Artist's Journey: Overcoming Brain Trauma

On Christmas Day 2023, I was thrown from my bike after a bottle I was carrying snapped loose and jammed my rear wheel. I flew forward — with no time to react — and landed face-first on the pavement.

The impact fractured the orbital floor beneath my eye and caused my brain to spin violently inside my skull, shearing blood vessels and resulting in two brain bleeds: a subarachnoid hemorrhage and a deeper intracerebral hemorrhage in the basal ganglia.

I was unconscious for nearly five hours.

When I woke up, everything had changed. My ability to plan, process, speak fluidly, or manage fatigue had been upended. I was diagnosed with a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), and as I began to heal, I also realized that my longstanding ADHD symptoms overlapped significantly with what doctors were now calling “new” cognitive challenges.

This overlap led me deep into research — not just to survive, but to understand. I began studying neuroscience, learning how to read MRIs and CT scans, and diving into the science of neuroplasticity, ADHD, trauma, and executive function. The basal ganglia, where one of my hemorrhages occurred, became a focus of intense curiosity. It’s a region of the brain essential to everything from movement to emotion, habit, and decision-making — and its damage unlocked a new way of seeing myself, both old and new.

For those familiar with my work as a visual artist, this isn’t a detour. It’s a deeper version of what I’ve always explored — how we perceive, interact, and make meaning from the world around us. From mirror neurons to light, movement, and spatial awareness, the brain has always been at the center of my art — now it’s at the center of my recovery.

One of the first things I knew I had to do was get back on the bike. Cycling became not just physical therapy, but cognitive retraining. Every moment in traffic became an exercise in collaborative spatial thinking, risk analysis, and flow-state awareness. As I regained those abilities, I began to dream bigger.

I’ve now set a goal to bikepack from Seattle to the Bay Area, and eventually across the country. These are not just survival challenges — they’re proof that I can handle the mental and physical stress of sustained, independent navigation. This journey has become a core part of my healing, and a metaphor for how we all ride the edge between control and chaos.

This campaign is raising $75,000:

• $50,000 to cover the medical and living debt that accumulated during my hospitalization and the early months of recovery.

• $25,000 to help support me as I transition out of my previous job, which I can no longer perform due to cognitive fatigue and processing limitations that may be long-term or permanent.

Your support here also gives you access to my newly created Substack, where I’ll be publishing stories from my artwork, recovery, and rediscovery. It’s a space to share the full scope of this journey — not just the pain and repair, but the insight, humor, and strange beauty that has emerged.

This isn’t just for TBI survivors. It’s for anyone going through a moment where the world no longer fits, and you have to make something new from the pieces.

Thank you for being part of this. You are not just helping me rebuild. You’re helping me transform, and share that transformation with others.