Laura Reno

I'm Laura Reno, and I'm currently a senior at Fordham where I am actually a neuroscience major.

Let’s start with a brief introduction. 

I'm Laura Reno, and I'm currently a senior at Fordham where I am actually a neuroscience major. I’m a resident assistant here, and it’s a nice community to have. I'm originally from Milford, Pennsylvania. I play rugby at Fordham, or I at least used to, which is really fun. 

Let's talk a little bit about your brain injury. Can you tell us when and how it occurred?

I was staying in Maryland and had been working out when all of a sudden I noticed my head was hurting weirdly. And then I lifted up my hand and I realized I couldn't see it. So I told my sister and she took me to Urgent Care because she wasn't sure where the hospital was. And then they said, “Call the hospital and order a CT scan. Get her in right away.” They originally thought it was a migraine, but then after doing the CAT scan realized that I had been bleeding. I did have a stroke. Eventually they figured out after doing different kinds of imaging that it was an AVM, an arteriovenous malformation, that had developed an aneurysm that had ruptured.

What was your experience with the diagnosis? 

“They wanted to keep me in Maryland to go to Johns Hopkins, but I was very stubborn. It was my senior year and I wanted to go back to school. ”

At first, I didn't really know how serious the injury was. So I was like, “Oh, what bad luck. I had an aneurysm at 20 years old, but I'm fine.” I told people, but I didn't act like it was super serious. The hospital didn’t have neurosurgeons, so the doctors came and told me that I had an AVM, but they didn’t know much about the injury. They told me that my course of treatment would be an embolization, radiation therapy, or surgery. They told me this at three in the morning which was not fun. I initially freaked out, but calmed myself down because I was hopeful that I wouldn’t have to get the surgery. They wanted to keep me in Maryland to go to Johns Hopkins, but I was very stubborn. It was my senior year and I wanted to go back to school. I searched around New York City for a neurosurgeon that could deal with this AVM that like 1-2% of the population is estimated to have and ended up getting surgery at Montefiore. It all worked out. 

So other than the medical community, what was your support system? 

“But then getting so much support right as I went in made recovery a lot easier for me. ”

I felt pretty well supported by my siblings, my mom, and my friends from school, even though they didn't really know what I was going through. The staff in my building actually made me a Get Well Soon card before I went in for surgery which was nice. And because the surgery was such an expensive thing, I actually ended up making a GoFundMe before the surgery. I got an overwhelming amount of support from that. I surpassed the goal. And so many people had reached out to me and my friends. The president of our student government texted me saying she had seen my story and wanted to check in and tell me some of the resources that she knew of. I was very well supported by the Fordham community which was really nice because I had started to feel a bit alone right before the surgery. But then getting so much support right as I went in made recovery a lot easier for me. 

How were your classes and your ability to focus on them, and how did you get back into the swing of things after this?

I registered with Disability Services at Fordham because I did anticipate some of the problems I had coming back to school. I noticed that my language processing skills were significantly worse. It would take me longer to think of the right word, so it took me longer to write essays. I still do notice a little bit that my ability to focus is worse. I actually ended up using this idea for a cognitive neuroscience class I’m in now. We got to pick the topic of our final paper, and I wrote it about attention deficits and aneurysms in hemorrhage survivors. It was kind of cool to take my own experience and apply it to what I was studying. But yeah, I think the biggest problems I’m experiencing are my attention and my overall language processing.

How did your life as a whole change, and your overall outlook on things?

“Just the fact that I was given this opportunity, when so many people weren’t, is kind of a lot of pressure because I was given a second chance and I need to not waste it. ”

It's definitely been emotional. And I don't know if I've ever really fully processed it. But it's a little bit scary to think like,” Oh, I could have died a few months ago.”  Just the fact that I was given this opportunity, when so many people weren't, is kind of a lot of pressure because I was given a second chance and I need to not waste it. So it's definitely been emotional. I do think, also, that my emotions have been out of whack with a lot of highs and lows. I think it's getting better, but regulating emotion has been tough. It's mostly just that lingering thought of “I need to be productive and do something good at all times, because I was lucky to have survived this.”

What were the biggest challenges of recovery for you, both physically and emotionally, from a holistic standpoint?

I don't think physical recovery was really that hard for me. It was a little bit tough to not be able to go to the few rugby practices that we had, because I wasn't allowed to work out. And felt like I was missing out on that. But overall, it's been a pretty smooth recovery. I know I said that my emotions have been kind of up and down a lot, but It's been fine in the sense that I just feel very lucky to have been able to recover. I’ve gotten more used to my vision. It hasn't come back. But I've gotten more used to not seeing a certain area, and I haven't tried driving yet.That's the one thing that I'm worried about: if a car came in another lane and I wouldn't see it in time. 

So would you say that there were any positive things that came out of this experience?

It really opened my eyes to how many people actually care about me, and how many people I've touched throughout my time. I had people I hadn't talked to since high school posting about me and sharing my GoFundMe saying, “Oh, she's like, the sweetest person I've ever met.” I was like, I don't even remember who this person was, but clearly, they remember me. So I think it's just given me a lot to be grateful for.

Do you have any advice for other people with brain injuries? 

I think just knowing that there is a community of people with brain injuries is important. And I would recommend seeking out specific organizations that support your type of injury. I had spoken to people from the aneurysm and AVM foundation and I found that very helpful. They connected me to people who have gone through the same thing at a young age who knew that it would get better. And it was just nice to be able to talk to people who understood. So I would just recommend seeking out these kinds of programs.

From your experience, how do you feel about people's understanding of brain injury? 

“But also to have hope for someone you know, struggling with a brain injury because neuroplasticity is an amazing thing.”

I think when people think of brain injuries, they are often brought to tears by them, and they think about the physical aspect of them. But I think there's not much understanding of how it affects you emotionally and socially. I would encourage people to have patience with somebody who's had a brain injury, because if it's more severe, you can have a complete personality change. But also to have hope for someone you know, struggling with a brain injury because neuroplasticity is an amazing thing. People can get better and recover from some wild things. So I would just tell people to have patience. 

As someone who studies neuroscience, how has your perspective changed on the field? 

I think I was originally interested in doing research on different types of mental illness so that I could potentially develop better treatments for them. But I think after having a brain injury  and talking to so many doctors and nurses, I’m more interested in personal relationships between people. It's definitely been very interesting being a neuroscience major going through this because I have been able to better understand it in a way that most people wouldn't. And actually, I honestly might not have gone to the hospital at first if I hadn't been a neuroscience student. When it happened, I was okay because my head didn't hurt that bad. I know it's often described as the worst headache of your life, but I was just like, “Okay, I know that it hurts on the right side. And my vision is affected on the left side. So that's a brain problem.” That's very basic neuroanatomy, but having some background in it was helpful. So it's definitely been a unique experience. If it was going to happen to anyone, I’m glad that it happened to somebody who had some understanding of it.