How a Traumatic Brain Injury can impact relationships in Law Enforcement Families.
There’s an injury to the head on the job. If it’s an open wound, it gets addressed, stapled up, and healed. As time passes, you or your spouse notices you’re different.
You’re changing your mood, your drive, your impulsivity and your memory isn’t what it used to be.
You aren’t sure what’s happening.
Despite what looks fine externally, you know something is going on.
Traumatic brain injuries or TBIs are injuries to the brain that impact the function of the brain. A TBI has consequences in cognitive, psychological, social, behavioral, and even other functioning. TBIs can range in severity and in a 2020 study, it was suggested that 38.9% of officers who reported a loss of consciousness due to a concussion had a mild TBI. When there are possible injuries to the head, the protocols to determine a TBI are often overlooked causing officers and families to struggle to determine what is happening when behavior changes.
I’ve heard of couples confusion when there’s a change. I’ve seen it in my office, and I personally know of a couple here locally that spent years trying to get a department to understand a TBI that had occurred on the job and its impact on the officer today. Joan Van De Greik shares the story of her husband’s injury and their years of struggle, not only to get the diagnosis but dismissal and betrayal of the city and the fight for compensation as a work-related injury. Joan’s mission is to educate other law enforcement families and help them to be financially prepared should they experience a career-ending injury or line of duty death. This is part one of my interview with Joan as she shares her story of the struggle after the incident.
(07:14): Joan shares the story of how her and her husband met.
(11:37): Joan discusses receiving a call the day of her husband’s injury on April 24 2015 stating that he had been kicked in the head by a Clydesdale.
(13:04): Light-duty desk assignments were issued until the staples could be removed from his head.
(13:51): Behavior and personality changes were noticed 4 months after the injury occurred.
(13:54): “His personality was absolutely changing. He was losing things. He was getting argumentative. He was forgetting shifts. I mean, that was not him.” -Joan Van De Greik
(14:08): In December, a call was made to workers’ compensation because the behavior and personality changes worsened. Joan
(16:16): There were questions about whether or not the changes were from the injury or sleep deprivation from night shifts and having a newborn. Joan credits finally recognizing that the injury had side effects due to documenting her husband’s behavior daily.
(17:21): If you aren’t aware of what a TBI is, it can be challenging to attribute side effects to the injury and not to daily life occurrences.
(18:37): There’s a lot of inconsistency in how people approach TBIs. If it’s not an open head wound, there can be doubt about connecting the injury with the behavior.
(19:03): It can lead others to believe that those with a TBI are faking it.
(19:20): “There’s so much inconsistency. There’s a lot of misnomers, even amongst neurologists.”- Joan Van De Greik
(23:01): In February 2016 their family approached the general practitioner with concerns about a TBI.
“He is light sensitive, he has headaches, he’s in pain. They spike every day at 3pm and he is in pain all day long. His behavior is changing.” – Joan Van De Greik
(23:40): Concussion protocol was never done after the head injury.
(24:02): “The original goal was just for him to keep the job. What do I have to do? What do I have to learn? How do I adapt so I can stay on the job? And we did all that training with the speech pathologist, but we never really learned how to work through the injury. We just learned how to bury the injury.” – Joan Van De Greik
(25:54): Eventually the city questioned if Joan’s husband was fit for duty and was accused of faking the injury because his symptoms were so severe.
(28:40): Joan worked with worker’s compensation attorneys, personal injury attorneys, and the Americans with Disability Act to advocate for her husband.
(30:52): If you can get an EEOC claim approved, there are only 30 days for it to be processed.
(35:44): Make sure you have all the injury details to understand the potential side effects. It can change how the overall injury is treated and cared for.
(38:26): Advocate by documenting every single symptom, when they occur, and the circumstance they are occurring in. Documentation can save you as a couple and keep your family from getting lost in the circumstances.
(45:11): Understand your insurance policy and if they cover neurology appointments and/or medications.
(46:54): “Medical records dictate everything.” – Joan Van De Greik
(50:31): Trust your gut and review medical records. They are incredibly important when dealing with injuries. If you’re going to have a case, if something medically must retire your officer, you have to be prepared.
Joan Van De Greik is a certified public accountant and the wife of a law enforcement officer who was injured in the line of duty that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. From that experience, she founded a company, Fetch Your Wealth to advocate for first responders and their families and communities that support them. She combines her knowledge as a CPA and her experience winning claims for her husband’s living benefits from his life insurance and disability to facilitate and educate first responders on how to protect their assets.
