Month: August 2018

Cristabelle Braden is a singer, songwriter, speaker, author, worship leader, and founder of Hope After Head Injury. After suffering a traumatic brain injury as a teen, she has overcome barriers never dreamed possible, including graduating from college, releasing three albums of original music, and touring the country as a singer and speaker on brain injury. She never wrote a song before the brain injury, but within the first month of recovery songs started pouring out of her. This has given her great resolve to encourage and empower others going through similar circumstances.

In 2017 she released an original EP entitled Hope Survives, with songs about her journey through brain injury. She’s toured all over the country to sing and speak at a variety of venues.

The hope Cristabelle lives out each day shines through on stage and off, as she shares her emotional journey with a sweet sincerity and a wisdom far beyond her years. Her music tells her story through songs narrating the struggle of finding hope through the darkest times, never giving up, and continuing to fight despite the most difficult circumstances.

Through her journey of recovery, Cristabelle grew more and more passionate about TBI support and awareness, and now has become very active as an advocate for brain injury. The goal of her organization Hope After Head Injury is to provide a support system which focuses on the emotional aspect on healing from brain injury, with an emphasis on online support. She runs a live brain injury encouragement chats every Tuesday at 7pm est on the Hope After Head Injury facebook page: facebook.com/hopeafterheadinjury – all are welcome to join in the discussion!

For more information and tour dates, visit cristabellebraden.com. For more about Cristabelle’s work with brain injury, visit hopeafterheadinjury.com

Join Simon Lewis and Kim as they discuss the “Acceptance” and moving forward after Brain Injury. Acceptance frees us from the denial that inhibits our growth and ability to move forward. We all need to grieve the losses we’ve suffered because of our brain injuries .. But then need to accept our new circumstances, and move ahead to create a new life worth living. It’s easy to get stuck and stay miserable wallowing in regret, but we have one life (which has been spared) to implement Actions that propel us to a life we could have never imagined pre-injury! Acceptance isn’t a negative surrender of the fight. On the contrary, it frees us from the burdens weighing us down.

Matt Mobley is a writer at Always Braves, and Sports News Magazine. Matt was an athlete himself, who has always loved sports ..Particulary Baseball and the Braves! Born in California, with a stop in Texas, then ultimately to settle in Rural South Carolina, the only place Matt could imagine moving now, is perhaps to Atlanta with season tickets to his Fave Team! While in Texas, Matt met and married his high school crush and they had a wonderful son. Life was good, until at age 20 when he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). From there, a new journey began. Join us to hear about that journey, and to see how Matt is fairing 25yrs out.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body. We talk about TBI, ABI, Stroke, Brain Tumor .. But MS is characterized by lesions on the brain that distinguish it from other conditions with similar symptoms. Learn more, be informed. Misdiagnosis and misunderstanding are no strangers to MS, as in other types of Brain Injury.

LeaAnn Nielsen-Swinney is the mother of the mother of two beautiful daughters and an an Angel. She’s been married to her wonderhusband/caregiver for 28 years, and delights in her fur babies too!

She always start her story with ” I went to sleep as LeaAnn and woke up a total stranger.” In Labor Day 2014, she suffered a bleeding stroke and brain aneurysm, which led to brain surgery to relieve the pressure. This situation is thought to be due to a blood disease LeaAnn caught in her mechanical heart valves after some routine dental surgery. The doctors told the family that if she survived, she would never be the same. It took 3 months of re-learning to walk, talk, chew, swallow, read and write. The doctors were right about one thing, like many us, LeaAnn will never be the same. Join LeaAnn’s active support page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/575361106003146/ (A Closed Group For Support of TBI, ABI, Stroke, Caregivers)