Veteran Sean Carrier. Photo by Peter Biello, NHPR

It’s been a busy month so I’m tardy reporting about our extremely moving MAKE SURE IT’S ME presentation at the VA Medical Center in Manchester on March 2nd!  Our star reader was Sean Carrier, who survived seven IED blasts and a plane crash while serving in Iraq.  Sean gave a great reading, pushing courageously past any pain or nervousness to share insights from Kate Wenner’s play about combat-related Traumatic Brain Injury.  Sean and I were joined on our little “stage” by VA staff members, many of whom were also veterans.  The event was organized by VA TBI clinician Nina Romano and social worker Erica Rowe and was introduced by the Medical Center Director Al Montoya, who awarded us all with Director’s coins for bringing this important conversation to the VA. The post-reading discussion lasted nearly 90 minutes and allowed veterans, family members, and service providers to share their observations and feelings about the complicated effects of TBI.  As we wound up the event, Nina said they’d love to make MSIM an annual event as part of the March Brain Injury Awareness month. So it’s on my calendar for 2019!  If you want to know more about this event, Sean and I were interviewed by the marvelous Peter Biello, who is the NHPR anchor for “All Things Considered.”  You can listen to that interview or read the transcript here.  Stay tuned for more MSIM news . . . plans are in the works to return to the Manchester Vet Center in September.