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Blake Hyland: Sharing Smiles and Hope

Categories: Living with Brain Injury

In many ways, Blake Hyland is a typical twentysomething. He will soon graduate from college and is planning for a career as a child life specialist in a hospital. He works part-time at a coffee shop to have extra spending money, and he dreams of having a family down the road.

Blake is also eight years into his recovery from a severe brain injury, after experiencing the equivalent of a head-on collision at 60 miles per hour when he hit his head on exposed concrete during a gymnastics routine. Blake’s parents, Pat and Cindy, were told repeatedly that he would neither wake from his coma, nor, if he did, ever live independently.

Today, as Blake prepares to graduate magna cum laude from Texas Tech University majoring in communications with a minor in child life development, he is celebrating the nationwide release of documentary that follows his recovery: Hi I’m Blake. His goal is to inspire others to have hope.

“People living with a brain injury are the same as everyone else,” says Blake. “We should be embraced for what we can do.”

A Platform for Awareness and Hope

 

“If you take the time to know people with brain injury, you get to know they are the same person as they were before, just trapped inside their body,” says Blake. “I may sound and look different, but that has nothing to do with the person I am.”

While Blake has made enormous strides in his recovery, there are still lingering effects of his brain injury. He is still regaining the coordination in his right hand, arm, and foot, and he had to learn how to write with this left hand. His short-term memory deficit continues to improve as does his situational awareness, recognizing what to say and what not to say.

None of this has stopped Blake who, according to family, friends, and Blake himself, has “never had bad day,” always maintaining a positive and happy spirit.

“You can talk to people and, educate them, but unless they feel, it does not resonate,” says Pat. “We want people to understand the emotional side. Blake is able to be that voice for disabilities to provide that needed emotional connection. He can articulate what he has been through and the results.”

A Need for Advocates

The Hylands recognize Blake’s ability to inform the public about what people living with brain injury need.

“During Blake’s recovery, we realized we had to fight for his care,” says Pat, “people with brain injury need advocates, otherwise, they give up and go home. So much more is possible when a survivor has access to rehabilitation.”

Cindy knows this all too well. She pushed the school district where Blake resided during inpatient rehab to continue his schooling. As a result, Blake was able to graduate school on time with his classmates.

The Hylands believe connecting with BIAA was an important step. “BIAA explained to us that a state mandate required insurance companies to pay for any and all medically-necessary brain injury treatment, says Pat, “this gave us hope.”

Now, through Hi I’m Blake, Blake and his family want to pay that hope forward.

“I want to give people hope,” says Blake, “I was given less than 50% chance of living. Now I am getting ready to graduate college. It was the grace of God and strong mother who advocated for me that everything to do with it.”

Blake’s long-term goals are to live independently, get married, have a family with “at least one boy,” and to have a fulfilling career, both as a public speaker and working in a hospital setting.

 

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