MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY— After sustaining a traumatic brain injury that at one point nearly pushed her into the depths of despair on the long and difficult road to recovery, a Sundre-area resident found the motivational light of inspiration in music.
In the summer of 2017, Linda Jean was training Banjo, one of her large donkeys, on a property in the Bearberry Valley some 20 minutes west of town where she fosters animals from Bear Valley Rescue.
A sudden gust of wind startled the animal and sent him darting in a panic, along the way inadvertently bowling over Jean who fell back, her skull smashing violently at a high velocity into a slab of concrete from a septic lid.
“I was ground driving my donkey and he spooked,” said Jean, describing the process of training the animal to pull a cart.
“It wasn’t the donkey’s fault,” she said, adding that although she didn’t know it at the time, she’d blacked out for about 15-20 minutes.
“All I could think in my head was, ‘Oh my God, I’ve killed myself. The next thing I remember was his big ol’ donkey nose in my chest with the most terrified look in his eyes looking down at me.”
Managing to muster up the energy to get back on her feet, Jean tied Banjo up to a fence, fed him and went into the house to check herself in the mirror, when she started hearing some noise coming from outside. Banjo had come untied and was frantically running from one staircase to another, staring at the house.
“He was really upset,” said Jean, adding she decided to go back outside and wait with Banjo until someone came home.
In her stunned state, the thought to call 911 didn’t even cross her mind. Having previously sustained some concussions over the years, she for the time being tried to rest and hoped to recover. Even the doctors she eventually visited advised her simply to rest.
“They were thinking it was a concussion — it was going to last a month.”
But as time passed, her condition wasn’t improving.
Difficult diagnosis
“The first year, I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t play, because the headaches were terrible — constant,” she said, adding she was unable to understand why what once came naturally, became such an arduous task.
That period of time following her fateful, life-altering injury was perhaps the most challenging.
“I was unable to do much of anything other than sit in my dark barn or my dark house,” she recalls.
“I’m a very social person, but I haven’t been able to handle people — it’s been really horrible,” she added with a laugh.
The debilitating pain that shot through her shoulders and neck as well as the delayed response from her brain to her hands combined with a reduced ability to focus, multitask and remember were exacerbated by recurring headaches and a sudden excruciating sensitivity to noise that made picking up her guitar an all but impossible feat.
“I kept trying, but very seldom as it was so painful,” she said. “How could something that was so joyfully a massive part of who I am be so painful and not even worth trying?”
She remembers slowly but surely succumbing to a creeping depression as the days became months and eventually years.
“My heart was breaking and my heart and soul were deflating,” she said. “On the darkest night in my injury, and the first time in my usually happy life, I was at my absolute lowest and felt like giving up completely.”
Although playing music on the guitar had become a painful experience, she decided to try putting pen to paper.
“I turned to my writing to save me from this unfamiliar and frightening place,” she said.
“I wrote a poem called My Brain Cell. Finding the words to express this incredibly horrible and ghost-like existence I now found myself perpetually trapped in, seemed to release that despair and pain that threatened to take me that night.”
Also contributing substantially to her healing process was discovering a specialized sports medicine therapist, Dr. Riley Rattai, a lead chiropractor who now runs a clinic in Red Deer but at the time would also come to Olds a couple times a week.
After assessing her, Rattai explained she had stroke-like symptoms that caused the delayed response from the messages her brain tried sending the rest of her body.
Even simple tasks people take for granted, like getting up, taking a shower and getting dressed, “seemed strange, foreign, awkward — just, exhausting,” she said.
“Even to this day, four years later, everything is exhausting,” said Jean, adding she even wakes up exhausted.
Rattai encouraged her to try an exercise that helped train her brain and hands to work together, and “my instruments became my therapy.”
One day at a time
The healing process was slow, but steady.
“I could only try to do one to three songs about every two to three weeks in the beginning,” she said.
But that improved over time, and Jean has since been able to perform a couple of solo, half-hour shows, including one at the Sundre & District Museum for Heritage Day.
Still, more than four years later, she remains on what she described as a slow healing journey and learning to live with the ramifications of a traumatic brain injury.
“My life is even still quite altered as a result,” she said, nevertheless grateful to still be here.
“I am truly blessed that I did not lose my life that day or have even more debilitating disabilities,” she said.
“For that, I am truly thankful and believe there must be a reason I am still here and I must have a purpose.”
Although born in Calgary, Jean — who most people in the area would know from her time with Rooster in a Henhouse — has for the past roughly 10 years called this area home.
“Sundre was our favourite place to play because the people out here always made us feel at home,” she said.
In her grade school years, she would enthusiastically answer singer and animal caregiver when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.
“I’ve sang since I was a little girl. I’ve managed to fulfill my two childhood dreams,” she said, referring to becoming a musician as well as a carer of animals.
The release of Brain Cell, which was produced and tracked in Canada with drums, bass and mixing completed in the UK, recently became available on all major streaming platforms and further added to her life’s fulfillment.
She expressed gratitude for the support of her producer Joel Pearson in turning that vision into a reality.
“That’s probably the most important thing in my life, is creating that song,” she said.
Considering herself the kind of person who always strives to be happy and positive regardless of circumstance, she said, “My silver lining here is, I’m the least like myself I’ve ever been physically. But I’m the most like myself in my soul, and in my music and in my heart than I’ve been for a long time.”
Attributing reaching that milestone in large part to Rattai, she said he helped her to regain control of her life and made her realize she’s not alone.
Further helping Jean reclaim her life was a visit to Dr. Dawn Pearson, a neurologist at a Calgary clinic. While she had already received a CT scan to check for bleeding or swelling in her brain, Jean said she was told the test results didn’t justify proceeding with an MRI that she had requested. But the neurologist agreed to refer her for an appointment and the results illustrated the injury she had sustained was a moderate to significant traumatic brain injury.
Even three years after hitting her head, the scan revealed her brain still had telltale signs of trauma. That was when Jean learned she had experienced what is known as a contrecoup.
“You hit the surface of whatever you hit so hard, that your brain slaps back and forth multiple times in your skull, and your skull injures your brain,” she explained.
And a common misconception, she wanted to highlight, is that a helmet would have prevented the worst of the outcome. But in the event of a high-velocity impact, a helmet protects only the skull, she clarified.
“The brain still flops back and forth inside the skull and damages itself," she said.
Advice for survivors
Imparting words of wisdom for others who are struggling to recover and cope from brain trauma, Jean said, “The single most helpful thing is to know that you’re not alone.”
Finding online communities of people with a common, shared experience is “the most healing and comforting thing in the world to a brain-injured person.”
In her case, writing poetry and rediscovering her love of music also played an important role.
“That’s how Brain Cell came to be,” she said, adding that striking a chord with others who’d previously felt alone was very moving, as was seeing the gratitude expressed in their comments.
“I cried,” said Jean as emotions resurfaced and she fought back tears. “Support groups are incredible.”
If being spared that fateful day gave her purpose in writing the song and “spread awareness and maybe comfort somebody to know that they’re not alone or give them the words that they can’t find to explain what they feel, than I feel like I’m glad I had the head injury because it did some good.”
Learning an instrument also goes a long way on the road to recovery.
“Music fires off more parts in the brain than anything,” she said. “Even if you’re just making music for yourself — it’s so healing, it’s so cathartic.”
And while music can be therapeutic, so too can animals, she said.
“Get yourself a pet. If you can’t get a pet, try and volunteer with some sort of animal rescue," she said.
Perhaps most importantly, and in her case, one of the hardest lessons, she said, was accepting help.
Additionally, anyone who’s suffered brain trauma cannot expect themselves to bounce back to their old life. Even simple tasks become overwhelming, so she cautions against overloading one’s mental resources.
Describing Spoon Theory, she said if a person has for example 12 spoons of energy, a shower could drain four while making a meal takes five more, leaving little energy for the rest of the day.
“Simple things take up massive amounts of this limited energy you have. So, if you keep pushing yourself to try and be like your old self … you overload,” she said.
“And be kind to yourself — if you are tired, you need to rest,” she said, adding that means taking a break from looking at a screen or engaging in any kind of in-depth conversation with someone.
Earlier on during her recovery, Jean said she ended going to the emergency room several times a month for fear of going into cardiac arrest. But as it turned out, she was putting too much on her proverbial plate and ended up going into anxiety-induced panic attacks.
Yet despite the many hurdles imposed by brain trauma, life not only goes on but remains worth every moment, she said.
“Even with a brain injury, you can still make dreams come true," she said.
