Mindy Atwood

The Pat ches of Light founder supp ort s fam il ies of sick chil dren.

By Michael Lee the columbus dispatch

Mindy Atwood understands the all-consuming fear and concern when a child is sick.

Her son Jason had been ill for about a year, but doctors couldn’t pinpoint a diagnosis. One day, she noticed the 3-year-old wasn’t walking properly. She lifted his shirt up and saw he was bleeding from his right side. He was eventually diagnosed with a Wilms tumor, a childhood kidney cancer.

That was in 1983. Almost a decade later, when her youngest son Michael was 9 years old, he was diagnosed with a heart murmur and had to have open-heart surgery.

Her sons eventually recovered and Atwood, 61, turned her attention to helping others in her situation. The Hilliard woman started by raising money through candy sales to help families with basic needs. Then in 1999, Atwood founded Patches of Light, a nonprofit that assists with emergency expenses for families with ill children and provides gift bags to cheer them up. “We wanted to be right in there, putting 100 percent to the families,” she said.

Now, Patches of Light receives five to 10 applications a week from families who are looking for assistance. Atwood visits Nationwide Children’s Hospital two to three times a week to hand out a variety of gift bags and to offer help.

The assistance includes programs such as fishing trips to let families go outdoors with their kids and HUG bags filled with goodies such as blankets, superhero capes and gas station gift cards. “Our whole goal is to work with families that don’t have help,” Atwood said.

Atwood’s 62-year-old husband, Rod, said seeing his wife help families for the last 20 years is inspiring to him, especially since she deals with severe arthritis.

“Instead of complaining and not doing anything and just laying there in bed like some people will do, she gets up and just fights everyday,” he said. “She fights for the children, she fights for the families, she fights for trying to get money to come in ... she does everything.”

Photo by Eric Albrecht the columbus dispatch

Rod Atwood said that since Patches of Light started, he’s seen a change in his wife. “I have seen her mature a lot from the emotional aspect of it, to more of a business aspect of it to fulfill the needs of her organization,” he said. “As you get older, you get wiser, you open up to new ideas. She’s been more creative.”

One child sticks in Atwood’s mind as she continues her mission. Sam Williams, now 14, was born with gastroschisis—a defect of the abdominal wall where a child is born with their intestines on the outside—and had to undergo liver, small bowel and pancreas transplants due to complications that it caused. He also just found out that he has thyroid cancer. Still, Sam is almost always smiling.

“I’ve only seen this child not smile once, and that was when he was school-clothes shopping,” she said. Sam’s mother sent Atwood a photo of the boy frowning during the shopping trip.

Sam’s mother, Mallory Williams, 34, said she met Atwood when Patches of Light sponsored a fundraiser for Sam. Since then, Atwood provides constant support for the Williams family.

“I don’t think we’d be where we are right now without their help financially, and then also just her emotional support to my family and, I know, to Sam,” Williams said.

Seeing kids that are going through painful illnesses and treatments and still smile—like Sam—is one of the biggest reasons Atwood said she will keep helping them and their families as long as possible.

But what also drives her is knowing that while she sees some families getting support from their own circles, there are families who can’t even afford food or shelter.

“I have to fight for these families, because the other families have people who fight,” she said. “That’s what keeps me going too, is that fight to make sure that all the families are taken care of, all of the families know they’re loved and there’s somebody there for them.” H

Chrisanne Gordon

A physic ian uses her personal strugg les to help veterans suff ering with traumatic brain injury.

By Rita Pr ice The columbus dispatch

Dr. Chrisanne Gordon’s speech was so moving, so different from any of the previous Memorial Day messages he’d heard over the years, that Corey O’Brien felt compelled to make his way through the crowd to thank her personally.

“You’re usually such a wallflower,” O’Brien’s wife said, more than just a little surprised.

O’Brien could hardly believe it himself. But Gordon clearly hadn’t come to the Dublin event to deliver typical thank-a-veteran commentary. She was there to say that the nation needs to do more for its military men and women, too many of whom have had their lives upended by the common, complex and often undiagnosed effects of traumatic brain injury.

The U.S. Army and Ohio National Guard veteran introduced himself to Gordon, a physician who founded the Dublin-based Resurrecting Lives Foundation in 2012 to assist and advocate for servicemen and women with traumatic brain injuries.

He didn’t immediately explain the depth of his struggle since returning from Iraq, which left him feeling like a car on the freeway “with four flat tires,” bumping along awkwardly as other vehicles zoomed past. O’Brien had five kids, a career as a high-school science teacher and hardly any patience. His anger sometimes flared to the edge of violence.

“I was in a dark place,” he said.

Gordon suggested they make a plan to meet so that she could learn more about what he had experienced

Photos by Rob Har din Dispatch Magazines

while deployed. “We start talking and I tell her about the blasts,” said O’Brien, 41, who lives in Dublin. “I tell her about the mortars.”

Victims of traumatic brain injury often blame themselves for their changed behavior, not realizing that blows or force to the head have caused lasting harm, Gordon said. Step one is helping them understand they have injuries, not character flaws. “They’re out of their brains; they’re not out of their minds,” she explained. “Certain pathways are literally ripped—just like the earthquake in California. There’s a big upheaval, and things are no longer connected.”

Gordon told O’Brien that she thought he could benefit from transcendental meditation as part of his cognitive retraining and healing. She also suspected he’d soon be able to help her help more veterans. That was two years ago, and Gordon was right: O’Brien now heads the foundation’s transcendental meditation initiative.

“It’s kind of empowering to feel close to who you used to be. I have goosebumps just thinking about the difference,” he said. “I caught myself humming the other day. You don’t hum when you’re angry.”

Those who know Gordon well aren’t surprised that the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, a nonprofit that has served vets in 28 states and linked dozens to essential resources, emerged as her response to personal pain and tragedy.

But the dots didn’t connect immediately.

“She personally treats a ton of these veterans, at no cost, who come to her one way or another. Some have literally said, ‘I’m going to kill myself. Tell me why I shouldn’t.’ ”

The Marysville-based physician, 66, had suffered her own traumatic brain injury several years ago, striking her head against brick while pushing a box of china into the crawl space in her home. “I wasn’t in a war zone and I didn’t do anything heroic,” she said, smiling. “I was putting away Christmas decorations.”

She was knocked unconscious and, when she woke up, feared paralysis. A friend found her and got her to the emergency room. Gordon was anxious, dizzy and unable to tolerate light. She couldn’t speak or figure out how to use a phone.

Within six weeks, the fear and confusion were so bad she considered suicide to escape. “I was lucky, because I didn’t have the means or know how to do it,” Gordon said.

And yet, initial scans of her brain hadn’t revealed abnormalities. That’s not unusual for the so-called “invisible injuries,” whose discovery is often delayed or missed when outward signs don’t appear severe, she said.

“My scans were normal back then, but you should see them now,” Gordon said. “The first left turn I was able to negotiate was a year later. I still can’t read a map.”

Though she continues to manage some effects, Gordon had largely recovered by the time a friend’s relative, Army Sgt. Zachary McBride, was killed in Iraq in 2008. She chose to honor his memory by volunteering at Veterans Administration medical clinics in Columbus and found herself conducting screenings for brain injury.

“It was more than just a little ironic that I’d lost my voice and got it back,” Gordon said. “But there were all these young men and women who have no voice.”

She soon developed a vision for a foundation that would advocate exclusively on awareness, treatment and employment for veterans with traumatic brain injury.

Elle Crader, a former Central Ohio resident who assists Gordon with some of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation’s work, said she’s never encountered someone so dedicated to a cause. “This is her life,” said Crader, who now lives in Chicago. “She personally treats a ton of these veterans, at no cost, who come to her one way or another. Some have literally said, ‘I’m going to kill myself. Tell me why I shouldn’t.’ ”

Gordon can give them plenty of reasons, along with expert care and hope. The foundation has so far intervened in more than 50 suicide threats.

An estimated 20 to 25 percent of the nearly 3.2 million returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have a traumatic brain injury, according to the foundation, while an estimated 30 percent have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Such brain injuries regularly lead to misery for hundreds of thousands of people. In addition to physical effects, victims often suffer high rates of substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness and incarceration. “The reason there has been a surge in suicide is because they don’t want to be a burden,” Gordon said.

But there are many treatment models that can help the brain re-establish critical attachments and connections. Yoga, pilates and meditation provide a foundation for some; others respond to different types of brain exercises and games, she said.

Gordon has aided several veterans in Alaska whose conditions greatly improved after the foundation sent them

lighting to help alleviate symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. They were going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, worsening their already-fragile moods. The lamps “have been a great solution,” Gordon said, laughing. “Thank goodness for Amazon.”

Gary Johnson, a former Marysville fire chief who has worked alongside Gordon in emergency rooms and on the foundation, describes his friend as tireless. “The motive is pure, and the authenticity is there,” he said. “She fights like hell to help these people.”

Gordon hopes to expand the reach of the foundation so it can do more for other populations that tend to suffer high rates of brain injury, including athletes and victims of domestic violence. “We are in a global traumatic brain injury pandemic,” she said, adding that each case is different because every brain is different.

That’s why listening is so important.

O’Brien believes he’s thriving today because Gordon wanted to hear his story, to help him understand that his brain hadn’t healed along with his cuts and bruises. “I’m a better father, a better husband, a better teacher,” he said. “Resurrecting Lives has, honest to God, resurrected me.” H

Far left and above: Dr. Chrisanne Gordon talks with veteran Corey O’Brien at Memorial Hospital of Union County.

Chrisanne Gordon

Neighborhood: Dublin

She is inspired by: The veterans who find hope and healing through her nonprofit Resurrecting Lives Foundation, which offers treatment and advocacy to servicemen and women who experience traumatic brain injury. Gordon often thinks about an emotional moment with one of the first veterans she helped. “He grabbed my hand and said, ‘So what you’re telling me doc is, I’m not crazy?’ ”

An obstacle that she has overcome:

The physician suffered her own traumatic brain injury several years ago in a home accident. She, too, faced a difficult recovery that is chronicled in her book, “Turn the Lights On!”

What keeps her engaged: The overwhelming need for improved screening, treatment and services for people suffering from what is often an invisible injury. “Traumatic brain injury is probably the most under-diagnosed and untreated injury that we have throughout the world,” she said.