Where is the Mango Princess? was an amusing, yet realistic look into coping with life after a family member suffers a severe traumatic brain injury. In this novel, Cathy Crimmins recounts her husband, Alan’s horrific boating accident while on family vacation in Canada in July of 1996. Cathy also describes the toll Alan’s new personality and journey to recovery takes on not only him, but on the entire family as well. Reading this captivating story as well as conducting research on traumatic brain injuries (TBI) has provided me with new-found knowledge on TBI, brought to light the role a speech-language pathology plays regarding TBI, and has ultimately assisted in shaping my career as a future clinician.
Reading Cathy’s narrative allowed me to become familiar with TBI. As specified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, traumatic brain injuries affect around 1.7 million individuals across all ages each year in the United States. According to the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA), a TBI can be either a closed or an open head injury. The severity of traumatic brain injury can be identified as falling under mild, moderate, or severe using the Glasgow Coma Scale as stated by Teasdale et al. (2014). In the story, Alan was assessed after being admitted to a Canadian hospital and scored a five on the scale, categorizing his brain injury as severe. Although, Alan’s low score meant that he would eventually awake from the coma, the consequences of his
“Where is the Mango Princess”, written by Cathy Crimmins, is the journey through her husband’s, Alan’s, brain injury. Alan was hit on the head by a speedboat, and from which, he suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Eventually, awakening from his coma, his recovery took his wife and child on a roller coaster ride of emotions. This story explores the heartbreaking and frustrating experiences of a caregiver to a patient recovering from TBI. Crimmins uses slight humor and honesty to welcome the reader into the chaotic life of caring for her husband. This book has darker themes like most, so it is important that the atmosphere is kept light and airy through humorous attempts. It is the most admirable trait that Crimmins has, in my opinion. I’m not fond of reading, so the humor kept me occupied; I really enjoyed the humorous aspects of this story. This book also focuses on educating the beholder about TBI and the effects of severe brain damage. Though Alan had recovered physically from the accident, his mental recovery was still an on-going process in which rehab was required. She went on to describe the accident as: “One day, you and your family are hiking across a long, solid plain, when out of the sky comes a blazing meteor that just happens to hit one family member on the head. The meteor creates a huge rift in the landscape, dragging the unlucky one down to the bottom of the crevice it has made. You spend the next year on a rescue mission, helping him climb to the top,
On average 40,093,000 people in the United States move annually. In the book The House on Mango Street the main character Esperanza and her family are included in this number. They Come very poor roots, and they don't have much money. They move often, one day dreaming to live in a real house, one they don't have to share, one with their own yard, with stairs that are not hallway stairs, etc. They finally move into this beaten up house on Mango street, Her family is in love with it and act like it's their dream, however it does not meet Esperanza`s standards. Despite her dislike for this house and her feelings of it not being her home her and her family grow drasticly and have major milestones in their life in this house, for example
Everyone who matures has a family and that family shapes that person into who they come to be. The main character, Esperanza from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, is an excellent example of that; Esperanza is an insecure young Latina girl who is shaped by her family as she grows up. In the novel, Esperanza has the perspective of life from the experience of living in poverty. Esperanza dreams of a perfect home with amazing flowers and enough rooms that everyone in her family would each have one. However, she moves to the house on Mango Street, and reality is so different from what she has dreamt of. She receives a tiny run-down house with bricks that are broken down in numerous places around the house. Throughout the
Everyone is at risk for a traumatic brain injury (TBI), especially children and older adults. The severity of a TBI case may range from mild, which is a brief change in mental status or consciousness to moderate/severe, which is an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia after the injury. Mild TBI is the most prevalent TBI and is characterized by unconsciousness and/or confusion and disorientation for less than 30 minutes caused by the forceful motion of the head or impact. While MRI and CAT scans are often normal, the individual may have mental problems such as headache, difficulty thinking, memory problems, attention deficits, mood swings and frustration. All of these injuries are often overlooked but they are extremely important to
Judgement is a very frequent occurrence in today’s world. It usually isn’t an encouraging judgement though. Throughout the book, The House on Mango Street, the message of judgement of others being cruel is revealed. This isn’t just in Esperanza, the main character, but everyone in the book. It is important that everyone in the book progresses and matures as a person because, it causes everyone to become more together. This all proves the claim of, The House on Mango Street portrays an aspect of maturity by showing that what people imagine about others is often not how they truly act and are as a person, how they grow as a person, and what they strive to become.
The Glasgow coma scale is the scoring system that monitors and assesses the level of consciousness of a patient that has had a traumatic injury e.g. brain injury, car accident or sports injury (Braine & cook, 2016). The Glasgow coma scale is a score between 3-15 with 3 being the worst and 15 being the best. This scale is composed of 3 sections which are the best eye response this assessment is important to assess the arousal of the patient which reflexes the integrity of reticular activating system of the brain which assesses by 1. No eye opening 2. Opens to pain 3. Opens to voice 4. Opens spontaneously, the best verbal response this assessment reflects the integrity of higher cognitive and interpretive centres of the brain. The verbal response depends on the language centre in the temporal lobe and in the frontal lobe which assess 1. No verbal response 2. Incomprehensive sounds 3. Inappropriate words 4. Confused 5. Orientated and best motor response this assessment check the function ability of the cerebral cortex, the patient has to understand the commands and perform the movement accordingly, they assess the upper extremities by simple orders because they are more reliable than the lower extremities this is assessed by 1. No motor response 2. Extension to pain 3. Flexion to pain 4. Withdrawals from pain 5. Localising pain 6. Obeys commands, these are the three sections that nurses needs to access (Elliot, Aitken & Chaboyer,
Traumatic brain injury is any damage caused to the brain. Individuals with TBI may show aphasia-like symptoms, yet the characteristics of TBI include mostly cognitive processes deficits. Those characteristics include disrupt orientation, attention, memory, visual processing, and executive functions problems. Penitents with TBI experience a blackout that can last anywhere between a few minutes up to months and usually wake up confused and disoriented. They do not have any recollection of the events that occurred. In addition to the common characteristics mentioned earlier, TBI patients exhibit communication deficits that relate to poor cognitive functioning such as problems with word finding, grammatical, spelling, reading, and writing. The cause of TBI is very straightforward, unlike SLI or ASD. Any injury to the head, for example motor vehicle accidents, falls, blast trauma, and more, can cause a TBI. These in turn can cause damage to multiple areas of the brain and impair motor, speech, language, and cognitive functions as discussed. It is important to note that unlike ASD that usually
According to the Center for Disease Control, traumatic brain injuries contribute to about 30% of all injury deaths. Traumatic brain injuries are classified as “severe” or “mild”. The most common type of TBI is mild and called a concussion. The CDC estimates 2.8 billion emergency
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has affected many people, but has hardly raised awareness; in fact according to Marcia Clemmitt “About 1.7 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year…Yet, while they affect so many people, TBI has received little medical-research funding until brain injuries from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … began to mount in recent years.”(Clemmitt) For such a long time many people were unaware of what traumatic brain injury even meant; Up until a numerous groups of veterans that came back home, from Afghanistan were found to suffer from traumatic brain injuries. Due to the discovery, the people that already suffered from traumatic brain injury
It only takes a split second for a jolt to the skull to cause extensive damage and serious impairment of the voluminous and vital neurological functions. Who would be your power of attorney? How would you pay for the medical bills? Questions the majority of people never even think of- you never think it could be you. Effects may be long term or short term, depending on the gravity of the incident. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a serious public health problem in the United States. Based on recent studies, on average, 1.7 million people endure a traumatic brain injury each year.
The endless debate over society’s influence is argued over how it influence a characters development in either a harmful or helpful way. Different societies are influence by different factors. Although there are many ways to influence an individual, children can influenced by the moral and cultural influences of a society. Throughout the three novels, The House on Mango Street, The Glass Castle, and To Kill A Mockingbird, the three main characters are influenced overall by society negatively. =
Traumatic Brain Injury is otherwise known as TBI. “Traumatic brain injury, a form of acquired brain injury, occurs when sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue” (NINDS, 2010). There are two main types of TBI, closed head injuries such as head hitting a windshield and penetrating head injuries such as a gunshot wound. As reported by the Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation,” The severity of traumatic brain injuries is often assessed using the Glasgow Coma Scale, with scores ranging from 3 to 15. The higher the score,
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros tells the poignant and heartwarming story of Esperanza Cordero, a Latina girl maturing in Chicago. As Esperanza grows, she is faced with new hardships and expectations associated with being a woman, and becomes ashamed of her life. Esperanza learns to accept her life because she is exposed to different perspectives of women who feel trapped on Mango Street.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI), or intracranial injury, is a medical diagnosis which refers to closed or penetrative damage to the brain that is caused by an external source. Every year, TBIs affect approximately 150-250 people in a population of 100,000 (León-Carrión, Domínguez-Morales, Martín, & Murillo-Cabezas, 2005). The leading causes of TBI are traffic accidents, work injuries, sports injuries, and extreme violence (León-Carrión et al., 2005). TBI is most often fatal when the cause is an injury due to the use of firearms, a traffic accident, or a long fall (León-Carrión et al., 2005). However, fatality rates and rates of occurrence differ in various countries due to
Traumatic brain injury occurs when a person is hit in the head with a blunt force. This significant force to the head can happen playing recreational sports, on the playground, being in a car or motorcycle accident, falling down at home and your head impacting something, a blast or explosion. Traumatic brain injuries are also the leading cause of fatality rate and disability, especially in children, young adults and elderly. TBI is a devastating condition that affects millions of people nationwide, because it can affect the nervous system permanently, it also messes with the neurological, musculoskeletal, cognitive and much more. TBI force a family to deal with not just the physical disability, with the behavioral and emotional roller