Jarrod's Second Life

 I watched a video called "Jarrod's Second Life" about a 15 year old boy named Jarrod who collapsed from a heart attack following his basketball game. I was scrolling through attitudelive.com looking for stories on TBI's and Jarrod's story caught my eye. When I saw that a 15 year old suffered a heart attack, I was intrigued because cardiac arrest in someone this young is just not very common. An undiagnosed heart condition caused Jarrod's left artery to be lifted away from the right and become compressed, which restricted blood flow causing his heart attack.This heart attack caused him to suffer a hypoxic brain injury in the occipital lobe due to lack of oxygen to his brain for 8 minutes. When Jarrod woke up 2 weeks after his heart attack, he was confused and didn't recognize anyone around him. The reason being, his occipital lobe was damaged which affects your vision as well as your vision association areas. Not only was Jarrod unable to see, but he was unable to make sense of what he would see. 

 Jarrod is one of 6 children, so while his mom is working to help support her family, Jarrod's oldest brother Jason lives with him at the Acquired Brain Injury clinic in West Auckland working tremendously hard to learn how to walk again and relearn basic ADLs such as brushing his teeth and doing self-care activities. One thing that has held him back some is having to maintain a lower heart rate. His heart rate has to stay below 150 in order to avoid having another heart attack. The one thing Jarrod wants to be able to do again more than anything is play basketball and hopefully move to America one day and play in the NBA. Of course, those are long-term goals, but playing basketball is something that his occupational therapist works with him on. The leaps and bounds in Jarrod's recovery makes me excited to one day be able to see these types of success stories first hand. Obviously not everyone is lucky enough to recover as well as Jarrod has, but being able to see someone achieve small victories like picking up his own toothbrush and turning on the faucet by himself to do something so simple that we take for granted everyday, makes it all worth it.

Jarrod has shown nothing but grit and determination throughout his recovery and is truly an inspiration. I encourage you to click the link below, grab some tissues, and be prepared to be touched by this amazing 15 year old who has defied all the odds.

https://attitudelive.com/watch/Jarrod-s-Second-Life

15 year old Jarrod Church and his mother. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11749889

 References:
Jarrod's Second Life. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://attitudelive.com/watch/Jarrod-s-Second-Life