To Root & To Rise

An inspiring, interactive book and workbook to help brain injury survivors and caregivers navigate grief and loss, find their strengths and move forward with a changed life.

As a brain injury survivor herself, author Carole Starr knows the depth of grief and loss of self that accompany brain injury, the challenge of coping with symptoms that are misunderstood by many and the peace that can come from accepting a new life and a new self. Carole describes the journey in a way that survivors, caregivers and professionals can relate to and learn from.

Tips and strategies include:

Recognizing what acceptance is/isn’t and why it’s important for brain injury survivors
Getting through the challenging first year after brain injury
Moving past denial
Coping with the loss of one’s old life and sense of self
Creating a new life as a brain injury survivor
Documenting and celebrating progress
Responding to insensitive comments by others
Finding something positive in the negative that is brain injury
Letting go of the past and moving forward

Knowing that many survivors struggle with reading and remembering what they read, Carole made the chapters in To Root & To Rise short. The font size in the print version is larger than average, to improve readability. There are also spaces between each paragraph, to reduce the overwhelmed feeling that can come from looking at too much text.

To Root & To Rise is also a workbook, with optional questions in each chapter that encourage readers to take Carole’s strategies and apply them to their own experience. These questions can be answered on one’s own, with family members, with rehabilitation professionals, or with a brain injury support group.

To Root & To Rise is a unique resource for anyone living with a traumatic brain injury, post-concussion syndrome, stroke, brain tumor or other brain trauma, for family caregivers and friends of brain injury survivors, for brain injury support groups and for medical and neuro-rehabilitation professionals.

Author Biography

Carole Starr’s life changed forever in 1999, when she sustained a brain injury in a car accident. She was unable to continue her life as a teacher and amateur musician. It took Carole many years to accept her brain injury and the new person she became. She’s reinvented herself by focusing on what she can do. She’s now an inspiring keynote speaker and the founder and facilitator of Brain Injury Voices, an award-winning survivor education, advocacy and peer mentoring volunteer group.