Mark Kerrigan, a head injury survivor, has come almost full-circle since his brain trauma. Since April 1989, he has finished high school, graduated with a 3.3 GPA from Belmont University, and has founded his own business called On the Mark Writing.
Mark has relearned how to walk, talk, hold his head upright, and has learned how precious this life really is. He loves flyfishing and spending time with his wife and son, has a great sense of humor and a firm grasp on the benefits of social networking.
Having lived in Nashville, Tenn. since 1985, he is a self-professed grammarian, which is only fitting since he graduated with a degree in English and Journalism.
Mark spent four weeks–most of April, 1989–in a coma, during which time the doctors didn’t know if he’d ever be able to take care of himself. (At least that’s what they told his parents.) After being comatose for a month, his muscles had begun to atrophy (get smaller from inactivity), and he’d gone from a lean 125 lbs. to an emaciated 80 lbs.
Mark’s closed head injury left him with two epidural hematomas (blood clots) on the left side of his brain. The surgeons removed part of his skull on the left side of his head to relieve the pressure and hopefully prevent any brain damage.
As a result of his motor vehicle crash, Mark lost the ability to walk, talk, swallow, and even to hold his urine. As he emerged from his long “sleep,” He quickly realized he couldn’t do what he had, only weeks earlier, been able to do without even a second thought.
It was the grace of God, the loving support, unwavering patience and the kindness of Mark’s family that brought him through and now allows him to serve as a beacon of hope for others who are in a similar situation or have family members who have suffered some sort of head trauma, either from an accident, multiple concussions, stroke or hypoxia.
What Mark plans to relay to readers in this blog, are stories of pain—some of which still make him wonder, “What the Hell was I thinking?”—and stories of triumph and hope. From years in neuro rehab, he feels that though there isn’t an M.D., a Ph.D., or other letters following his name, he’s an expert about what Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) survivors commonly experience.
We welcome whatever comments, questions, and personal experiences you’d like to share.
onthemarkwriting
September 6, 2009 at 12:17 pm |
Mark, glad you’ve waded through the shadows and made it out the other side…
As for me , I hope to get there and say hey!
Maybe some day…
September 15, 2009 at 6:12 pm |
Hi Mark,
Congrats on your accomplishments and this great blog.
I first found you on Twitter and was wondering if you could send a tweet about my research on handwriting and written expression after brain injury? I’m interested in learning more about people’s post-injury experiences.
[text deleted]
My contact info can also be found there if you have any questions or want to get in touch. I apologize for the public post. I was looking for a way to send a private email but was unsuccessful. (Feel free to delete this message from public view.)
Thanks for your time and consideration.
September 24, 2009 at 2:07 am |
Mark,
Great site. My wife is recover from a brain injury received two years. We can relate to the struggles. Keep up the good work.
September 24, 2009 at 3:41 pm |
Jim – I’m glad that you can relate to the struggles I experience since my head injury. (Well, I didn’t mean it the way it sounds.) I’m sorry that you and your wife have sustained brain trauma — and that’s exactly what it is — You both are dealing with the injury.
One reason I started writing this blog was to provide encouragement to other people who, like your wife, have sustained brain injury AND their families.
I relate the stories, many of which I’m not proud, to let people know that their “survivor” is not the only person in the world who takes inappropriate actions.
How is your wife doing? Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about her recovery or if you just need someone to talk to.
Thanks for your comment,
Mark
November 14, 2009 at 5:56 am |
Greetings. You people seem fresh out of the isolation of disability. It is good to find you now that some glimmer of brain science is starting to show that your brain is not an impossible machine to understand. I have never been much of a reader but I have read a few books on neurology. I started with Eric Kandel’s “In Search Of Memory” which I thought was a the best, most readable brain book around. He gave human feeling to it with his stories of being a Jew in the war but his biggest discovery was that you use proteins to connect neurons that make long term memories. Then I went back to Julian Jaynes’s “The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind” which I tried to read in high school. I know it now as a great romp through ancient history but quite naive and to a large part neurologicly wrong. Then I read Joseph LeDoux’s “Synaptic Self”. Half of his book was a list of what books and research reports he has read. In the end he comes to the blindingly obvious conclusion: your brain is what it is. He left out the chemistry of how it gets there.
Like I said I don’t read a lot of books. I got a degree in chemical engineering without reading the books – I listened well to the lectures. We are so close to knowing how the whole brain system works. From what I have read it seems obvious that your brain is a coincidence machine. Things have to come together at the same time to have an effect on your brain. But there is all the details. How short a time is the “same time”? How big a thing is a “thing”? And how big is an “effect”? There is an electrical wave that travels across your brain. Does that push a few things coming together to enough to cause a reaction? And how big is the reaction? Big enough to move a muscle (or two) to make you talk or run or blink?
This is more than I would usually take time to read so I will stop my two-finger typing with the thought of my mugging and the lymphatic system.