The Miracle Child: The Lang Family Story

Once she came home, a month after the accident, our new reality set in. There was the obvious transition to our home life and finding new ways of doing things. Locating therapists to assist in her healing proved to be an arduous task. It was hard enough to find providers experienced in brain injury, but they also needed skill working with the pediatric populations. It was a daunting task.  

As we were finally settling into our new routine, I realized something was not right with me. I had trouble comprehending things I read and my fatigue was overwhelming. Not knowing where to turn I went to my primary care doctor who referred me to a neuropsychologist. I discovered that I, too, had a brain injury. I was devastated. How was I going to help my daughter and myself heal? 

Olivia received a placement into our school system’s special education program and began attending two mornings a week where she also received speech, physical, and occupational therapy. She now had an opportunity to meet classmates who had been diagnosed with learning disabilities. Young children are accepting of each other. A mother in the class upon hearing our story expressed her empathy to me. She said, “I have had years to accept my son’s disability, but you were thrown an unexpected curve ball. That must be so difficult.”  I cried. She was so empathetic to our position. She understood the grief. The positive aspect in my diagnosis is I can sometimes understand Olivia’s frustrations, word finding issues, and difficulty with multi-tasking.