By Tanya Cronin

Shining a light on brain injuries

Jun 25, 2018 | 4:47 PM

KAMLOOPS—It’s often referred to as an invisible injury. You look the same, everything on the surface seems normal, but there is something different. Brain injuries come in various degrees, and with a host of symptoms that impact each person in a different way. June is Brain Injury Awareness Month, a time to shine a light on an injury that isn’t always obvious and is sometimes dismissed.

“This was a ride we do every week through the summer, we had decided that evening to go to Ashcroft and up to Logan Lake and then back into town to have supper,” says Rick Parker, Brain Injury Survivor.

It was a ride on a summer’s evening that Rick Parker had done countless times before. But when he hit the road with friends nearly two years ago on August 18, Rick’s life change forever.

“I came around a corner, I leaned into the corner and a deer ran out from the side of the road, and the deer struck me at about a 45 degree angle and his head was literally in my lap, and knocked me off my motorcycle at 80 km’s an hour.”

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Rick, a professional rider with 50 years’ experience, was thrown down a 40 foot embankment, he suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in critical condition. Suddenly a short bike ride put him on a long road to recovery.

“I literally couldn’t read, I can barely hold conversation, I can barely follow a conversation, that’s the way I went home from the hospital.”

Hours of rehabilitation including vision therapy, exercise, and now building stained glass bird houses, has all been therapeutic for Rick’s brain. But the 22 months since the crash haven’t been easy, taking his family on a wrenching loop of despair, hope and slow recovery.

“Your whole life turns over, everything changes in a split second, it was a struggle that first 6 months was really quite awful,” says Candy Parker, Rick’s Wife.

In a time of crisis, the Parker’s turned to the Kamloops Brain Injury Association, and for Rick’s wife Candy, it has meant the world.

“They have a caregivers support group, caregivers show up, we exchange ideas, we talk and it was such a relief to be talking to somebody and other people who have been through similar.”

“If you’re someone who’s caring for someone with a brain injury, you can come down here and learn more about brain injury, or sometime it’s just talking to other people,” says Dave Johnson, KBIA Executive Director. 

In Kamloops, there are nearly 1000 people living with a brain injury. Through various programs the KBIA helps survivors and their families regain a sense of safety and belonging, cope with memory loss and personality changes.

As a way of giving back, Rick has developed bird house kits for other brain injury survivors. And while it’s a hobby that’s helped him recover, Rick says it’s his wife that’s made life now at all possible.    

I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here without my wife, she was my caregiver and she helped me through and still does, because I’m not 100% and I won’t be,” says Parker.

If you or someone you know is suffering from a brain injury and to find out more information on the programs offered at the KBIA visit www.kbia.ca