'Like meeting a new person' - living with brain injury

Everything changed dramatically in the moment Elizabeth Eastland slipped at a water park two summers ago and hit the back of her head, suffering a traumatic brain injury.

“I felt like my head was going to explode,” said the 47-year-old single mom and community advocate from Culpeper.

Diagnosed with post-concussive syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder, Eastland, former director of the local domestic violence program, in an instant saw her professional life slip away along with her memory, marriage and former level of cognitive ability. Words jumbled when she spoke and she was unable to concentrate when reading. Eastland could not keep up with conversations or recall what was just discussed.

Though she has since regained some of these skills, the former administrator of Services to Abused Families is living a life forever altered.

“I thought I was too inappropriate to be in public,” Eastland said. “I don’t know what I will say next.”

Headaches, dizziness, depression and anger are other brain injury byproducts she is learning to cope with, and so is her 13-year-old daughter, Taylor Johnson, an eighth-grader at Culpeper Middle School.

“My daughter says I go behind a wall of anger and she can’t get to me,” Eastland said.

Taylor Johnson, left plays with the family dog with her mom, Elizabeth Eastwood, whose

life hasbeen changed since suffering a brain injury two years ago.

Continue reading; www2.starexponent.com