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Janet Schoen, 52, talks into a microphone as she records a podcast in her Coldwater home on Monday.
COLDWATER - A local woman is advocating for survivors of traumatic brain injuries after she was involved in a critical car crash 32 years ago that forced her to relearn basic functions.
Janet Schoen, 52, said she is an advocate, author, motivational speaker and coach and she wants to help others realize their potential.
"As I like to say, it's God's story. I just was the one (who) was chosen to share it because I was able to recover and be who I am today for reasons beyond my knowledge and understanding," she said. "I loosely (and selectively) use the word 'miracle' because I want no ego attached to that. I denied being that for (a) very, very long time because I knew miracles come at a high cost and it took (a friend) to say, 'Well, have you ever thought that maybe you've already paid the price?'"
On June 24, 1993, at age 20, she was involved in a head-on car crash after a 16-year-old driver lost control of her car, went across the median, went airborne and landed on top of Schoen's car. The accident put her in a coma for four days and on life support for two weeks. She was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
A TBI refers to a brain injury that is caused by an outside force, according to he National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The force can be from a forceful bump, blow or jolt to the head or body, or from an object entering the brain.
"Some types of TBI can cause temporary or short-term problems with brain function, including problems with how a person thinks, understands, moves, communicates and acts," information from National Institute of Health reads. "Some injuries are considered primary, meaning the damage is immediate. Others can be secondary, meaning they can occur gradually over the course of hours, days, or weeks after injury. These secondary brain injuries are the result of reactive processes that occur after the initial head trauma."
"We have little signs that we had just a split second to see that she was going to hit us, but there was nothing we could do because I brought myself into fetal position," Schoen said. "If I hadn't, I would've lost my legs because the bottom of the floor of the car was even with the top of my seat, and they had to use the Jaws of Life to get me out."
While she was in a coma, her doctor demanded that music be played to help stimulate her brain, as Schoen was a music major at the Ohio State University.
"He had also had them play music around the clock while I was in a coma, hoping to bring me back, because I was a musician," she said. "Fellow professors that I had and friends were coming down and bringing music that I had played in. The ICU was definitely bombarded. There was a lot of love. I've been told by others that if you weren't positive, you were not allowed in my room. My mother would not allow you in if you could not talk positively, and I believe that that had a whole lot to do with it, too."
When Schoen woke up, her neurosurgeon gave her family three rehabilitation options to give Schoen the best possible chance. Out of the three, they chose the Ohio State Dodd Rehabilitation Hospital on OSU's Wexner Medical Center campus where she spent seven weeks and one day recovering and relearning motor functions.
Schoen said she "had to basically relearn how to do pretty much everything,"
She had to relearn speaking in coherent sentences, she had double vision, the left side of her body was paralyzed and she couldn't walk or eat.
"I remember when they took me to see the neural ophthalmologist, they kept asking me what's 2+2, and in my head, I'm screaming 4 and they just keep asking me over and over and over," she said. "I was getting irritated because I'm like, 'What the who? I'm saying 4.' In my mind, I was saying 4, but out of my mouth I was actually saying 22 and I didn't even know I was saying 22."
After her first shower after coming out of the coma, hospital personnel put Schoen in front of a window, which was where she said she had her "come to Jesus moment."
"I said, 'Jesus, this is not OK," she said. "This is not OK. You did not save me to stay like this. I am going to get my degree. I'm going to get married and I am going to have children. That's all there's to it, OK God?'"
Her goal then was to do one new thing every day. In March of 1997, she earned her degree in a music-related field; she married her husband in October of the same year.
Only after she graduated did she allow real life to hit her, she said. She realized she "had a degree, but I couldn't use my degree because I got it without certification. All I could do was customer service and that was on my feet and I had shattered my right heel bone. The real world hit, so I started to deal with (depression)."
Schoen takes notes as she reads "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason.
Despite her struggles, Schoen persisted and fought for herself. Eventually, she and her husband and their children moved from Columbus to Coldwater to settle down. Now, she operates a business, Mindful Brain Moments, where does motivational speaking and provides coaching to help TBI survivors reclaim their lives.
"'I want them to know and understand that they are not their mind and body that they relate to," she said. "They are so much more. I take them on a journey of finding their spirit and who they are, and (learning that) it's the ego that makes you see all the things that are wrong and all the things that are bad in your identity and threaten the identity of who you are."
People with traumatic brain injuries are not what they see in the mirror, she continued.
"(They) are so much," she said. "They are that authentic spirit that God created when they were born."
Schoen is featured in the "Unstoppable!" book series by Elsa Morgan. For more information, email her at joyinlife@janetschoen.com.
