With just a year left of college, Tessa Venell was looking forward to her senior year. But a car accident in July 2006 left the then 21-year-old Medford resident in a coma with broken bones and a traumatic brain injury.
Doctors told the family their daughter had a 10-percent chance of making a functional recovery, meaning there was a 90 percent chance she might never be able to take care of herself again.
“We didn’t have a good prognosis,” said Tessa’s mother, Julie Venell. “I think you kind of protect yourself from believing that. We’d hoped she’d be in the other percentage. You don’t even let that sink in.”
Despite the dismal forecast, Tessa overcame the odds. One year after her accident, she returned to finish her degree at Brandeis University. She went on to film an environmental documentary in China and is now writing a book about her recovery and rehabilitation.
“She’s had remarkable accomplishments for people who didn’t have a brain injury,” said Dr. Douglas Katz, medical director of the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital. “The fact she was able to return, complete college a year after and complete a documentary movie is just remarkable in and of itself.”
Tessa, who has lived in South Medford for the last three years, now works as a grant writer for the Ivy Street School in Brookline, which treats and educates a growing number of young people with brain injuries and other neurological difficulties.
Tessa is one of about 1.7 million people who sustain traumatic brain injuries in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year, brain injuries account for a significant number of deaths and cases of permanent disability.
Beating the odds
Tessa grew up in the town of Acton, Maine, close to the New Hampshire border. Her mother says her daughter had a strong penchant for academic achievement.
“Tessa was extremely disciplined,” said Julie. “She was an intellectual achiever, and she enjoyed studying.”
Tessa served as editor-in-chief of her high school newspaper, vice president of the National Honor Society, president of her senior class and captain of the girls cross country team.
The Maine native was always interested in journalism, but later became fascinated with global and environmental studies in college. In fall 2005, she spent one month researching biodiversity on the upper Yangtze River during a study abroad program in China.
“The seeds were laid for me to love China for the rest of my life,” Tessa said of the experience.
The next summer, Tessa was driving home in her brother Dylan’s Subaru around 11:30 p.m. when the vehicle swerved off the road and into a nearby patch of woods. Tessa has no memory of the accident or of anything that occurred three months before or after that point.
However, she later learned a trucking company dispatcher named Jeff Monroe noticed headlights in the woods while he was driving. The Good Samaritan stopped, investigated and sent a communication via CB radio for emergency assistance.
An emergency medical flight carried Tessa to Portland, where she arrived unconscious with five broken bones. However, the doctors were more concerned about fluid swelling in her brain than they were about broken bones.
“That’s when they put the shunt to drain the fluid from her brain, which remained in place for about a week,” said Julie.
Over the next several weeks, Tessa slowly emerged from her coma, at first just fluttering her eyes, then keeping them open an hour at a time. She slept about 18 hours a day at first.
In December 2006, she was transported to Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital. There, Tessa worked with physical, occupational and speech therapists to regain her abilities.
When she first arrived at Braintree, she scored a 10 out of 23 on the JFK Coma Recovery Scale. Five days later, her score had improved to an 18.
“I’ve treated thousands of patients now with brain injury,” said Katz. “Given the severity of Tessa’s brain injury, her speed and level of recovery is on the exceptional side.”
The doctor said a person’s intelligence, talents, drive and motivation are significant factors in one’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury.
“The doctors told us when a person has a brain injury, a lot of their recovery will depend not only on medical support and therapy, but also how smart and disciplined they were before hand,” said Julie. “Tessa was extremely disciplined.”
Tessa’s mom remembers every milestone of her daughter’s recovery — her first whisper, her first laugh, the first time she wrote her name with a pen. Tessa spent 100 days in the Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital before she returned home.
“I went home, and I was in a walker,” said Tessa. “It wasn’t until I was in out-patient therapy for about nine months after Braintree that I lost the walker.”
Before the accident, Tessa was preparing to run her first 10k road race. Since re-learning how to use her legs, Tessa has slowly rebuilt her running endurance. She recently ran three miles, a new post-TBI milestone.
“She’s really pushing herself and has a goal to run a road race in the next year,” said Katz. “She’s still improving in physical ways.”
Katz said neurologists are learning more and more about brain plasticity — how the brain reorganizes its own structure and function with practice.
“That’s how we get to be talented at skills,” said Katz. “The same mechanisms are used in reorganizing brain function to restore and improve function. That improvement and restoration can occur for a lifetime after an injury.”
When Tessa went back to college, she had to employ new mechanisms to help remember her keys, cell phone and schoolwork. Today, Tessa still uses strategies to help remember things. She leaves herself notes on her smart phone. She repeats things back to herself in her mind, and she associates new names with old memories to better remember them.
“I have some pretty good tricks,” said Tessa.
After graduating from Brandeis in 2008, Tessa returned to China to film a documentary called “The Green Reason” about the sustainability of China’s efforts to “go green” with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Since then, Tessa has worked for PBS International, building a database to report money due to the organization through international licenses. She also worked for a semester at the Ash Center for Democratic Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Tessa said her main goal for now, aside from running a road race, is getting her book published. She wants her book published for two reasons: First, it’s a good story and second, she believes it can be helpful for those going through a similar situation or other struggles.
“It’s a story about overcoming some struggles,” said Tessa. “I enjoy writing.”
Tessa is currently building a following on Twitter by tweeting about her recovery and brain injury issues from the handle @SurvivingTBI.
The greatest lesson she has taken away from this experience is learning to be thankful for the people in her life and for the environment they have provided her.
“We’re pretty quick to think of ourselves as individuals and not connected to anyone else, but I think more,” said Tessa. “Because our brains are made up of all the connections we ever had.... What it’s taught me is how important environment is. I’m thankful and happy for the environment that’s been provided for me — from Maine to Brandeis to Braintree. It’s all been good, and I’m thankful.”
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