Hello my name is Jack. I have been dealing with various issues related to my head injury over the past, more than, 25 years. I was 16 years old when I was in a car accident, which left me in a coma for 3 1/2 months. When I was coming out since I was not sure of where I was at the time, I was pretty much soft spoken and trying to learn or re-learn things that were being shown to me. I did have a lot of persons ( family and friends ) coming to see me in the hospital trying to help jog my memory, which help me to get where I am now. I was able to return to the high school that I had been attending prior to my accident. I was an athlete and a good student prior to being in the auto accident. With the help of my family, teachers and therapists, I was able to graduate from high school. After graduation I attended various community colleges but had no particular focus toward future goals. I have been able to develop a more global understanding of life as a person with a disability. Because there was little information about brain injury available at the time of my accident, I had to learn by trial and error that my limitations would allow. Just to give some brief information about my personal history, in my family there is some knowledge of alcoholism and now my father works as a Drug and Alcohol counselor. By witnessing these changes in my father’s career path, I do feel that I am more aware of the situations on from watching the recovery from, alcoholism from a counselor to other alcoholics. My mother and sisters have all been involved in professional vocations. I was able to pick up much of information from them as they spoke about their careers and what they learned from their schooling. The injury caused me one good thing in particular that I was not able to understand right away. It slowed me down. It slowed me down physically - I had to relearn how to walk and speak and I had a lot of cognitive therapists and other psychiatric physicians that helped fine tune my thought processes. I have worked with many psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and have been able to take from their procedures and funnel that into a more personal delivery. I have worked in many jobs and in doing so have met all kinds of people from every walk of life. I have benefited from these experiences by learning how to interact with many types of people. Previous job experiences have led me to the understanding that there is more out there for me to do. I did do some public speaking prior and now feel that I will be able to interact with the speaking in a more helpful way. That is why I am developing this non profit organization - to be able to offer my services to those who are in need of direction for moving positively forward in life. I feel, now that it’s been a quarter century since my accident, that I have accumulated enough information to be able to start giving back to these individuals that need some direction. I am not saying that I am the answer to all of life’s problems, but I feel that having gone through the experiences first hand, that I have, we can make some better decisions in our future plans. Another thing that I will be doing is putting a program on Public Access T.V. I will be discussing traumatic brain injury as well as other disabilities. Some interviews with area employers and any individuals who would like to voice their opinions.
Tredyffrin township public access TV has enabled me to air programs that, I hope, will change the overall viewing of persons with disabilities. My first show was an introduction to who I am and where I strive to go with the futures of disability relations and acceptance. The acceptance needs to move forward, in a positive way, of course for the persons with the disabilities but, also for the ‘non disabled’ community. This can be done by others not feeling uneasy when around persons with disabilities ( Because, our disabilities are NOT contagious!) I was able to put out a new show with my friends Shane, Justin, Scott and Gene about the Fighting Back program. This program has helped me and many other persons continue to move ahead with their recovery. I look to doing many more shows to help with recovery and acceptance. Please, if you have the opportunity, watch JackWords on public access. If you are not in this serving area I will get the links to see the from this site as soon as I can.
This is my Mission Statement
To educate the public about Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), its impact on affected individuals, families, and society as a whole - accomplishing this through public speaking engagements, web blogs, and the production of novel videos. To offer opportunities to individuals who have experienced TBI to play a role in educating the community at the local, statewide, and national level through public speaking engagements, learning the process of internet blogging, and acquiring skills in video production with the goal of generating employment opportunities for affected individuals. To open an art center for persons with disabilities as a way to improve their lives and to beautify the surrounding area. The center would also serve to increase these individuals’ participation in their community.
Watch our first show at VIMEO
DONATE HERE or email me for a postal address. Click to email me
Please, contact me by email or blog if you might be interested in helping with the show or would like to be a guest. I will need some help in getting my organization going, so any Philanthropic or other organizations that would like to help please contact me with your information. Thank you for your interest. Donations of any size would greatly be appreciated.
click me for the N.F.L.
