City: Asheville

Brain Injury: Damage to my right temporal and left frontal lobes from a bicycle/train collision in 1985.

Explanation of Mask: Like most TBI survivors, I feel like my life was divided into two parts by my accident. Prior to that, I was on my way, nineteen years old, accepted to art school, in a serious relationship, and on my way to a new job. The next thing I knew, I was practically paralyzed, with tubes in all my orifices, unable to talk or think. Thirty years later, I have a new life, but one with immense challenges due to problems with learning new things, a tremor in my right arm/hand, and weakness on my right side. I have a hard time controlling my anger. I take medication for seizures, recurring blood clots, and for depression. I am single, when all I wanted was a family of my own. I suffer from insomnia and have lost my self-confidence. I am glad to be alive. There are many, many good things about my life, but it is not the life I expected to be living.