Medical Recovery

Angela Leigh Tucker had not expected death that day. Newlywed, thirty years old and a successful public relations professional, she and her husband were driving home when a semi-truck hurtled over the center-lane divider and crushed their SUV. Her husband died on impact. She was left hanging onto life by a thin, golden thread. With her brain severely injured and her neck, shoulder, and ribs broken, she had instantly lost everything but her will to live.

At the age of 27, married, living in New York, and working in book design, Mary Cregan gives birth to her first child, a daughter she names Anna. But it’s apparent that something is terribly wrong, and two days later, Anna dies - plunging Cregan into suicidal despair. Decades later, sustained by her work, a second marriage, and a son, Cregan reflects on this pivotal experience and attempts to make sense of it. She weaves together literature and research with details from her own ordeal - and the still visible scar of her suicide attempt....

"Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar Through the Head" is a report by Dr John M Harlow on the case of Phineas P. Gage who survived an accident in 1848 in which an iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for the injury's reported effects on his personality - friends considered him “to be no longer Gage." The author states that the case serves to show the wonderful resources of the system in enduring the shock and overcoming the effects of so frightful a lesion....

After 24 years in healthcare, one fateful evening transformed Mandi from practitioner to patient. A motor vehicle accident left her with a significant traumatic brain injury that has taken her much longer than expected to recover from. Follow along as she shares her journey back from her worst day through the first year.

Richard Carlson Jr. was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 21 years of age. His illness first manifested when he was an early adolescent. Modern psychiatry greatly failed Richard for over a decade. Then, after an incident involving the police, he truly understood that his diagnosis was real, and finally began the long process of recovery. Over 10 years later, his life is greatly improved. In the course of his treatment, Richard also recovered from depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and lethargy.