Name: David B.
City: Davenport
Brain Injury: Frontal lobe brain injury due to a motor vehicle accident
Explanation of Mask: The color purple makes him happy. The color blue makes him think about the highway where he had his accident. Red makes him think of food. Although he has a brain injury, David still thinks about his family and remembers he was once married. David is strong, but sometimes becomes stressed because he feels like his is in jail.
Name: Diane L.
City: Davenport
Brain Injury: –
Explanation of Mask: I feel proud!! I feel happy about animals because I love dogs! They are comforting! I like to be at home making projects. I feel smart because I have the ability to read! I have a good heart because I am loving and I care about other people! I believe it is a big world and there is a lot of opportunity to express myself! I am beautiful and sweet!
Name: Heather
City: Davenport
Brain Injury: I received my brain injury in 2004 from an ATV accident in Tama, Iowa
Explanation of Mask: Black in the morning when she wakes up because she is still confused but as her morning progresses she’s red and she can think more clearly. Heather is still Heather. She feels the pain and depression from her brain injury but is still living. She is all about her money. Heather is still a person who is just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside!
Name: Jennifer M.
City: Davenport
Brain Injury: Closed brain injury from fall
Explanation of Mask: Yellow- “Sometimes she is happy, sometimes she is down.” Orange- Sweet potato fries- “It’s good to eat.” brightens the day. Blue: “When you are down and need a friend to call on.” Pillow- “I love my sleep.” Red Velvet Cookie- “I like my sweets.”
Name: Kimberly M.
City: Davenport
Brain Injury:I was born with fetal alcohol syndrome
Explanation of Mask: Favorite color. Reality check. How I used to be and how I am today. Healing and letting go of the past. Fell in love, found true love. You’ll be surprised that I’m more than my brain injury. How smart and funny I am. American- because I am American. Outcast- I am in my own world.
Name: Michael C.
City: Davenport
Brain Injury: Rubella syndrome, and cerebral palsy
Explanation of Mask: Yellow = happy mood. Family most important, life, happy, enjoying life each day, growing, strong, loves baseball. I’m amazing, good spirit, love people and family. Express feelings in a good and sometimes bad way. This is my mask, my emotions, my injury.
Name: Michael S.
City: Davenport
Brain Injury: Car accident in 2006
Explanation of Mask: That thunderbolt represents the actual brain injury. The broken heart represents the loss of life I knew. That black around the eyes represents loss of vision. That red nose represents sticking out like a sore thumb. Those 3 hearts represent my daughter and 2 grandchildren- something to live for. Those cat’s eyes represent my service kitties. Those 2 sets of angel wings represent my mom and sister. That cross represents hope. The star represents loneliness, but also speech trouble. The number 4 stands for Kevin Harvick.
Name: Sarah B.
City: Bettendorf
Brain Injury: 1996- Car crash
Explanation of Mask: How I feel about myself after my BI; Happy face (positive, orange), Brick wall (stubborn, brown), Hard worker (what I need to be to do what I want, red & purple), increased frustration (yellow). “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” (yellow lemons, pink lemonade), glitter represents “letting my light shine”
Name: Erin
City: Akney
Brain Injury: Skull fracture after motorcycle accident
Explanation of Mask: I chose black and gold because I’ve lived in Iowa City my whole life, born and raised an Iowa Hawkeye. The crack in my mask represents the skull fracture I sustained from hitting a deer on my motorcycle in September 2015. I chose to put tears on my mask because since this accident my whole future has changed. I put a frown on my mask because my wife has left me and this is very hard to go through.
Name: Doug
City: Akney
Brain Injury: –
Explanation of Mask: The gray left side of my mask reflects the left side neglect and lifelessness of my left side. The peach color of the right side shows the right side being full of life. The jewels in the corners of the eyes represent tears of sadness and tears of pain that I’m suffering.
Name: Dillon W.
City: Sioux City
Brain Injury: –
Explanation of Mask: The blue is me and the gold is how many placements I have been in. The green is sadness and I have a lot of sadness. The orange is happiness and I have a lot happiness in this placement. OU is the best place I have been in and I have been in alot.
Name: Keagan
City: Sioux City
Brain Injury: –
Explanation of Mask: The reason why I chose red and yellow is because they symbolize me. Red symbolizes peace. Yellow symbolizes happiness. Living with others is a blessing because I want to teach people with the same brain injury as me that there is more to life then feeling bad about yourself.
Name: Don H.
City: Spencer, Iowa
Brain Injury: Closed head injury frontal lobe and both sides
Explanation of Mask: It seems like since I got the head injury, people have wondered what’s wrong with me. So my mask has a brain on it to show that I do still have a brain. The star around the eye stands for a brighter tomorrow. The red pipe cleaners at the top of the mask is to stand for the brain.
Name: Jerry S.
City: Spirit Lake, Iowa
Brain Injury: Frontal left side TBI. Right side of my body took a long time to get back to normal. Left side has been saving grace!
Explanation of Mask: Black for all the trauma! First half of the mask is red for power and determination and other half of the journey!
Name: Rebecca C.
City: Davenport, Iowa
Brain Injury: While at work on May 3rd as an endoscopic nurse, a patient stopped breathing during a procedure. While running across the room to get the rescue bag, I ran into the corner of a metal overhead cabinet and received a traumatic brain injury.
Explanation of Mask: My mask is divided into halves. The left side which is all black with a teardrop represents the different types of feelings as well as emotions I dealt with. Trapped inside my brain wondering what was happening and why I could not just go back to the way I was the morning of May 3rd, 2016. Before my life changed in just a blink of an eye, while at work doing what I loved, taking care of patients as a nurse. The ride side of my mask represents the hope and courage I feel surrounded by the therapists at the LIFT program at Genesis, who empower me every day to keep fighting and help me understand what happened to my brain and how it heals, the emotions and thoughts that left me alone and isolated. In the middle of my mask you see family, friends, kids, mom, nurse, wife and faith. On the sides of the mask are my high and low points. In the middles is where I draw my strength to fight and dig down deep as I continue on my journey healing from this brain injury.
Name: Jackie
City: Davenport, Iowa
Brain Injury: I suffered multiple frontal-lobe strokes due to my lupus. The left brain was worse than the right.
Explanation of Mask: Before my stroke I was very pissed and depressed that I had lupus. I didn’t want it. I was going in for my three-month check up when I had high blood pressure and blood in my urine. I was sent over to a nephrologist, who told me I needed a kidney biopsy. The day after I had it, I had my strokes. For the next week, I don’t remember anything, but apparently I was talking. Then, the next week I was getting better, but I was still calm and confused. They told me I had a stroke, but I was annoyed and wanted to go home. Then, my blood pressure was 230 and wouldn’t go down, so I went back to the hospital and found out that my carotid arteries were stenosid, and that’s why I had a stroke. I felt both worried but also calm, if that makes sense. As if I’m nervous about myself, but that I’m taking things one day at a time. On my mask, I have white space where my storks were, and alligator representing my trouble finding words, faces of all my visitors which were at times overwhelming, a graph showing my progress, but also my carotid arteries, which I am afraid won’t go back down. Also, my face is grey, because I feel so calm and kind of blah.
Name: Robin
City: Davenport, Iowa
Brain Injury: Had a seizure in December 2015 affecting the left frontal lobe. I was on life support and after several months of no answers entered the LIFT Program
Explanation of Mask: The eyes are saying I feel different. Above the eyes show I am afraid; straight line shows I am determined and courageous but yet distracted and have dizziness. The 3 tears represent grief, the 4 tears represent my tenderness in this new life, the many tears on the right represent my guilt in how this has affected my spouse and family. The upward cheek lines are appreciation for those who love me. The downward cheeks lines are my embarrassment right now. The mouth represents on the left that I am wanted, the middle diamonds represent that I feel cherished, and the right side represents my hope that things will get better.
Name: Eileen D.
City: Ankeny, Iowa
Brain Injury: Aneurysm
Explanation of Mask: My mask represents my different emotions that I go through. The purple side is where I sustained my injury and it is to support the survivors of brain injury. The blue is for my grumpy days. Pink represents happy days that keep me moving! Orange represents my mom, who was an active advocate for brain injury.
Name: Jason R.
City: Coralville, Iowa
Brain Injury: Fell from the top of the stairs and landed at the bottom from the top.
Explanation of Mask: Kiss Rockstar because I feel like a rockstar who is famous. I also have a lot of hatred because I am under civil commitment because of my brain injury. I also feel energetic now because I ride a bike for 2 miles. Now I just got hired at a restaurant to wash dishes because I feel optimistic. I don’t know how I am going to do at work.