Brain Injury And Recovery with Cycling

     Let me introduce myself, I Karl Moritz am now ‘Born Again’ but not in a religious way but rather as a TBI Survivor. I think that only a TBI survivor could truly possible understand this because as being ‘Born Again’, one must learn how to start Life all over again, learning and developing one’s self and how to do almost everything all over again. Some learnings are easy and some are difficult. My ‘Born Again’ story started June 29th 2010.
A little into my history; I started bicycling to and from work in 1999 because I wanted to do something good for myself and the environment. I have been cycling to and from work for the past thirteen years at an average distance of about forty miles round trip a day. On the same course that I have been cycling from Nike World Headquarters to SE Hawthorne in Portland, Oregon. On the way home at approximately the eighteen mile mark, I was traveling south on my bike on S.E. Ladd’s Ave. I just passed a small traffic round-about and a Honda Odyssey struck me head on at 25-30 mile per hour by at approximately 5:10 pm. The only witness was the a twenty-five year old male drive who reported to the police that I was headed South while he was headed North and my bike handle bars began to shack and I just fell off my bike and was struck head on and dragged underneath the car for thirty feet. At the initial impact my helmet, back pack and a shoe was knocked from my body.

I no longer call it an accident but rather a ‘Life change’. I fractured my spine in seven, my scull in three and my right leg in four locations, broke my hip and had thirteen titanium screws set in to hold it all back together, had plastic surgery to attach part of my left ear back to my skull. All this trauma, I ended up with a Server TBI as I was in a Coma for thirty two days. Because I was in a coma for that period of time, my TBI was scored at a Server level. There are three scores of a TBI Mild, Moderate and Server and pending on the Glasgow scale.  Okay, and I do have very sincere doughts’ what the only witness told the Police what really happened in this accident. I also have to accept that the truth may never be known what REALLY Happened?

Peddling forwards; since my life change I have completed thirteen Bicycle Century event rides. Three of those century rides were on the exact same bike that was in my life changing event. That’s why I find fought in the driver’s statement to Police that I just fell off?!? And this maybe my personal take, but there has been absolutely no communication between the Drive to me or to my family.

When I was initially released from the hospital after three months my nurse told me that I was actually being released early. And she thought that was that I took good care of myself. I initially that it was because I have been a vegetarian for half my life. I did some research and found out that riding a bicycle is in the Top Three Physical Activities that promotes cognition development. This is because you are asking your brain to multi task in many aspect; perception, balance attention, memory & working memory, judgment & evaluation, reasoning.

So now I’m on a “Feed your body, Feed Brain” self-prescribed regiment. This includes Diet (including herbs), Meditation, Brain Training with Luminosity, attending TBI support group meetings, Temp working in my prior field and bicycle riding ten miles a day. (Exercise and diet are important factors in promoting healthy neuronal functioning and therefore healthy brain functioning).

Being creative and loving bicycles. I decided to begin were I left off at by building a bike.  Open and read this link to my bike build story. https://plus.google.com/115893960526187521638/posts/fshDszRMV2L

TBI and the accident cost me a lot! It cost me the loss of my House because while I was in a coma I couldn’t make house payments so I had to sign a Foreclosure paper work. My job (Profession) that I was in for half my life and for the past nine years as a Senior Tech. Designer at Nike. I know the path as I have traveled it before and working to achieve as many of my losses as I can.

A TBI survivors advise; Push yourself every day to learn something new and repeat daily, feed your body and your mind daily!