Reaching Out to Others and Accepting Help

Teresa Rosenberger recovered in large part to her wide support circle

BY LIISA RAJALA

IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO that Teresa Rosenberger was in a dire situation. In preparation for a bicycle trip abroad, she and her husband were biking near construction at Concord Hospital’s campus when Teresa took a stumble that led her on a two-year journey toward recovery from a traumatic brain injury that continues to have residual effects.

Thankfully, Teresa was wearing a helmet, but “I was a mess,” says Rosenberger, looking back. She doesn’t remember much of that time. She was in a coma for four days and apparently refused to go to a rehabilitation facility, her husband told her. He was confronted with the challenges of raising three kids and aiding her recovery – not something he could do alone.

“Men aren’t always good about saying ‘help,’ but he went out and said, ‘I need help,’ and I learned from him that I needed to be able to raise my hand and say, ‘I need help,’ as I went through the recovery. Before I was the type of person who thought I could do everything myself,” says Rosenberger.

Post-accident, Teresa was vulnerable. “I had to relearn how to walk, how to drive, how to eat with a fork and knife. I had to learn the whole kit and caboodle,” she says. When she would ride in the car to doctor’s appointments, she had to lay in the back seat with a mask on because the stimuli were too much for her brain to take in.

It took a team of professionals to help Teresa return to her new normal, and a community of Granite Staters who stepped in to ensure she got back on her feet.

A SUPPORT TEAM

To get started, Teresa’s husband reached out to the Brain Injury Association of New Hampshire and spoke with Concord Regional VNA Hospital, which sent a team to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston to do a quick training on how to help Teresa move beyond simply functioning to being able to return to her position at that time, as president of Devine Strategies, the strategic consulting and government relations arm of Devine Millimet.

whole team when I came home,” says Rosenberger. “I had occupational therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, pastoral counselors – you name it – so I had quite a team.”

Teresa’s family was sent a cook as a get-well gift from Devine Millimet.

“Every week, this woman came in and figured out what I needed to eat for the week and made food and put it in Ziploc bags and left instructions for my husband, because we had three children and all of a sudden he was everything,” says Rosenberger. “They literally sent me a cook for six weeks which was the best thing they could have ever done.”

But she did more than simply keep everyone well fed.

“One day, my nurse was here and I said what’s that smell, and she said, ‘well that’s your cook making something downstairs.’”

Rosenberger recognized the smell of butternut curry soup.

“This woman had gone through my cookbooks and figured out where I spilled and her theory was what I had spilled, the most were the things I liked the best, and if she started cooking the things I was familiar with and liked, it would stimulate my sense and help me recover, which is very clever,” she says. “When you were in the shape I was in, every sense you have that’s taking in something new is a drain on the brain. The brain’s processing smell, hearing, sight – everything. She gave me something I was familiar with the smell and familiar with the taste; it wasn’t going to make my brain work as hard.”

OVERCOMING UNIMAGINABLE HURDLES

When asked how Teresa overcame a truly traumatic injury, she admits, by nature of the injury’s impact on her brain, she didn’t realize the challenges ahead.

When friends came to visit, they couldn’t help but express shock and concern at the visible injuries on her face, but Teresa never saw them.

“They (her care team) covered up mirrors in the house and put pictures of my children on all the mirrors. They literally had posters made. I had no clue I wasn’t looking at myself,” says Rosenberger. “The good news about the injury I had was I wasn’t really as aware of how bad things were.”

To what extent Teresa would recover was unknown, which her husband and care team had to inform her kids.

“Even the doctors don’t know (how well a patient with brain injury) will recover,” says Rosenberger. “They don’t know what neurons are going to reconnect.”

To illustrate just how difficult and long the road to recovery was, Teresa talks about having to walk for some time with her head tilted sideways to balance her eyes.

“At one point I had neuropsychological testing and that was really pretty depressing,” she reflects. “I needed to know where my deficiencies were – and I knew I had them but I wasn’t sure what they were – and once we got through that, then I could strategize or the occupational therapist could strategize with them how I could get back to work.”

A FRIENDLY, HELPING HAND

Support from Teresa’s team of care professionals was crucial to her return to work, but Teresa found that network expanded to co-workers, neighbors and others she came in contact with.

“She (the occupational therapist) was unbelievable,” says Rosenberger. “She worked with my assistant and really analyzed what I needed. One day she went to the State House and she watched the whole situation – what I had to go through, and she really put a whole strategy plan of what I needed.”

Due to the extent of the injury, Teresa could not operate her job in the same manner as she had before, but she found workarounds for processes inside and outside of the office.

“My short-term memory is not great, so I have to take really good notes,” says Rosenberger. “Even now, if you say a word I don’t know, I’ve got to write it down. It’s like almost being in the second grade where you write the word 12 or 15 times, and I may or may not remember the word the next time I see you.”

People will tell her “you seem like you always have,” says Rosenberger. But there are residual effects. To this day, she always has protein snacks on hand to keep her brain functioning optimally, and she will typically attend business and social events after the cocktail hour or mingle in the foyer where there are less people to avoid too much stimulation.

Teresa was not sure she could travel again, after a traumatic brain injury, as airports are a stimulus overload, but goal accomplished. Teresa is pictured here with her porter after a hike into the forest in Uganda to see the mountain gorillas.

“You just learn to expose yourself – you’ve got weaknesses here and I’m going to tell my clients what they are,” says Rosenberger, who was able to surround herself with a team at Devine Millimet that was understanding and patient. She didn’t encounter anyone trying to trip her up or take her client and get her billable hours. And she could easily ask for advice for a different perspective.

“It was people who understood what I needed. Everybody I was working with I could trust so I could say, ‘I don’t get that’ or I could be honest. I didn’t have to worry there were people trying to knock me off or trying to take my job,” she says of the Devine Millimet team.

Even lobbyists and the like, who many would consider her competitors, went out of their way to help Teresa upon her return to the State House.

“If I missed something at a hearing and they were on the other side, they would tell me what I missed,” says Rosenberger. “It was really people being thoughtful, understanding, tolerant and patient.”

It didn’t initially dawn on Teresa the small ways in which the community around her was taking care of her.

For instance, she wasn’t great about processing whether cars were in close proximity when crossing the street.

“I had a neighbor, George Roussos, a lawyer at another firm, who would walk to work. When I was allowed by myself to walk to work, he would miraculously be outside his house at the same time and would walk me to work.”

At the State House, the senate president at the time, Art Klemm, would offer to drive her home when she was preparing to walk out, using the line that it gave him an excuse to grab a coffee on the way so she would be more willing to accept the help.

“There were all sorts of people watching out. When I announced I was going to Bagel Works, it was amazing how many people were going to Bagel Works at the same time,” she laughs. “People were just paying attention in ways I didn’t understand or realize and just keeping their eye on me. I couldn’t have made it back without it.”

“Whenever you have a personal tragedy, or a tragedy we’re going through with this pandemic, it’s really about community – people reaching out to others.”