Help for Brain Damage in Illinois

Brain Injury Information

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We are glad you are here, but saddened that you need our help with brain damage. You are here because you or someone you know has suffered a brain injury and you are seeking help with finding answers to how much permanent brain damage there may be and how to deal with the constellation of symptoms you are living with now.

Why the focus on the harsh term brain damage and not the more politically correct term brain injury? Because if you or your loved one had gotten better right away, you wouldn’t be here. While not all brain injury cases leave permanent residual damage, all brain injury involves damage to individual brain cells. Sometimes the number of injured cells reaches a critically significant level where symptoms become dramatic immediately – sometimes it takes a few minutes or hours for the worst of the damage to become clear. Other times, particularly in the case of sport concussion, it may not be possible to tell which injury was the one that brought the cumulative total of brain damage to a clinically significant threshold. But in each case, the damage to the individual cell is irreversible. That means at least on a microscopic level, some change has occurred.

How much brain damage has occurred, how we identify that damage and how we cope with the residuals, are the primary issues we will focus on in these pages. The author of this page, is a lawyer, not a doctor. Judge the credibility of this treatment of brain damage both by the degree to which it rings true with your experience and the degree the information provided is supported by the medical and biomechanical research cited. But understand that not everything I teach about brain injury can be objectively verified. I have been handling brain injured clients for 25 years now and I see things from a different perspective than other authors in this field. My ideas are my own and I believe they can assist you in coping with what is ahead.

To help you navigate through the information of Chicago Brain Damage Help, these pages are structured into these categories:

I also write as a survivor of a moderate brain injury which happened nearly 40 years ago. At points in these pages there will images taken from the MRI of my own brain, an MRI which was read as significantly abnormal. I am one of the substantial majority of people who made a remarkable recovery from what could have been a disabling injury. Yet, I know I have residuals from that injury and I know that such injury changed my life, my profession and my future. I write these pages out of a dual advocacy, both as a teacher of brain injury and a survivor of brain injury. As a teacher it is my goal to help the users of the internet to understand the potential devastating impact of brain injury. As a survivor, I want those same people to know that there is hope for recovery, that there can be a lifetime of recovery from brain injury and that I can see recovery occurring in my own life, now 40 years after the injury.

Before my MRI, I openly admitted that I had a brain injury. Yet when I saw the MRI, I had to admit it had left more permanent brain damage than I had been aware. The period after my MRI was a very hard period for me. I had seemingly a lifetime of achievement as a brain injury attorney before that MRI and was overwhelmed by a sense of confusion and loss as to how to sort out the events of my life. I tried to sort out the changes that brain damage had made it who I became by writing about it. That intense experience of writing the story of my own brain injury, has increased my understanding of the field. Yet, that sorting out left the undeniable conclusion that my life was changed by that brain damage event. Later in these pages I will comment more on my own experience with that, but to start these web pages, I will wear the hat of the teacher.

Unlike most of our brain injury information pages, Chicago Brain Damage is not just about brain injury, but a geographically specific discussion about what to do if you have suffered a brain injury in Chicago or elsewhere in Illinois. While the Brain Injury Law Group, S.C. has its home office in Wisconsin, we also practice in Illinois and have recently opened an office in the Loop at 20 N. Clark St., 30th Floor, Chicago, IL. I spend a significant proportion of every month in our Chicago office and am available to meet with Illinois residents in their home whenever needed.

We share the 30th Floor not only with the Brain Injury of Association of Illinois, but also with our long time colleagues at the Nolan Law Group. I have been part of the Brain Injury Association since 1994 and believe in its mission and value in aiding recovery and assisting brain injury survivors. I have co-counseled cases with the Nolan Law Group since I first went online with brain injury information in 1996. I chose to increase my time in Chicago because Chicago is a good place for brain injury recovery, having excellent hospitals and including one of the outstanding rehab facilities, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) which is an adjunct to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. http://www.ric.org/conditions/brain-injury/

Other lawyers make recovery after an injury seem like it is a matter of simply collecting your cash, with catchy phrases which make the process seem as simple as a trip to the an ATM machine. But if you need more than quick check after a brain injury, I believe you will be better served by reading what we say about brain injury recovery. Any lawyer who doesn’t get that you or your loved one suffered brain damage, is missing the point. Permanent loss of brain cells is not a transient injury.

We handle complicated cases that may take years to sort out. If you like the information we provide, you will like our representation in a legal claim as well. But my first commitment is to maximize your recovery, not in terms of financial compensation, but your recovery from the brain damage that has occurred.

Next: Coma After Brain Injury

Gordon Johnson

Attorney Gordon Johnson is one of the nations leading brain injury advocates. He is Past-Chair of the TBILG, a national group of more than 150 brain injury advocates. He has spoken at numerous brain injury seminars and is the author of some of the most read brain injury web pages on the internet.