Jenni Sewell's TBI Recovery

On Christmas, my mother let out our puppies to use the bathroom. When one did not return and the other was barking under our raised deck. My mother was concerned that our puppy was having another seizure. When she went to go check, she fell, face-first into a pole. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, broke her nose, and cracked four molars. My mother was no longer able to do the job she loved. She lost the ability to walk, suffered from confusion, dizziness, and struggled to communicate, and had many more struggles. To be able to return to a job she loves, along with being the mom and person she was before, she was referred to intense therapies. With her injury falling at the end of the insurance calendar year and her therapy beginning after the new year, many of these services were not covered by her insurance and a large amount was to be paid out of pocket. This along with the fact she was no longer able to work her second job, has created a financial hardship for our family. I am setting this Go Fund Me up as a way to help my mom. All funds will go toward her medical and dental bills. If you would like to know more, please read below. Thank you for taking the time to read this and consider donating to her recovery fund. Thank you! Brin Sewell

Hello, my name is Brin, and Jenni Sewell is my mother. Jenni Sewell is a loved and devoted 4th-grade teacher, loving wife, and mother of three. On Christmas morning, my mother let our puppies out to use the bathroom and Lincoln who had recently been having seizures didn't come back when they were called back in. Our other puppy Winkler was looking under our raised deck and barking and whining. My mother began to worry and ventured out in a blanket with slippers to make sure Lincoln was safe. As she reached the stairs she slipped and fell face-first into a 4x4 wooden pole, taking a five-foot fall off the raised deck. When she fell she said she heard a loud crack and then saw black, she had blacked out. When she reached the house her nose was excessively bleeding, along with her mouth and eye. We woke up and took her to the ER at 3:30 AM on Christmas morning, they evaluated her and took no screening of her brain. They told us that her nose appeared to be broken, to watch her and make sure her personality or stabilization didn't change, and to notify her doctors if any changes happened the following day. On December 28th, my mother called her doctor as she had extreme confusion, slurred speech, headaches, mouth pain, sensitivity to light and sound, and no longer could walk alone, among other symptoms. At this time they insisted that she return to the Emergency Room (ER) immediately. Upon returning to the ER my mother was unaware that three days had passed and believed it to be the following day. The doctors performed a CT scan and found that there was no brain bleeds present. They did see that her nose was broken and that her brain had hit the front of her skull with such force, then recoiled striking the rear of her skull that she had a very bad concussion. The doctors shared that if she would have hit her head one inch differently that she would have lost her sight, and if she would have hit the top of her head or her neck that she would no longer be with us. We are thankful and know this could be much worse. Four days after the second ER visit she figured out that one of her back teeth had broken off at the gum line. After visiting the dentist due to continued pain, it was found that she had cracked three of her back molars and had broken another molar at the gum line from the impact of the wooden pole. This dental work grossly exceeds my mother's dental insurance. We have called health and dental insurance about other coverage without any success. My mother went to stay with my grandmother as she has a single-level home that would be easier for my mom to recover. For the first few weeks, my mom slept in a dark room for sometimes 23 hours a day. She was referred to Mary Free Bed for evaluation for a traumatic brain injury (TBI). She was told that she required speech, occupational, and physical rehabilitation therapies. Through therapy and testing, they have found that she has damaged cranial nerves. This has caused her eyes to become unaligned and now project two separate pictures to her brain, balance struggles, and caused her to get dizzy often causing instability. She has many recurring symptoms that are causing everyday living tasks to be needing support. Therapy has been showing good progress. She has faced a lengthy recovery process that requires multiple days a week of therapy, many doctor visits, as well as dental work that she is continuing through. The doctors say that most TBIs receive the most success in recovery in the first six to twelve months.

My mother is not one to ask for help and often tells everyone that she is fine. However, throughout this recovery, she needs help. My mom has many areas in which she is struggling. One of the areas is continued mouth pain from her cracked and broken teeth. To assist my Mom with her continued TBI recovery, I have set up this Go Fund Me account to help raise funds to continue to support rehabilitation and pay medical and dental bills. Please, consider donating toward her recovery and helping us get her back to herself. Our family would be extremely grateful for good thoughts, prayers, and any contributions to Jenni Sewell's GoFundMe through this difficult time!