For troops and the military system trying to help them, traumatic brain injury is new territory

[unhappycamper]

After three years of unknowingly suffering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), former soldier Lt. Mike McMichael is getting treatment for injuries he sustained from a roadside bomb.


For troops and the military system trying to help them, traumatic brain injury is new territory
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, December 10, 2008

FRANKLINTON, N.C. — The first thing that 1st Lt. Mike McMichael felt when he regained consciousness was a stinging sensation.

It was the hot coffee he had been carrying in a thermos, which split when the roadside bomb went off on his side, flipping his vehicle.

Even though he had been unconscious for a couple of minutes, Mike appeared to have escaped the blast uninjured.

By the time he was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury nearly three years later, he had lost his job, faced financial ruin and nearly wrecked his marriage. His story shows all the pain that can result when TBI is not detected early.

"At least two, three years of all the pain that we’ve suffered, that our marriage has suffered, that our cute little boys here had go through, could have been avoided through proactive measures," said his wife, Jackie.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59315