Kaitlyn's Recovery Story  

Kaitlyn was in an accident in Bali, Indonesia resulting in a traumatic brain injury and multiple fractures two years ago. She was evacuated to a Bay Area ICU where she spent 2.5 months and had multiple surgeries. She was dependent on a ventilator to breath and a feeding tube to eat.  Kaitlyn was then accepted into the Respiratory Rehabilitation Unit at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) and started working on ventilator weaning and therapies including speech therapy for swallowing and cognition, physical therapy for transfers, range of motion and strengthening, and occupational therapy for personal care.  Once she was able to participate in three hours of therapy each day and weaned off the ventilator, Kaitlyn transferred to the Acute Rehabilitation Unit where she participated in many more hours of therapy. She relearned how to walk, strengthened her voice for talking, and worked on becoming more independent with her activities of daily living like brushing her teeth and showering.

Due to a lot of hard work from Kaitlyn, support from her family, and the expertise of the team at the Rehabilitation Center at SCVMC, Kaitlyn has come a long way since her injury two years ago. She is now working full time as an activities coordinator for a local memory care unit. She loves her job and reports that she has developed a lot of patience as a result of her injury and recovery process. Kaitlyn, along with two other young adults who are also TBI survivors, started a support group for young adults. They get together each month for fun activities. You can follow them here @beat.the.bias.

Reflecting back on her rehabilitation experience, here are some of the things Katilyn remembers most:

Favorite part of Rehab: “Participating in physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, respiratory therapy and recreation therapy because the therapists helped me to progress.  I also enjoyed it when I got to go on an outing because it was the holidays and I hadn’t been out of the hospital for months!”

Least Favorite part of Rehab: “Having a tracheostomy and not being able to eat food through my mouth for so long.”

Words of wisdom: ”Even though it’s challenging and it feels like the injuries are defeating you, if you work hard, you can get where you see yourself going”.