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BOB WOODRUFF'S WAR ON BRAIN INJURY -- The ABC

newsman struggles for words because of a bomb in Iraq.

But he's getting better by speaking up for the troops.

Woodruff's CT scan from Jan. 31, 2006, two days after he was injured.
(Photo from "In an Instant," via Random House)

For more about traumatic brain injury, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=traumatic+brain&op=ph

Story here... http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.
dll/article?AID=/20071101/NEWS05/711010346

Story below: 

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-------------------------

THE WOUNDS WITHIN

His war on brain injury

Newsman Bob Woodruff struggles for words because of a bomb in Iraq. But he's getting better by speaking up for troops.

BY JEFF SEIDEL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Bob Woodruff struggles to talk about his work in raising awareness of traumatic brain injuries.

"Some of it is ... is ... " Woodruff says and stops.

Woodruff suffered a traumatic brain injury on Jan. 29, 2006, when a roadside bomb exploded in Iraq, where he was doing reports for ABC News.

Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, has been called the signature wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of troops have suffered mild or moderate TBI with symptoms that include headaches, dizziness, memory loss, vision problems and irritability.

Others have suffered severe brain injuries -- their memory is shattered and they cannot walk, talk or feed themselves.

Woodruff, 46, considers himself a lucky one, even though he struggles to remember words and names.

Some of it is ... is ...

Woodruff's thoughts go racing down a mental highway, searching for a way to express himself because it's out there, that perfect word, at the end of the road, stuck deep in his vocabulary. He knows the word. He can feel it. But he can't reach it. He can't quite bring himself to say it.

It is like the mental highway is cut in half -- unseen roadwork, up ahead -- creating a traffic jam. It can be maddening and frustrating, as this silent drama plays out in his head, if only for a microsecond, countless times every day, for a man who was once so eloquent and smooth.

Some of it is ... is ... "opening up awake-ness," he says and stops. No, that's the wrong word.

Back on that mental highway. Time for a trick. He takes an exit around the problem. Down a back road. Around the problem and ends up in another place, coming up with another word. A synonym; thank God for synonyms.

Some of it is ... is ... "ah, awareness of TBI generally, not only to general citizens of the country, but also to Congress and the Senate," he says.

Awareness. Maybe it's not the perfect word. But it works, for now -- he can finish his sentence -- and that's an improvement. There was a time when none of the words would come to him.

"I've learned to fake it," Woodruff says.

But he can't fake it well enough to return to ABC's anchor chair, at least not yet.

Woodruff's ability to speak is his job.

"You can't cover the presidential race," Woodruff says, "and forget the name of the candidate."

The face of wartime brain injuries

From a distance, he's still Bob Woodruff -- our Bob. From Bloomfield Township. Smart. Handsome. Poised. Born to be a star. The guy who left Detroit and went on to ABC News and took over as anchor.

"It lasted a full 27 days," Woodruff says.

But his face is marked with scars and he tires easily. Woodruff, who was once the face of ABC News, is now the face of TBI.

There were 4,216 troops treated for traumatic brain injuries at military hospitals from January 2003 to August 2007, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.

Doctors believe thousands of troops have suffered TBI but have not told anyone -- fearing the stigma of a brain injury or mental illness. Post-deployment screenings show that between 10% and 20% of the troops returning from Iraq have suffered TBI, according to the center.

Woodruff started a foundation, the Bob Woodruff Family Fund, to raise money for TBI victims. In September, Woodruff was the keynote speaker at the 27th annual Brain Injury Association of Michigan conference in Lansing.

He is greeted like a rock star by veterans with TBI.

"Hey, brother," Woodruff said while greeting Marine Cpl. Andrew Love of Saginaw, who suffered TBI last year while serving in Iraq.

Woodruff and Love punched fists.

"You are walking really good," Woodruff said.

Woodruff met Love's mother when he was visiting a hospital in Minnesota.

"Can you move your foot?" Woodruff asked Love.

They both stood in the middle of a room, moving their feet up and down, showing their progress, linked by an injury that is much more common than you might think.

There has been widespread media attention on traumatic brain injuries because of the wars. And Woodruff has been at the center of that attention.

Brain trauma affects millions

There are 5.3 million Americans living with a disability as a result of TBI, according to the Brain Injury Association of America.

The leading causes of TBI are falls (28%), motor vehicle crashes (20%), struck by or against an object (19%), and assaults (11%), the association says. Only 2% of those Americans suffered TBI because of a war.

Every year, 1.5 million Americans sustain traumatic brain injuries, including 50,000 who die.

"The war is teaching the world about TBI," Woodruff said. "Nobody, generally, knew about TBI until the war."

Thousands of troops have come back with TBI. And experts say that thousands more likely have it but haven't been diagnosed.

In May, the Department of Defense announced that it is awarding $150 million to researchers who are studying TBI.

"I think doctors are now starting to study brains much more than they have in the past," Woodruff said. "We have known so much about kidneys and livers, but to study the brain is another more difficult thing. It's a very complicated part of the brain, of the body. The organs. I think that's something they are realizing now."

Signs of improvement continue

There are times when Woodruff speaks -- when he gets on a roll and the words come easily -- and you would never know that anything had changed. He comes across as bright, smart and coherent.

The same old Bob.

His personality is so strong -- the powerful body language, the bright charisma and intelligence in his eyes -- that it hides his struggle to remember words and names.

"Every day, I see some improvements," he says. "I have major fatigue and I sleep down a little. But I, I, am, am, able to get some sleep. I can't tell you what a miracle it is, that to get to the level I am. The doctors say, you will never be 100%, but in some ways, you can have improvements."

After giving speeches on TBI -- he plans as many as six a year -- he takes questions from the audiences.

Woodruff says this is part of his rehabilitation.

"My rehabilitation, my recovery is really happening because of interviews that I'm doing, from talks. Just being in this room with you," Woodruff told the conference in Michigan. "Listening to you. There was, easily, a year ago, that I could not understand your question whatsoever. My ability to respond to it was almost nonexistent."

His right frontal lobe was injured, affecting his speech. For the most part, the rest of his body is unaffected.

"As the words start to come back, I'm learning, I can now speak in a different way than I did before," Woodruff says. "When I listen to so many of the other anchors, for example, they have to come up with all the words. That is maybe why I will not become an anchor again."

A different type of journalist now

Woodruff says he has two jobs now, working on his foundation and doing journalism, although it's not the same type of journalism.

Instead of sitting in a studio, he is traveling across the world, doing in-depth reports. He plans a report on China that will air before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

"I understand what is going on around me, but it's a matter of trying to talk about it," Woodruff says.

He believes that he will continue to improve.

"It was explained to me by one doctor that I remember. It's almost like you are in an office and you have your cabinet and files. What happens to you, when you get hit in the head like this, a lot of these pages get blown out of the file, out of the window and are now lying down in the street. So what you've got to do is go down on that street, grab those papers, study them, go up the elevator, back to the cabinet, put them back in the file. ... The ones you don't get, you'll lose.

"But one of the things I'm really learning is that some of those papers, sitting out on the street, are actually flying up through the air, by themselves, through the window and back into the cabinet."

Contact JEFF SEIDEL at 313-223-4558 or seidel@freepress.com.

-------------------------

Larry Scott  --

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