Episode 2: Daniel Gospodarek - Tragic to triumph, a TBI story

Facing a traumatic brain injury (TBI) with grit and perseverance, Daniel refused to let the accident define him and used his experience to help others.

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Transcript

have you ever encountered adversity and bounce back and through the process became a better version of yourself today we will hear such a story but first let's look at the good news around the world

okay [Music] so what are some of the good news that happened this past past couple of weeks

what's your favorite Lily my favorite is Taylor Swift oh what's happening there she you know she's who hasn't gone to her concert except for us but everybody I know has gone to her concert and she's making a lot of a lot of little girls women even men very very happy at these concerts okay so that's already happiness there but she earned a lot of money a ton of money yeah and she gave her like truck drivers 100K a piece so that's that's what did somebody say life changes it's life-changing um to not hoard it for yourself and to share that's really good and that's why everybody loves Taylor Swift yeah

yeah that's um well you know what would you say to someone you know she can't do that because she had lots of money she does have a lot of money but she didn't have to it's true so does do you think average people can do that I mean I don't mean give a million but be generous like that

meaningful give meaningfully yes I mean do you all I'm sure people give their um your guy a bonus for Christmas that's true yeah comes Christmas yeah little things like that I think it's the showing of I think more than money itself I'm sure for the truck drivers the money is is speaks very loudly because it probably helps their livelihood um but it's being recognized and being appreciated appreciated yeah and obviously you know that that just give financially but you know maybe like even the time to give a hand you know and you know that that's important too yeah yeah which one's your favorite of all the good news that you saw lately well I saw one today on the hello world uh posting it was really sweet to see this two this older couple they're probably in their I don't know 80s uh you know and they're just running around and in the beach uh chasing each other being very playful and um really acting much younger than their age so it's very it put a smile on my face yeah yeah yeah they're so playful they're so playful so what what uh what feeling is you creating you to when you look at this makes me ready to go to the beach no I mean even even yeah sometimes you don't want to act your age right age just a number you gotta no I like the fact that the husband and wife being you know uh upping it in years or still know how to have fun together to me that's uh how do we know their husband and wife no maybe they're having the fair is that what you're suggested please bring it back to the good news okay this is a family show Lily oh wait it says growing all together yeah growing all together exactly that's what we look forward to and now let's meet Daniel when he was 17 years old he suffered a traumatic brain injury but now he's a social worker helping others let's meet Daniel

[Music]

Welcome to our podcast Daniel thank you for joining us to share your story thank you so much for having me I'm so excited to be here with you all thank you well you know I was thinking about how I was I was going to introduce the first question because there's no easy way your story had kind of a tough beginning and if you could just share with the audience what was that uh incident yeah so the kind of real beginning that gave my life a lot of purpose and Direction was a traumatic brain injury from an auto accident my going into my senior year of high school so July um in that summer summer Gap and from that accident we rolled four times three times on the cement one time in the in the ditch and then one time into a field a farm field you know I was knocked unconscious the driver of the vehicle because it's just a one car rollover that was not knocked unconscious and was able to really find our cell phones call for help call EMS and then when EMS was there and assessing me since we were in a rural a rural area of Wisconsin where I'm originally from okay take me to just just like a regular hospital and oh like just coincidentally his mom is a nurse and spoke to the EMS providers and was like Hey if he has head injury he needs to be checked into a higher level trauma unit or hospital because by the time you check him in there get him over assessed and then send them back over he could be dead or brain dead so then they they pivoted where they were going to take me and they took me to a higher level trauma so I really credit those two people the driver who was my next door neighbor uh where I grew up as well as his mom with a big part of Saving my life wow so you you guys were in the summer probably yeah it was like five o'clock in the afternoon going going about your summer day and lo and behold um what triggered that rollover so the it was kind of a SUV type vehicle the right two wheels went off the road Emma mind you this is real Wisconsin so it's just gravel on the side of the road right two wheels went off and then the driver corrected we were in the oncoming Lane because it was just a two-lane and then corrected again and when when it was corrected again the vehicle just kind of I see the grip the cement and went and from there I was I had to have brain surgery I had a stroke in my left front frontal lobe fractured my skull and then I had a collapsed lung workers on the ICU Unit were just just told my parents like we don't know if he'll make it through the night if he does the next 24 hours are really going to show us a lot in terms of what his recovery may look like if it might be slow if it might be fast and they kept me in a coma for three days wow and I don't know the number of nights afterwards but they would allow me to come out of the coma during the day and then they would put me back in for a few nights why did they keep you in the coma is to prevent stroke additional um or to calm your brain probably I think I think to calm my body um to not allow a lot of Sensations one of the things even when I was in the coma they told my family that like you can't touch him right now because of the sensations in his body um so much so you can't even touch him so they could just look at me right and I mean thinking of that from like a mother or father perspective right or older sisters and stuff like that um yes because you want to like hug them closed right right right exactly so so I did 10 days in the ICU and then after that did seven days of Inpatient Rehab and that was a lot of physical therapy I did some occupational therapy some or a lot of speech therapy so that so you're immediate so brain surgery and then you had um like I guess rehab um

then tell me more about your more extended recovery what does that look like and um how did you what was the I guess at the whether you're discharged from the hospital what was your outlook when I was in the ICU they told me I probably wouldn't graduate high school with the cohort that I started and I told them I would and I don't know why I said that like if that was just stubbornness or what yeah because as as kind of the meds fade right because you're on some pretty pretty potent meds while you're in the ICU and kind of phasing out you know it's it's very foggy after a brain injury can't think straight fatigue levels through the roof sleeping you know 14 16 hours a day taking naps like just going to the bathroom is exhausting and so my first thing was okay we're home right what do we do and from that process my my mom was taking time off work one of my my oldest sister at the time had rearranged her undergraduate schedule school schedule to be able to be at home to you know because my mom couldn't be off indefinitely because she's still working right so it's definitely took a lot of support and you know then this question came of like are you gonna go to school right and what is if you do what is that going to look like so then we had the rope in my high school and they were so supportive they allowed me to do two half days of school um the first semester yes and I and I would come home because we had the block schedule so it was like an hour and a half you know hour and a half class or hour and 20 some minutes whatever it was per period so I did two two of those classes and I would come home and take a two or three hour nap yeah you know I feel like from that time forward right from when when I got home from the hospital I didn't really have all too much of a plan like I wasn't like okay I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this it was just kind of like let's see where you're at in a week right let's let's see because it was you feel so out of place in terms of your body doesn't look the same your head doesn't feel the same your thinking isn't the same and as a 17 year old you know turning 18 soon like that's your identity like you're forming it at that period of your life yes so to not be able to hang out with friends to not be able to go to bonfires on Friday night right or do things that they were doing like going to play pick up basketball games because you were already asleep at seven right like those things there's a lot of guilt and shame and just grief and loss in terms of those processes yes because that's the best year senior year finally made it right because senior year especially I don't know if you it sounds a lot it sounded like you went to you live in you grew up in a smaller town so school is the Hub yeah

so that was your Hub of life and and now you're kind of a little bit sidelined because of the injury wow so so they told you you're not going to graduate with the group and I guess it's not it wasn't uh insensitive of them because it like you say it took you the whole all your energy just to go to the restroom yeah to think about going to classes right they were being realistic I think yeah right you don't want to set you up for a failure either but I also think that sometimes our world operates by what is said and not like what our capacity or what our internal strengths might be yes and we sometimes buy into that right yeah were you before your your incident or accident um did you have that personality of uh don't tell me I can't I grew up rural Wisconsin farming you know 12-hour days already in sixth grade on the farm grew up playing sports so like definitely that push yourself mentality sure I definitely just have innate stubbornness for my parents um you can thank them for that right right so and it has good times and it has it has its hard times too right um so I think it was a culmination of those things but it also just wasn't me I mean it was my speech therapist that I got to see two to three times a week going through 15 months of speech therapy right 17 months wow so really like getting to know her or her getting to know me right but also like being able to sit with me when she's asking me like what are the different forms of there that you can remember and I'm like only one like you know like should I actually know more right and I know I should know more but I can't tell you what they are so during that 17 months or however long your your recovery Journey was um because today you're I wouldn't have known you had a traumatic brain injury so kudos to all the therapy and in all the support that you received and plus probably your own hard work you know what um did you think you were was there a time that you thought I may not fully recover or because you talked about you don't even look the same you know everything is different did you ever think you would was there any doubt that something may not go back all together 100 percent [Music] that's a good question I don't know if it was conscious doubt right it was more of just like let's take this thing day by day by week right and see where we're at in three months six months and I think you start building momentum so they took my license after I was in a and had brain surgery because you know it's probably not the best thing for me to get behind a wheel right um and you know so I got my license back I want to say like October or November of that same year and but I had to retake the test and then I started working out again and like you start to build like momentum and I think the probably the heart some of the hardest times for me specifically were you know in the Inpatient Rehab bad and kind of coming not not coming to terms but like it's starting to settle in right like okay like I'm not going home right now and then the other times were some of the post concussions that you would get because your head is already so sensitive right so any kind of minor like you bump it on a cupboard that's left open and concussion right and like those concussions then mess with your sleep and then they get intertwined with like okay I can't fall asleep now you get anxious to go to sleep so you don't even want to go to sleep and like those battles inside your head were so for me were so difficult like I would just I would just I would go to bed at eight so I could fall asleep by ten right oh wow where most people are like okay I'll go to bed probably you know go to bed fall asleep in a half hour 20 minutes whatever it is depending on my day but for me I would have to like time out my day right when I would go to sleep and like those things are really challenging to do when I would get those concussions and I was I I noticed I was like is this ever gonna go away right like those pieces yeah you you share with us um when we met you previously um in our previous call that it took a village to help you recover yeah were there any um one or two individuals or groups or people that really were pivotal to your recovery and um you know if they stepped out of their normal course of besides their role to to really have encouraged you mm-hmm yeah so a the driver right like even though this was an accident outside of my family he was the only person I would trust to drive me somewhere um because he saved my life right and you know him and I still talk almost every year on the anniversary at least at least a message or a text or something obviously my mom was huge right taking time off of work working from home my sister too for being able to rearrange her her work schedule ER I'm sorry her College schedule right to be at home um even though she was taking college classes during the summer and then also my school Community right being able to say okay like this is how we can adjust to make sure you still graduate with enough credits it'll be the bare minimum but you'll still graduate right yes and just kind of that Community friends and how they supported me in terms of you know making sure hallways in high school can get pretty rambunctious right yes and you know they were they were aware enough that when I walked by they would kind of settle down right so I didn't get bumped and fall over because I didn't have my full gate their balance yet so yeah well it's thank you for sharing that I'm sure um it's not fun to relive um those moments but I think it helps people to understand where you came from um and and how what it wasn't an easy road to come back to and you know so easy I think so easy to give in to the circumstance and said this is it um you know um and some people don't try to recover as well as they can because they probably felt defeated um yeah right and we're always going to get anyone who's gonna get hit with that level of adversity and it might be in different forms right traumatic brain injury cancer suicidal thoughts whatever it might be and like we have those Choice points or pivotal points where we can say like I'm gonna use this as a foundation even though I don't even know how I'm going to right and it might be five years from now we don't know that's right did you always have this type of positive outlet because you're seem very positive now there was positivity beforehand I don't think it was the level of where it's at and what I mean by that is before the accident I didn't really know where I was going with my life you know maybe a business degree maybe the military afterwards you know and my brain was starting to clear I talked to my sister um who was also going to school for social work and I was like I wanna I'm gonna end up in this helping sector I don't know where though right nurse doctor PT OT speech therapist and then she was like check out social work and I was like interesting so so I looked up the curriculum like okay let's do this like it sounds pretty cool and I I loved it right maybe it was from my own experience working with the speech therapist my own mental health therapist right or one of just being one-on-one with the physical therapists and those different forms of Service delivery that I was like I kind of want that one-on-one piece right where we can make those big gains and you can't really do that with the Bachelor's in social work because you can't be you can't be licensed you can't um you can't do individual therapy or group therapy or couples it's working you can work at some level in in medical or veteran hospitals but you can't do the individual therapy stuff so I was like okay let's do this right and then signed up and you know so you have a master a mask you have a masters in yes in yes I have my bachelor's and masters in social work so wow so that's so that's great so you're not only um able to finish your bachelor's but you went out and get your Masters um in a helping sector which I like how you how you said in a helping sector so tell us how are you using your um helping sector training how are you helping right now yeah so I when I graduated or when I was in my master's program I did an internship at a psychiatric hospital and I still work there today as a as a licensed clinical social worker so I worked there full time and then I also started my own private practice I started as just kind of a side thing and then as time went on I was like wow I can really put my touch on this and like hone into a my experience of TBI recovery and provide TBI related therapy and support and consultation and coaching as well as you know there are other parts to tbis there are other parts to how those tbis are sustained or may manifest right so also doing trauma and PTSD and complex PTSD work um and then because I work at a psych hospital I also have seen and worked with a lot of different mental health challenges so schizophrenia psychosis bipolar depression anxiety I I cannot I also work work with those right now wow okay and and like you say they all TBI just to remind our viewers it's that it's traumatic brain injury right TBI um you're using your recovery experience and now you're coaching others um who may be going through recovery experience whether it's traumatic brain or other um recovery that's usually a journey yeah yeah and usually usually I don't share it off the bat I mean it's on my website so people can read about it if they want right but not everyone looks at the about page there's like I need therapy right um so I share it you know at a crucial moment when maybe they're really challenging and I ask for that invitation of can I share a little bit here um that may maybe maybe of some you know support or just validation because it is it is long I mean I still have to pay attention to not hitting my head right I still can't you know go snowboarding on the side of a mountain because I mean I guess I could but if I fall it would be disastrous right so like why take that risk and I think recovery is can be very much the same in terms of okay like you know maybe you're 10 years from 10 years clean of alcohol or something says like maybe I could try again right maybe I could control it maybe you can history may say something different right um so so looking at those pieces and not just recovery from addiction but also just recovery from trauma recovery from anxiety or even schizophrenia right well we are a good news podcast and I think thank you so much for sharing your um your hard experience but I think at the end um they're the good news is there I can hear your gratefulness of those who have been part of your journey in recovery and and really saving your life at the get-go with the sharp thinking of calling my mom's a nurse let me call her and making sure that and she told the paramedics to take you to the the appropriate Hospital um but what what propelled you to come on the podcast today what's what's the story you want to um the bottom line that you want to share with the viewers and again links links back to what we were talking about earlier where we have these difficult situations that arise no one's immune to them and will they suck and be shitty yes and we can still live out our values despite that stress or that shittiness right yes be it you know traumatic brain injury or whatever it might be um will it be easy I can't say that it will be but we can still pursue our values despite XYZ happening right and I think when we're in our values we're able to have a sense of ease in Life or just a sense of connection that we're living authentically versus moving the other direction yes well thank you so much for really sharing and being vulnerable and hopefully my questions wasn't too probing oh it was great thank you so much for allowing me to be here yeah I I'm I'm just um moved by how you're not letting a situation that is bad um to Define you you redefined your your situation and you took it from like from a 17 year old who didn't know what you're going to do next to I want to be in a helping situation and and you went for it not just in a casual way you said I have to have a master's degree in order to make a difference and you did what you have to do are you still doing it today so congratulations I um you know like I said in the beginning it's really hard to start this out there's no nice way to say what happened other than it something bad happened but you you didn't let that be your defining moment you had you you triumphed over that so that's that's the the something to really to celebrate congratulate you yes of course thank you so much thank you so thank you for joining us and I hope you have you're you're going to be able to help a whole bunch of other people um down the road and like you say things happen hopefully they come across someone like you who can give them the support the be part of their Village yeah for sure thank you so much take care foreign and that brings us to the end of another exciting episode of hello world please support our podcast by hitting the Subscribe button also don't forget to smash that like your likes will help our podcast reach more awesome people like you lastly tap that notification Bell to receive instant alert whenever we drop in a new episode we can't wait to see you again on our next episode until then keep on being a positive force in this world