Warkworth resident speaks out on brain injury

Nicole Evans says every day is a fight but she won't give up. Besides working at her mom's restaurant in Warkworth she spends at least three days a week a the Brain Injury Association Drop In Centre in downtown Belleville.

By Gail Paquette

Nicole Evans never would never have stood in front of a crowd and given a speech. That is until she suffered a brain injury.

June is Brain Injury Awareness Month across Canada. The goal is to bring understanding through events and ceremonies like the candlelight vigil held June 1 at The Brain Injury Association, 281 Front Street, Belleville. Twenty-two year old Evans spoke on that night, something she had never done before her injury.

Involved in a serious car accident five years ago and air lifted to Kingston, she remained in a coma for more then five months.

“I used to be ashamed to tell anyone because they look at you as different or incapable but the people who do treat you differently are lacking knowledge. So I think if we talked to people more about brain injury they would begin to understand,” said Evans, a Warkworth resident.

A brain injury can be caused by violent movement of the head as in a car crash, fall, assault or sports injury, or non-traumatic cause such as a tumour, stroke, aneurism, infection or anoxia which is lack of oxygen to the brain.

As part of the ceremony June 1, the 500,000 people in Ontario with brain injury were honoured including the 18,000 this year who acquired an injury. The 600 Ontarians who did not survive their injuries were remembered.

Evan’s recovery is on going.

“Every day is a new day and every day I learn new things to help cope. Some days I could just go back to bed and stop caring but quitting isn’t in my game plan,” she said.

Each brain injury is different. Survivors experience many symptoms. Although intelligence remains intact there is slowness in processing information, debilitating fatigue is common and there is often problems concentrating and retrieving information from memory.

“It’s almost like having to re-learn everything like a child,” said Evans.

”But even if it takes me all my life I will know I never gave up hoping for a better tomorrow.”

The exact nature of the difficulties for each person is unique and can depend on how and where the brain was injured as well as age and personal characteristics.

“I think the worse thing is people think we are stupid,” said Evans. “I am a new person in my old body, each day I am improving.”