29 Aug 2016
Educational Goals:
I am a second year student and the University of Wisconsin La Crosse (UWL). I would like to graduate from UWL with a degree in microbiology in no more than five years, while maintaining a 3.500/4.000 GPA to receive high honors. After graduation I wish to continue my education and pursue a PhD in either immunology or virology to can study infectious diseases. I want to conduct research that leads to a treatment or vaccine that saves human lives.
TBI Effects:
In the fall of my junior year of high school, I suffered a TBI which put me out of school for a month. Although life-changing, I have not let the injury define me, but rather use it for self-improvement. My thought-process, emotions, and physical fitness were impaired most noticeably. For a few months my only focus was school, but when I started to think clearly I started off on the long road to complete recovery.
The first step I took along the road was an unsteady one. Many big injuries result in weight gain and muscle loss, but the TBI had also thrown off my sense of balance and my agility too. Seemingly simple tasks like walking up stairs without a railing, running, and walking in a straight line were suddenly not so easy for me. Thankfully, a physical therapist helped to strengthen my muscles to a point where I was comfortable with a short, slow jog. My balance was still not perfect and I was still not very agile, but they were improving and I could continue to improve them on my own. At this point my energy was used elsewhere though. My fitness was put on the back burner while I tried to start with cognitive problems.
Education has been and always will be important to me; after my TBI though, school was not as easy as it had been before. I could no longer easily memorize information from a lecture. I was having trouble listening to teachers and writing at the same time, and I found it more difficult to solve problems that required intuition. My solution to this problem was to spend hours and hours studying every night, which left me with no time for friends, fun, or fitness. I kept my high school GPA nearly steady with my method, but missed out on countless opportunities for fun. The countless hours I worked taught me a valuable lesson for college though. I learned how to sit down, tune out distractions, and put in hours of studying with more advanced study tactics than simply reading over notes as I had done before the TBI. By this time my grades were strong, my body was strong enough, but I was an emotional wreck.
My emotions were the part of me that was hit the hardest by this injury. I was in a near constant state of anger, rage, and hostility towards others in school. I was disliked by many people because I could not control my anger around them, and they did not know the chaos going on in my head. Admittedly, I hurt myself by not letting others get close when I first came back to school and had everyone’s sympathy. Instead I put on a show as if I was fine, and was treated as such because of it. I think people just assumed rude was a new part of my personality, and everyone kept there distance from me to avoid it. I had isolated myself and quickly became extremely lonely, sad, and even angrier because no one liked me. I knew I needed to make the biggest change of my life yet to solve this.
My next step along the road to recovery involved a complete change at the way I looked at everything. I was far too pessimistic and felt that was the origin of my problems. I remember I literally Google-d “how to be optimistic” and spent a few hours reading articles and researching how to be an optimist. I slowly started using some of the tactics. The most useful one, one I still use, required me to stop and think before making judgements. I would look at a situation or event and think of how everyone else was positively affected, and then I thought of how I was affected. This helped me to not put myself first when thinking and forming opinions. By putting others first in my thoughts, I was less insulting and rude. I was still hurting others too much though.
I found that by working hard, my mind was distracted from thinking about how sad and angry I really was. I ran my own lawn service business, and found that in combination with school work I was way to busy to think about myself. Luckily, all my clients and one really good friend helped me to practice being nice to others. My clients did not know they were helping, but if I wanted them to stay with me as clients I had to be polite and respectful. My good friend, Kaleigh, pointed out my flaws I could not see. She would cite specific incidences of my rudeness that I had never noticed of before, and by bringing them to my attention I was able to improve upon them. Finally, by the end of high school I had roughly sculpted myself into a decent person. I was still not the nicest, not the smartest, and not the most physically fit; but I had made great headway on the path and college was a huge opportunity for further improvement.
Last year, my first year of college, was just what I needed to continue improving myself. By surrounding myself with people who had never known the pre-TBI version of myself, I was free of judgement for how I had changed. These were all new people to me as well, so I had no reason to be angry with them and as a result I was able to treat them respectfully. For the first time in my life, the desire to become physically fit really hit me too. I trained hard for many months and ran my first half marathon. My grades were as strong as my legs too, and I was able to finish the year with a 3.740/4.000 GPA.
My life was severely damaged immediately following my TBI, but not belong the point of repair. Thanks to the love and support of my family, a few good life coaches, and my driven attitude, I was able to turn a terrible injury into positive changes. I will never be perfect, but I will strive for it as long as there is a better version of myself to be made. I will not let my past define who I am, instead I will remember it and use its life-changing effects to their full potential on the road of life.