“I was originally looking for a peer support program, but then I came and was encouraged to share my perspective,” remembered Chinna Balachandran, who joined the Neurosurgery Patient and Family Advisory Council (NPFAC). “I had a traumatic brain injury, a subdural hematoma. It’s bleeding in the brain that is so great it caused my brain to tilt. UCLA Health removed a large section of my skull to give my brain space to swell, and they drained things that didn’t belong in the cranial cavity. I was confined to a bed for a while and was only awake for a few hours every day. I had neurological problems moving my legs and had to re-learn how to walk. I still had to start a lot over from scratch, but my recovery was unbelievably fast. I was hurt in January of 2019 and was back to work in May. I’m truly blessed that things went as well as they did. There aren’t a lot of trauma folks in the NPFAC, and I was so taken care of by UCLA Health that I want to give back in any way I can.”

Tags: featured, Neurosurgery, Patient and Family Advisory Council, Patient Story, subdural hematoma, traumatic brain injury