- Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network’s Mind Your Brain Foundation Lehigh Valley Conference is free
- The event is from 9 AM to 4 PM Saturday
- Those interested in attending can sign up on Good Shepherd’s website
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Brain injury survivors, their caregivers and health care providers are invited to a free event this weekend.
Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network will hold the inaugural Mind Your Brain Foundation Lehigh Valley Conference at DeSales University.
"I want to not only help others feel like they're not alone, but help spread a powerful form of education that will let people know that a brain injury can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time,” said keynote speaker James Durham, founder of TBI One Love.
"I literally died. I sustained my brain injury, had a heaven experience, the whole nine yards."James Durham, founder of TBI One Love
Durham is a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, survivor.
“I was on the motorcycle and I got T-boned on the way home from work, and I died, I literally died," Durham said. "I sustained my brain injury, had a heaven experience, the whole nine yards.
"Then after going through the long stages of rehabilitation, like many people, when you have yourself or someone going through a brain injury, you don't know what to do or how to act because it's such an invisible disability and has never been getting the proper attention."
From there, Durham founded TBI One Love to provide information, support, communication and connection for other brain injury survivors.
'Believing in yourself, sharing your story'
Durham, a Dallas, Texas, native, will share his story Saturday at the Lehigh Valley event.
"Sharing my own personal journey of how when you feed your mind a different appetite, it's really going to result in not only how we are, but of course how we live," he said.
"So I'm going to be sharing the power of positivity and, most importantly, believing in yourself and sharing your story.
Stephanie Kolakowsky-Hayner, director of research and clinical outcomes at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation, said, "He is a survivor of a brain injury and has a national following on social media and his website, as well.”
She, as well as other brain injury survivors, will speak at the event.
"We have a great lineup of national speakers and local speakers covering topics such as the power of positivity, different individual invisible disabilities. vision issues after brain injury, sex and relationships after brain injury, vestibular and balance disorders and microaggressions as well,” she said.
Kolakowsky-Hayner suffered a concussion as a child and has studied the effects of TBI’s since the 1990s.
“There's a community of individuals with brain injury and their caregivers that need additional resources. We have almost 20 vendors that are coming out to provide those resources to individuals with brain injury as well as the education that will be supplied,” she said.
Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network’s Mind Your Brain Foundation Lehigh Valley Conference is free to individuals who suffered a brain injury, their caregivers, and professionals who serve them.
The event is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Those interested in attending can sign up on Good Shepherd’s website.
