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After Long Struggle, Mom Finally Gets to Celebrate Mother’s Day

(Claudia Feldman, Houston Chronicle)
Seven months into her pregnancy, Tram Le was meditating, practicing yoga and preparing for a drug-free birth. She figured she’d give her baby a serene introduction to the big, wide world, and they would spend that first year focused on a happy blur of firsts.

Little Camille would learn to hold her head up. And sit up. And stand. And walk. And talk.
What was incomprehensible in the fall of 2010 was the possibility that mother and daughter would be mastering the same skills at the same time – or that it would take until now for both of them to be fully alert, aware and mobile on Mother’s Day.

Tram and her husband, Phong Le,.. [were] settling into his new job with General Electric. They bobbed along, content in calm waters, until one evening in mid-November. Phong was behind the wheel, driving north on Interstate 45 after a leisurely dinner, when he took a sip of water, choked, and momentarily lost control of the car. As he struggled, he and Tram were rammed from behind by a second vehicle.

Phong recovered quickly and reached for Tram. She was unconscious, suddenly one of 1.7 million Americans who sustain traumatic brain injuries every year. That night, surgeons at Memorial Hermann-The Texas Medical Center removed a piece of her skull to make room for her swelling brain. Tram was still unresponsive when she had contractions with little Camille two weeks later. The baby was born Nov. 30, so early her lungs were not fully developed.

For the next six months, Phong, his mother, mother-in-law and sister juggled their patients. Little Camille recovered relatively quickly. But Tram struggled. As the family was learning, recovering from a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is a process full of ups, downs, bumps and potholes. (Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle)

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