Atticus Lim: Neither my family nor I knew what to expect
I suffered a traumatic brain injury during a basketball game in my sophomore year of high school when I was charged and my head slammed into the hardwood court.
You can see it here (not for the faint-hearted!).
I was diagnosed with a level 3 severe concussion, but neither my family nor I knew what to expect. In fact, I missed six weeks of school and struggled to do even the simplest tasks.
It has been almost 1.5 years since my injury, and I now know so much more about what it means to live with a brain injury: missing countless tests, stopping sports, constantly communicating with doctors and teachers, and negotiating academic accommodations, etc. I have suffered a lot from visual fatigue which as an invisible injury is very difficult.
This past year I have received so much support and knowledge, and I now want to help others in their recovery process!
Cardiovascular exercise has been beneficial to my ongoing recovery and research has found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.
That is why I decided to take part in SameYou's #33forABI fundraising campaign by committing to shoot 33-3-point shots each day throughout July for the 33% of people affected by brain injury. Brain injury recovery care is practically non-existent, limited, or hard to access. I want to help change that. I've been updating my fundraising page with my daily updates which you can see here: https://givepenny.com/atticuslim.
This is my mum helping me rebound on day three of the challenge. She has really supported me during my brain recovery process through her amazing cooking and patience when I felt like I needed extra rest when my eyes and brain hurt.
When you are recovering, support can come from people of all ages, young and old. Thanks to my friend Gabe, and all of my other friends who helped me rebound this month and encouraged me to reach my target.
Also, I created a Coda doc with resources to help students manage their brain injury recovery process including a Health Log, Academic Tracker, Email Templates, Glossary and other helpful resources. You can find it here: bit.ly/concussiondocument.