June 5th,2007 Well it's been a long long hard year with alot of ups and downs. This lil lady been keeping us all very very busy. She's doing really well and we are all so very proud of her. She is starting to talk more does simple sentences now like leave me alone, I dont wanna, I'm tellin my mom. She is using whats called a seabo hand splint that is doing great work with her using her right hand now. She is doing some amazing bi-lateral hand work too and is reaching far across her body with that right hand which they said she would never ever do. She's gotten to discover the wonderful world of movies out at the thearter not just on the DVD player at home. She's fallen head over heels for Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Great taste for someone so young. We've even gotten to go to a red carpet movie premiere down in Detroit to see Corrupted Minds a movie in which her one eye surgeon is main actor in the movie he plays Martin. We (Brooke her aide and best pal Leslye and Me) all dressed up extremely fancy got our hair done and all and went. We had a great time and got pics taken with some of the actors and got autographs too. She got the royal treatment and it was something she really needed since she had only been out the hospital less then a month from having pnumonia. She is doing a great job in her walker as well she has broke the 400 foot mark that was set for her like it was nothing and did a whopping 1200 feet. She even found out she can run which is a hilarious story. She was outside seen this hen turkey with 3 babies and took off on a run after em, well she actually mowed over a baby(didnt hurt it) got ahold of the hen's butt and took some feathers off her. When they caught her she was laughing so hard over it. They sent home the spoils of war so they called em. Three turkey feathers tucked in her ponytail. She was just as proud as could be over them. She's been working on alot of projects that will once again this year go into the county fair. It's one way of getting her to use her right hand without her realizing she is. She is one smart cookie and you have to beat her at her own game. It's just still hard to believe this August 17th will be 9 years post injury and how far she's come with so many doctors telling us all along she cant or wont be able to do this only to acheive the goal they said was so impossible. Just goes to show ya what faith,love,hard work and persistance can do for ya. Yeah we've hit some major rough spots and had alot of tears and even yes put out some blood this past year but its all been so worth ever bit of it and we'd do it all over again. We've even found out she can count and knows colors and can spot simple words in print which is pretty amazing for what they say she is at age wise comepared to her actual age. She finally got off that nasty ground diet and we just have to cut her meat small for her and remind her to chew she does great. She still takes part in the local special olympics and did pretty good this year. She got 5th in the ball throw ( would of done better if she'd of stopped flirting with the hot guys there helping out) and 3rd in her assisted walker race. She even competes during the year in bowling and she got 1st place and a gold medal for it. She is into playing the play station and loves the computer as well. I wish you all much love and will update when I can.
Hugs Kisses and Friendship to you all
Dianna and Brooke
And the winner is Brooke
Update June 2006
WELL all its now going on year 8 of Brookes post injury it will be in August of this year (2006). She has progressed beyond what any of her doctors ever thought she would. She has a new walker called a pacer gait trainer and man can she haul butt in that thing,shes used it in 2 special olympics and placed 1st and 2nd not bad for someone who wasnt supposed to ever move again hey. She rides circles round me likes its nothing now on her bike. She is working on learning to bear her own weight again and her record is 1 min 52 seconds. She is learning to talk again as well and has learned to say OH MA which I now hear all the time and to the amazement of her doctors she can interject what feeling she wants with it as well, fed up with me, a question or even being sarcastic with it as well. She learned to say NO to lol. She has a total of bout 15 words she uses on a daily basis and she keeps adding more when we dont expect it. There have been a few occasions that she has spoken a whole sentence which at the time really blew us all away. She is awaiting on getting all her forms filled out by the doctors to let her do a horse riding program for special needs persons. She really loves being around horses and looks forward to getting to even just pet them or brush them. She still has a long long way to go but we give her all the support and encouragement she needs to get there. She also has a doctor that get this is a actor as well he's in the movie Panic In Detroit (seen at site of same name.) well she has been asked to be an extra in one of the film companies up coming works they are doing. Like I could ever tell her no to that one. Excitement was an understatement when she was asked. She continues to go to a all special needs school year round and is doing really well there and is well loved by everyone there. She is now 11 years old and isnt a little girl anymore she is 5 foot 2 inches tall and 110 pounds. She has the most beautiful hair its waist length now and a very thick dark brown. She has the wonderfully awesome blue eyes to boot too. This past december 15th 2005 she had her 18 surgery to fix her carinofacial work and we hope this will be the last surger she will have to have for a very very long time. The hard part of them is the past 4 surgeries she had we almost lost her. After all of that I've learned to respect life a whole lot more. The biggest and best news is after a over a 7 year fight with the insurance company for auto claim they finally broke down and got us a handicapped van and wow did we get the top of the line we are still in shock over it. NO more having to lift her and risk dropping her which is a huge relief for us all. We now have a 2006 Chevy Express super extended with raised roof and every bell and whistle you can think of to have on one its got it. Even got the lift on it we wanted too. Was so excited to not have to be stuck at home we went and drove around for about 3 hours put about 250 miles on it the day we got it lol. I hope that everyone is doing well and has good health and if not you are in my prayers and thoughts. With all of our love and friendship to everyone.
Dianna and Brooke
Hello all, I've sure missed getting to talk to so many of you. Well Brooke isgoing on year 6 post TBI this August 17,2004 at 12:25pm will mark the date and time.It still seems like yesterday though. We've been very busy over the past year or
two. One big new thing is for xmas 2003 I got the best present I could of everdreamed of. I was asked to go to her school were I was taken into the gym andblindfolded. I could hear when Brooke came in as I could her her vocalizing likecrazy. Well the blindfold was taken off and there in front of my own eyes I watched
my sweet angel peddle her bike right to me with the biggest grin she could muster.Can you say i bawled like a huge baby. Seems she had been working on learning to dothis by her self for the past year without anyone letting on to me. She is nowstrong enough that once she is on her bike and strapped in she can give her 40 poundbaby sister a ride in the back basket. She can turn the handle and make her selfride in circles which she seems to like to do best. She will ride back and forth butonly if she knows I'm gonna chase her before she smacks into the wall at at theend. What a great feeling to have to run to catch her for the first time since shewas 3 and before her accident. She has a new walker now too which i recommend toanyone who needs one that holds their body weight so they can walk, it's called apacer gait trainer and guess what that lil snot can move that thing too.
She'smoved up from pureed food to just having to have her meat cut small sort of like adiced type. She even got to have her first bite of honest to god pizza in over 5years too. She's even discovered the kids favorite PBJ you cant feed her them fastenough. She's even moved to bout 11 words in her vocaulary that you can understandclearly. We did find out that the area of her brain that controls speech has nodamage to it so we are hoping to get her back into Neurobio feedback therapy sincethey said once they get the large amount of muddled brain signals under control there is noreason she shouldnt regain her speech. Right now we are fighting the ever wonderfulincurance company on that. We've also found out she knows colors and can pick themout correctly too. She can even pick a few words out very simple ones like cat anddog and the like. She's gotten to be a big lil girl for being only 9 now she is 5foot 2 inchs and 80 pounds with them lovely bright blue eyes and dark brown hairthat reaches the middle of her back and is very very thick.
She did however give usall a huge scare a 2 months ago she went in this past feburary and had the surgeryto install a special sling in her right eye to lift the lid so that she can use thateye and not loose her sight in it. Well her body rejected the material used and we
fought from feburary to May to stop it but we lost that fight. She went in May 27thand had the material removed well little did we know while doing her normal over night stay in hospital after any surgery she caught strep throat, by thefollowing saturday we had to rush her into ER were we got that news along with hersodium was sky high and her temp too 104.7 she was dehydrated even though she wasstill attempting to drink but she was so sleepy first thing they thought was hershunt thank god it wasnt. WEll into PICU she went were she was put on IVantibiotics and massive amounts of fluids. Along with motrin and tylenol for herhigh fever. Well Sunday started out ok we ended up on the local broadcast ofChildrens Miracle network being interviewed. By sunday middle of the night thoughanother story she threw up and aspirated before anyone could roll or set her up andi was right there she was so litharigic she couldnt turn her head and that did it.Then we had aspiration pnumonia to deal with now and a whole new round of anotherantibiotics added on board. Then to top things off her heart rate started to dropdangerously low and they ordered a STAT echocardiogram done were they found her left side of her heart was working way to hard and they had to put her on a dopamine drip to help her out hence another med and another bag of IV goodies. We ended up staying a whole weekand during all of this had a MAJOR tornado warning go off and we had to head forcover. Seems when it hits the fan it does it all at once and it dont do it half wayit does it all the way. She's now home again thank god and back to her very happyhealthy self, very vocal and full of bunk as we tell her.
She's the happiest lilgirl so everyone tells me. She is entering the local county fair again this year and
has 23 enteries. Last year she won yet another trophy so we gonna cross our fingersshe can do it again sort of love collecting them it makes her so proud of her selfand makes all the works she's got to do on the projects more worth while for her.But even if she dont like the year before its ok we still praise her like theres no tomorrow. OH i forgot one huge thing last summer we took her to the Reniassancefestival were this lil thing got to have a private audiance with the Queen and got aspecial crown pin which she still treasures. She even got pronouced a real princesstalk bout not being able to live with her after that lol. We taking her and thewhole family again this year at the Queens request how can we turn that down youjust cant sides i cant tell her NO. Hugs to all I hope all are doing well and i missyou all take care.
Luv
Dianna and Brooke
Well its now 2-2-04 working on 5 years post injury for Brooke as well as herbeing 9 this coming march, and she's improving more and more.She still has that loveof life she had before the accident that just amazes so many as well as inspiresthem. She's now learned to ride a bike(it holds her upright made for specialneeds)that was my christmas gift from her this year, and yes it was the best presenti got. It was the first time in over 5 years that I had to run to catch her and whatan overwhelming yet wonderful feeling. She also actually rode circles round me andround and round she went just laughing. I was lucky to get this all on video, whichmade everyone who's seen it cry. She can do a walker now to its just like the bikesupports her weight, but man can she make that sucker go. She is saying a few wordshere and there and a couple of phrases too which even freeked her doctor out. I wasmessing with her waiting for him to come in I was poking at her plain as anything she say's Leave Me Alone, jaws on the floor all over the place lol...She'sjust been so amazing its beyond anything anyone could of ever or did ever expect.She is also doing bi-lateral hand work too which I understand is very hard to do butshe's doing it. She's very flittery with the guys and learned how to bat them eyes.She also had her 12th surgery which was one to lift her eye lid on the right sidewhich is her bad eye from the accident. So now we got 2 blue eyes looking back atus. She has depth perception for the first time in over 5 years and things arescarying the snot out of her but I hate to say it is kind of funny. She has to getused to the world as we all see it so its like she's seeing the world for the firsttime. She is now on her 3rd wheelchair but we working to be able to get her out ofthat thing. She is working on sitting on a bench and having to pull to stand she hasalot of work to do on holding her own body weight but she can do it for short! sperts at a time. She knows when she's dong something good cause boy does she smilebig. She's also started a new therapy called NeruoBioFeedback its very interestingto see and what the results are they say can happen. They said from the originalEEG that the part of her brain that controls speech,awareness of space time andself had no damage so they say she should be able to regain full speech. So wekeeping our fingers crossed but not gonna try and over expect anything as I dontwant her to reach for a goal that is to far off or to far to obtain, that wouldn'tbe fair or right to her. So for now we just gonna contiue to work on the smallstuff and I guess keep me on my toes. Hugs too you all and we can never never thankyou enough for all your help,hugs,encourgement,not to mention hours of endlesslistening to my cry my eyes out when things got bad. For without you all I dontthink we would be as far as we are today for you all helped me get the strength togive to her to be able to succeed at what she has so far.
Luv to you all
Dianna and Brooke
Well we made it thru year 4 of the TBI, and she's made lots of advancements far beyond anything the doctors thought she would ever be able to do. Over the summer school program she rode a horse with a regular saddle, she hung on to the saddle horn and the front part of saddle just like she did before her accident when she would go horseback riding. I was one very proud momma and yes i cried my eyes out. She's had 2 cranialfacial reconstructive surgeries to replace the missing skull from were the drivers mirror smashed her skull in. The frist one was Feb 7th and it filled in all the missing skull, the second was recent on Oct 1st and it did the build up of her eyebrow area and now you cant tell there was ever any missing skull on her,it looks wonderful and she is very happy with the results as well, as she now will let me brush her bangs off her forhead. She entered the fair again and won 18 ribbons, no trophy this year but she still did really well and worked hard on all her projects. She's also learned to say a few more words and had just recently Oct 29 found her honest to god deep belly laugh giggle, what a beautiful sound to hear. She's also had new goals set at school as she has accomplished all her old ones and will now participate more in the daily activities that there is to do there. Yes she is still in an all Special Needs school and she really loves it. Her sisters recently started ballet classes and the teacher/owner there has given me some stuff that brooke can do even though she is in a wheelchiar. She even helped me get her some realy ballet shoes with the pink ribbons attached and all for an incentive and boy did it pay off. Brooke has learned to put her hands over her head and bends her legs up(while still in her chair) like she is doing a Plea like her siters do. She's been quiet a flirt as well and has very good taste i might add. LOL.She's learned to bat her eyes and smile so big it's to funny to watch. But boy does it work. LOL.She's also become an inspiration to several people one who's been in a wheelchiar for many many years met brooke and seen how happy she is dispite all she's been thru and now thanks to her he's gone out and gotten a special equiped car and drives. Everyone she meets she touches their lives in such a way that they seem to forget their problems and see her smile and they know if she can do it so can they. She still is my earth angel and i do what i can to make sure she has as complete of a childhood as she possibly can. She just recently got a barbie dream house since she can now hold onto a barbie and it was the only thing before her accident that she wanted. It's really cool to see her playing barbie dolls and other baby dolls with her sisters. We even got brooke a feeder seat with a mobile base so that she is at floor level wiht them when they play making it easier for all. I watch all that she's done and is doing and i still look back and remember the day the doctors told meYou know she will be blind, deaf and vegatative is she even survies at all. I tell them now as i did then, it's not their decision or mine to make, she's been put into gods hands and what every they decide is what we'll go with and handle. I'm just very lucky and happy that they decided that she will remain with me and her family. She's been touched by an angel and by the hand of god and with them and her determination and strong will she will go far in this big old world. With much love to you darling i love you bigger then the world.Dianna your very proud mommy
This is now the third year of my daughter having her tbi, she has come a long way in the last 3 years, from deaths door to the wide-open spaces of this great big world and all sorts of stops and spots in between. She has had several surgeries on her right eye to correct it from the accidentthere have been two lid lifts and one to straighten it back to a normal position.she still has a possibility of having another lid lift and straightening one.she still has these and others in front of her but with all the love and support that we have from here at tbichat and here at home we can get through them too. The one surgery that will be the biggest and make the most difference will be the one that will fill the missing piece of skull she has from the result of her head taking the mirror of the second car off. She has now been able to sit up and some what by herself (she is having a special horseshoe shaped wedge made for her to help her obtain this better), she can now ride a special needs tricycle (bright red) 30 feet on her own (then you have to tug on
it's bar) she gets side tracked easy wondering what the other kids are up to, she also has a special walker too called a pony walker (purple her favorite color) she can do that for 20 feet but uses it more to help her stand and build the endurance of her legs so that she may some day be able to walk again on her own.she will also if you hold her up can take 10 steps on her own then she wants to sit down every darn timeI guess she thinks it's funny or your tired cause she laughs and looks at you like why we stoppingOne cool thing is the other day while I was in at tbichat she did something so wonderful and so many were there to hear the news first hand on 8-14-2001she told me NO an honest to god NO and it was appropriate, she was asked by her aide Leslye (who is her best friend in the whole 
world) if she wanted chicken and rice for supper she says plain as day NO, we just couldn't believe it (brought tears to our eyes I tell you), not sure we heard her right I asked her she did it again, I was typing this info in so fast that I don't think many could keep up with my major excitementto top of the week (her anniversary week of all) she had 16 entries at the local county fair and all be darn she got 16 ribbons 8 of which are first place blue ones.and the best of all a 1 and 1/2 foot tall trophy, along with a special sweepstakes ribbon (again her favorite color purple), this ribbon is in addition to the blue that this angle bunny wreath gotSuch stuff she is doing, keeping me busy and busy guessing what is next, I know one thing no matter what happens or were we may go as long as we got our extended family here at tbichat and here at home with the family and friends we got we can go there and do anything. And we would like to thank everyone for all their support and loveDianna and Brooke
the day began like any other she was snuggled with me in bed after her dad left for work. We got up about 7:30 when Brooke's baby sister Brittney cried. Brooke was 3 and Brittney was 6 months. We got up and got Brittney and got breakfast. Their dad came and dropped off the car around 8:30 or so and rtold us where he would be at delivering drywall and since is was to be so hot could we bring him some ice and some lunch. Shortly after that my mom called and said I needed to take my neice home as her and m dad were going up north to see my grandpa before he died. So i got the kids ready and off we went as usual.I picked them up and we went to see their dad with the stuff he'd asked for he gave all of us ( me, Brooke and Brittney ) a hug and kiss like always and told us he would see us about 4:30 or so. We left and took m neice home and then my mom. We were going to go to my sisters house to pick up some stuff but i noticed Brooke's nose was really runny so i asked her if she wanted to stop at home and get her little girl nosey medicene and she said yes. We got home and i called my sister and told her I would be over in a little bit and why we would belate. I was feeling a little nause and put the baby on the floor in the living and 
told Brooke to go play I thought I was going to get sick. She went off to her playroom and I went to the bathroom to get sick, I pushed the door to a little bit so she wouldn't hear me. Brooke came to the door and said I love you mommy bigger than the world and told her I did to and go play. What she did instead is got a chair unlocked a chain lock and went out to get me help she didn't see anyone out at either of the two places next door. She did see the man across the street a very busy 5 lane road. So she went to go get him. I didn't even know she was gone.She ran into the first car did a barrel roll got up and continued forward through the stopped cars. That is when she got hit by the second one in to turn lane, her head took the mirror of the car off. In the mean time I came out of the bathroom and checked 
on the baby and went to go get her from the playroom to go get lunch,What i heard was people screaming and breaks screeching, I loked out of the door to the balcony and saw this little NEON GREEN body in the road , I ran to her as fast as I could. She was still breathing and there was blood everywhere, her brain was exposed in the front and her spinal fluid was coming out of her ears, her eyes looked like black golf balls under her lids, I screamed her name she didn't answer. This was 8-17-98 at 12:25pm a day and time that will always be burned into my heart and soul. When we got to the hospital she went right to surgery, they let me kiss her and i sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her her favorite song, they gave her a 2% chance to come out alive, 10 hours later she was in PICU , she had tubes everywhere, it didn't even look like her. I just sat and held her little lifeless hand and sang to her all the songs I could think of , I did this for 3 days before they made me leave her room to eat.She is doing better know she has alot of deficits and has to learn everything all over again, it;s just like being a newborn baby all over 
again.
She tried really hard and refuses to give up on anything she tries. She is now 5 and is a real trooper. We did find out the reason I was getting sick her name is Brianna. We found out 3 days after Brooke came out of her coma. She and her big sister Brittney are the light of Brooke's eyes. She is trying to learn to talk along with the baby. That is our story , the story of a true EARTH ANGEL!!!!!!! the story of a remarkable and loving little girl
the tale of BROOKE KAYLENE STROUD!!!!!!!
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OUR DARLING LITTLE ANGEL
DIANNA J. STROUD proud mother and caregiver 6/17/2000
Email Dianna
