It was Saturday, June 4th, 2011 and I was in the stepdown unit at Elmhurst hospital in Queens, New York, almost one month after sustaining a severe TBI [traumatic brain injury] that left me comatose for 12 days. The emergency department was bustling with people struggling to survive gunshots, car accidents, violence, and overdoses, and […]

A video was taken on May 30th, 2011. I was originally extubated (taken off of a respirator) on May 20th after 12 days in a coma. I don’t remember anything, including this video, in between those comas. In this video you can hear how difficult it is for me to breathe. It only got worse. […]

Friday, May 20th, 2011: Since she had been told to do so, my mom was there each day to sing and to talk to me as if I was present, because, on some level, I was. She put a ball in my hand and instructed me to squeeze, explaining what I would need to do […]

The next email was written on the morning of Friday the 13th, 2011. Sent: Fri, May 13, 2011 7:09 amSubject: Cavin Update Friday May 13th Hi All, Just wanted to give you an update. When I arrived at the hospital yesterday, Cavin was restless and showing signs of arousal. I put my hand in his […]

MAY 10. 2011: SHAKE, RATTLE, AND ROLL! The morning started with My mom’s phone alarm shaking her from her terrifying dream. For a few seconds a false relief peeped into her head. “It’s just a dream,” she thought. This brief moment of calm before the storm of anxiety and fear was the only moment of […]

Last night, the sun set, closing out the 9th year that I had been alive since briefly departing. 9 years ago today, a fall from a rooftop water tower scaffolding left me in a coma for 12 days before serious complications arose with the need to induce a second coma. If I were to do […]

I was so lucky to have made it out from underneath that scaffolding alive. You are so nice to me. Everything was perfect that night. Drinking like pirates, without fear that dawn would arrive. My right hand in your left hand and your left in my right. May everything stay like this for a long […]

 There is a very important event that I have not written about, but I feel that I am now ready to share it with the world. So I am going to go back in time just before I left New York. On the day that I saw my dog, my old apartment, and a bit […]

*Learn more at www.feedabrain.com Through the process of my rehabilitation I have encountered a plethora of different ailments and therapies. I feel that it is most important to illustrate the therapies that I am still using for some of these ailments. As there are many different ailments, I will focus cogently on double vision. I […]

Since this post, my nutritional perspectives have evolved (get it?). Learn more at www.feedabrain.com Every living organism on this planet – be it bacteria, amoebae, fungi, plants, insects or animals – has some sort of a digestive system and some sort of a nervous system. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary states that “Organisms undergo metabolism, maintain […]

Only two months before my brain injury, I had joined a few acquaintances from New York on their tour to Austin for the biggest music festival in the world. South by South West (SXSW) is a two week music, film, and interactive festival that happens in mid March in Austin, TX. I have always been […]

Yesterday, on Valentines Day, I spoke to the Texas House Appropriations Committee to encourage them to continue to fund the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services to help to provide rehabilitative services as well as to provide interpreters for the deaf, and assistance to help with early childhood developmental difficulties. After hearing many tearjerkers […]