Bring them KICKING and SCREAMING!!!

I just completed a tour of the United States, visiting families dealing with brain injuries, brain rehab facilities, and one HBOT center in MI. 8116 miles in an aging motorhome. I know the medical profession tries to steer people away from HBOT. They call it experimental. ALL medical treatment at some time is experimental. ALL of it. We need to cross that barrier and drag the medical profession with us, kicking and screaming if we have to. Where would we be if Jonas Salk gave up at the first failure? Where would we be if Madame Curie just sat down and did nothing more?

Thirty years ago, I became chief fundraiser for Idaho's first pediatric liver transplant patient. Liver transplants were experimental then. We had to fight to get her funded and accepted. We have to fight for the treatment and therapies for our loved ones with a brain injury.

By the time I reached Washington, DC, and my senator's office, I was firmly convinced that HBOT was more than worth a try for patients suffering from hypoxic-anoxic brain injury. It only makes sense to me that when the brain is deprived of oxygen for any time, the brain should be given HBOT at the earliest stages to help revive the brain. HBOT should be available not only for TBI but for those who have lost oxygen. I believe hypoxic-anoxic patients should have a priority for HBOT if the families want it. This was a critical point I made with my senator in the few minutes I had with him.

Congress has been asked for a paltry $37million for brain injury research. I asked my senator to support part of those funds going toward HBOT for hypoxic-anoxic injuries. Just using the figures for TBI. There are 6 times moreTBI each year than breast cancer and 7 times more than prostate. That doesn't even include the hypoxic-anoxic patients for whom we know there is no data being collected. Brain injuries are at an epedimic stage.

There are no golf tournaments for brain injuries. No walks, no runs, no polar bear dips on New Years day for brain injuries. Change must come from those of us who know this journey inside out.