about brain injury. I used to think that if you are symptom free, it means that you are good to go. They showed me how powerful compensation can be, but how devastating it can be when one's compensations fail. We talk about what conventional TBI therapy lacks, what it is good at, and how Functional Neurologists can work with traditiona...

Don is a very accomplished man. He has nearly countless training in psychological training. Of course, all of the credentials in the world are useless if they are not applied. Donald has been practicing for decades now, and have been treating people with brain injury since the late nineties. He and his wife work together in Portland, and we discuss some of the commonalities between his clients tha...

In part two of this episode, Marih and I discuss some of the characteristics and qualities that Marih sees as common amongst survivors and other resilient people in her life. If the first episode were the stories of her injuries, this second part covers some of the actions Marih took after taking ownership of her injury. I loved this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Story starts right away...

In this two-part episode, I talk to Marih Alyn-Claire. Much like episode 31 with Kendra, Marih's life is stamped full of MANY unique situations and injuries. These include unpredicted strokes, days of lost memory, and so much more. Her first TBI was during a car accident as a small child in the 1950's in Portland. We discuss what her injury taught her and how she used it to make herself stronger....

Randy Samuelson is tough dude. He was raised in Ashland, OR (that is the southern part). His first encounter with brain injury involved playing college football at Oregon State University back in the good old days when a brain injury was something one just "walked off." He later suffered an injury while working in a log mill. I hope you enjoy out talk as much as I did! His story starts at 6:40

Kendra is a woman of many trades. Honestly, it would be hard to sum up all of her capabilities. In addition to being a certified occupational therapist, she currently owns and runs a health clinic in which she can practice some of her other skills such as Bowenwork, Raiki, and Essential Oil Therapy. She may have the most engaging series of brain injuries I have ever heard, including suffering a ne...

This is an action packed episode since we recorded outside near the Portland Airport. This means I had to do a bit more editing than normal, but we made it through it unscathed. Clayton lives about 50 miles south of Tillamook a small costal town here in Oregon. He has suffered several brain injuries over the years with the most severe and recent one being a car accident in which his vehicle was cr...

Jacob Plasker is a functional neurologist operating out of Bend, Oregon (that's smack dab in the center). As an infant, he rolled off the edge of bed, landing on his head, and leaving him temporarily paralyzed. After adjustments from his father, the majority of his motor ability returned. To this day, Jacob has hemiparesis (partial paralysis) in one side of his body, but he is still able to operat...

I have known Luke for a few months now from support groups, on the max, and walking from the max to and from support groups. From these experiences, I can tell you that he is one of the most honest people I know, which is hard to find these days. He is from Forest Grove, OR, and has a passion for storytelling. He spends quite a bit of his free time writing his own stories and developing characters...

Rick Pape is a central Oregonian near the town of Redmond. One day while working outside on his deck, he spontaneously blacked out. After blacking out he fell against the deck railing which gave out. As he fell his body flipped putting him on his head. Like most of us, his recovery was not smooth or "textbook." We talk about how his perspective has changed because of his fall and how it has change...

Cory is the man. He is very much laid back like myself, which always makes me feel extra relaxed when recording. His TBI is unique in that he did not hit his head. You may say, "Michael, how can this be? A traumatic brain injury implies trauma, I thought that means some sort of impact." Funny you ask, because I just got done looking this up. Trauma simply implies a sudden onset of a physical injur...

Nicki Sinner is a real charmer. She is witty, spirited, and mostly importantly speaks her mind. During her senior year of high school she was involved in a car accident in St. Helens, OR. Her accident occurred during a wet, rainy afternoon when she was headed to have dinner at her boyfriend's house. Like I always say, these accidents happen at the most unexpected times. She now lives on her own (a...

Meet Laura Linda! In 2015, she was T-boned by another car while on her way to work. One of the coolest things about her story is that she was pretty lucid during the entire event. She even remembers conversation she had with the paramedics who drove her to the hospital. In addition to her TBI, she had several non-displaced fractures, but was remarkably stable after the accident and discharged the...

If you have a brain injury and you live in the Portland Metro Area (Oregon and Maine), you need to meet Pat Murray. She has been in the game since '01 when she received her first TBI. Like many of us, the most banal of circumstances led to a fall that changed her life forever. But also like those of us keener to dramaturgy, was involved in a car accident in 2013. This also contributed to her TBI s...

Cavin is the man. And I mean that in the legit way not the School of Rock way. In 2011, he fell from 20 feet from a rooftop water tower, immediately losing consciousness, and suffering a diffuse axonal injury. Initially he was in pretty bad shape, without the ability to eat or breath on his own. After meeting with a functional neurologist, he was inspired to change his diet in order to address som...

Brandon was involved in a car accident on the evening of July 3rd, 2007, in which he, and two other passengers were hit from behind from another driver. Upon examination at OHSU, he was given a less than 5% chance of surviving through the night. Of course, Brandon is a warrior. He did not die. In fact, he is still a very charming, theatrical man. In this episode, we talk about all of the crazy thi...

Joan and John are a delight. Witty, rambunctious, and sincere are just a few adjectives I could use to describe them. Nearly 20 years ago, they were hit by a drunk driver in Utah while on a business trip. Her recovery, like most, was not without its roadblocks and breakthroughs. Sometimes she needed the help of others, but sometimes she needed the liberty to regain her self-sufficiency. Their stor...

Kate Robinson is a brain injury survivor who was involved in a plane accident in her high school years. She experienced retrograde amnesia after the accident occurred. Her story is incredible so I won't say anything more, besides what she has accomplished since. Kate ended up finishing high school, graduating college with a degree in French, and decided she wanted to help other brain injury surviv...