Expand or Contract with survivor Leslie Gainer

Startled by the sound of two consecutive home runs as they bounced off the concrete walls of San Francisco’s Oracle Park on Christmas Night 2013, she felt the balls colliding with her head. The freakishly loud “Crack! Crack!” reverberated within her skull. Then, a sickening awareness overtook her. One misstep onto a slippery wheelchair ramp at a crosswalk had propelled her into the middle of the street in San Francisco. Prior to her brain injuries, Leslie Gainer had lived two very fulfilling lifestyles/careers. The first, on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. working with nonprofits writing Consumer and Environmental laws and launching creative campaigns to get them passed. Then, living her next dream, of moving to Paso Robles, CA, and joining the wine industry. This excerpt from her journal recounts: I was living that dream, when brain injuries turned my life into chaos and wreckage as I was about to become someone I didn't know - in a matter of seconds. Life as I understood it would start to approach me incrementally, like a Scrabble puzzle that had been hurled into the air and landing with its creative, articulate, and well-ordered linear life reconfigured into a dyslexic and autistic jumble….  expandorcontract.com

This episode is brought to you by: Integrated Brain Centers