In 2011, Cavin sustained a severe traumatic brain injury that left him comatose with less than a 10% chance of regaining consciousness beyond a vegetative state. Since waking, he has devoted years to researching and connecting with doctors, professors, researchers, nutritionists, practitioners, and neuroscientists. With the culmination of the tools that he has learned through this journey, FeedaBrain.com aims to optimize brain function and repair by sharing experiences, information, training, services, community, and products to feed your brain nutritionally, spiritually, therapeutically, and emotionally.
Blogs
All Health Begins in Your Gut!
Hydration is More Important Than Food!
Terry Wahls MD: The Miracle of Nutrition
PEG Tube After TBI: Back in The Womb
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Wild Alaskan Sockeye seared in Morraccan spices with braised onion, beet, kale and zucchini from the garden, fresh picked cucumbers marinated in apple cider vinegar w sweet onions, spicy sea salt and lemon pepper. And as always, a healthy pile of freshed cubed avocado. Enjoy! #eats
Send a brunch! Lettuce, cucumber, onion, basil, and tomato all from the garden. With ripe avocado, and smoked salmon. Dressed with California manzanilla olive oil, moms home grown herbs de Provence. #FeedABrain #Keto #Paleo #Pescatarian #Deliciouso #It’sTimeToEat #Bye
Three masked faces hovered above me, one also wearing what looked like a face shield for welding "I want you to count back from a hundred." a voice said.
I nodded. "99," I mouthed "98... 97," and then complete darkness engulfed me.
After what seemed like a short moment, my eyes opened to a dark room and the doctors were gone. Gathering information about my surroundings, I could make out other shadowy figures in the large room who were moaning and groaning. "When are they going to do the surgery?" I thought, but there was no one to ask. Did it already happen?
My first instinct was to touch my neck, but I refrained. If they fixed the plumbing in my trachea, I'd be able to breathe through my nose again, which I hadn't been able to do in a long time.
I made my first attempt. And... It worked!
Air cooled my sinuses for the first time in months! The scent of disinfectant and sickness n ever smelled so good. These were the smells of regaining my senses! And I drifted back into darkness with a smile on my face!
Hours earlier, I had gone to Mount Sinai for a tracheal resection surgery. They were to start by cutting into the front of my neck/throat, then to saw through my windpipe in two places, remove the damaged section between them, sew the two good ends together, and finally to sew my neck/throat back together.
Before the surgery, I had signed a waiver that said that I understood the dangers should complications arise. Dr. Brett Miles, the otolaryngologist who was to perform the surgery, warned me that he could potentially damage my vocal cords and if he really messed up, I would die.
And... if the surgery were successful, I would be able to talk again!
I was all in.
When my eyes opened again, I was in a brighter room and my mother and father were by my side.
Dr. Brett Miles entered the room, joining the three of us. "How are you doing, Cavin?" He asked
“I’m ok” I mouthed back like I had been doing since having a tracheostomy placed.
“Go ahead, you can talk.”
It had been so long since trying.
“I’m OK” I actually spoke!
I didn't realize that these words would be a milestone for my recovery, but they still ring very true. I am more than OK!
#tbi
"Walking around the block again?" The doorman asked. I had been insistent on walking outside with someone at least once every day. My mother and I had started by walking a half block and back... then a whole... then a little more until I was walking around the whole block.
"That's right," my mom said. "Maybe two blocks! We'll be back in an hour or so." She smiled.
I was a high risk of falling and my hand was still flexed inward. I could now almost wrap it around the neck of a guitar... almost. My wrist would lift, but my fingers wouldn’t extend, so I ordered a device for exercising the extension of my fingers. I'll link the device in the comments.
One morning while using this device, I had to go to the bathroom. I practiced sitting up like I had been working on, and I held my walker. Step by step with the walker I slowly inched to the bathroom as I had been doing. Setting the walker aside, I held onto the frame that we had fitted over the toilet, turned around, and sat down. This is the process that I would undergo to pee since my catheter had been removed and I was now using a walker.
After walking back to the couch and sitting, I picked up the finger extensor and wrestled with my hand’s lack of ability. Suddenly I heard a gasp. "Where’s your walker!?!?” my mother exclaimed with a familiar tone of fear and alarm.
I had walked from the bathroom to the living room without a walker!
With a smile on my face, I stood up effortfully and slowly and intently moved towards the bathroom, being very careful about my balance. With my hands on the door frame I entered the bathroom, braced myself with my walker and moved back to the couch.
My mom's open jaw had turned into a smile and she pulled out her phone to film me.
Today, I guide my clients to visit their future yourself's and to receive guidance from the most qualified teacher there is.
You see, my future self showed himself often. "Leave no room for regrets," he would tell me.
If I were never able to walk or speak again... if I were to be permanently shaky and uncoordinated... I would not leave room to look back at myself and to wish I would have tried harder.
#tbi #recovery #futuredesign @adventuresintbi
I could not walk, talk, or eat, I had a tube protruding through my stomach and I was breathing through a tube in my neck that made me sound like Darth Vader. But here I was, in a corporate apartment on Park Avenue after spending months in the hospital, and I was modeling!
After seeing me for the first time in months, my friend, Jane, had asked to come back with her camera. My brain and body were very damaged, but she could see the strength in my eyes and she wanted to capture it. This is one of the pictures from that day.
Since we had left the hospital, my mother now felt comfortable in giving me homemade gastric feeds. She would cook stews, puree them, and use a large syringe to inject the food into the tube in my stomach. She’d give me a small amount in my mouth, and fill my belly through the tube. It was the closest thing to feeling the pleasure of eating that we could imitate.
My brain and body was finally receiving the fuel it needed to repair itself. Finally!
I had lost 35 pounds in the hospital and had very little muscle mass. Like most people who are hospitalized, the effect of my injuries, infections, and the result of so many medications had left me with a weakened immune system... a weakened everything. While I still couldn’t eat or talk, I was no longer restricted to a mere 1,500 calories of Boost or Jevity.
My aunt is a nurse and functional medicine practitioner. Soon after my injury, she came to NYC for a conference that Dr. David Perlmutter, MD was teaching on brain nutrition, supplementation, and the importance of a balanced immune system for brain health. Today, on the cover of my book is a quote from Dr. Perlmutter:
“His ideas are absolutely in line with current neuroscience and have the added validation of personal experience.”
My aunt advised my nutrition and supplementation and my health started to improve . If I knew then what I know now, I would have been pumping the exact recipes I outline in @feedabrain. I would have been giving myself the nutrition for optimal brain function and repair. When I work with clients today, that's exactly what we do. And we are able to supply real food gastric feeds in a hospital setting as well.
Escorted by my nurse, my mother wheeled me to the elevator to the ground level, passed the coffee shop, and towards the exit of the building. My wheel chair rolled to the edge of the sidewalk a walker was placed for me to brace myself. I had practiced this transition with my physical therapist several times.
I struggled until I sat somewhat upright in the back seat of the cab, and I looked at nurse Joy. "Thank you so much!" I mouthed as my left palm trembled to meet my right. The car door shut, and the cab began to move, closing the chapter on my several month stay at the Traumatic Brain Injury Unit at Mount Sinai.
Panting as the car moved, winded from the transition, my stomach began to turn. I had only been in a vehicle twice since my injury in May. "Car sickness" would be an understatement. After several miles in stop and go traffic, we arrived at a building on Park Avenue. A doorman introduced himself and helped my mom to move me to my walker, into the building, and up the elevator.
In the apartment, six large boxes filled with more boxes of medical supplies stacked in the entryway. These boxes contained what I needed for my handicaps.
For the bathroom, there was a toilet frame with handles to assist me on the potty, and a seat for the bathtub/shower because I couldn’t stand on my own.
There was also a humidified oxygen machine, used to cover my tracheostomy tube, protecting me from directly inhaling anything nasty that might have been in the air. The box contained a nebulizer for breathing treatments that I would have twice a day, and cleaning kits for my tracheostomy (2x/day) and dressing for my peg tube, which was to be cleaned and dressed each day. I also had a wheelchair that I used almost always, and a walker that I could use to rebuild my strength.
Transitioning from the hospital to outpatient care is a big step, especially with medical equipment necessities. In outpatient care, my clients are able to get the care they need without being dependent on an understaffed nursing home. It may require more of an emotional, physical, and financial investment, but we are able to control the type and level of care for their loved one.
#tbi #recovery