Title: Determination: Surviving a Devastating Brain Trauma
Author: Keith Buff
Publisher: Toplink Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 978-1-948262-08-8
Pages: 156
Genre: Inspirational, autobiography
Reviewed by: Simeon Gatev
Awarded to books of excellent Merit
Keith Buff is living the American Dream with his wife and three kids when, on July 18, 1999, after a game of golf, his life is changed forever. An excruciating pain in Keith’s head makes his friend Doug call 911 and shortly after, while the former is lying unconscious in the emergency room, the CAT scan announces the undeserved verdict – a rare and severe form of brain hemorrhage. Friends and family fill up the hospital waiting room while a long microscopic surgery attempts to evacuate the pooling blood from Keith’s cerebellum as a result of an AVM (arteriovenous malformation) in his brain. From then on, his life becomes anything but easy.
Keith, a successful and hard-working businessman, an all-round, prize-winning athlete throughout most of his life, an adventurer and a buoyant bon vivant, now clings to life in a drug-induced coma, unaware of the fact that he will be fighting for the rest of his life against the unforgiving d’s spawning one after the other following the brain trauma– disaster, devastation, divorce, disruption, depression, disappointment.
Determination: Surviving a Devastating Brain Trauma is Buff’s autobiographical account, each chapter juggling the idyllic and picturesque active lifestyle with the post-traumatic life in limbo and endless number of therapies – physical, occupational, even speech. Thus recounted, the narrative faithfully depicts the thoughts and feelings of the hospitalized person at a time when memories are often the only thing that keeps one from drowning, from giving up. This stylistic approach marked by constant juxtaposition also makes the painful topic more easily digested, each surgical procedure followed by some happy moment, each frustration countered by the different lessons learnt in skating, skiing, sailing, and golfing during Keith’s previous life. These also become powerful metaphors for the existential dichotomies of life and how Keith successfully deals with them: “You can choose to be positive or be negative … You can be a victim or a survivor. I choose every day to be a survivor.”
Not only does it take an extraordinary amount of courage and determination to come to terms with a life full of physical and mental suffering, but the fact that Keith has decided to re-experience the trauma all over again by writing this book speaks a great deal about his philanthropic personality. As he writes, “Helping people in any way possible has become valuable to me. I have met a challenge and hope to inspire others to do the same.” The book is an honest, didactic and inspiring read about a man whose lifesavings becomes determination. Its apparent simplicity contains all of the complexity of the human condition and the struggles for survival. Although most of us will never face such a tragic medical condition, we can all benefit from this inspiring story, as we deal with the unexpected hardships in our own lives. Without question, the story of Keith Buff’s own experiences gives us all reason to forge ahead, stay positive and believe in the strength of the human spirit. This valuable book written by a brain trauma survivor is a must read for anyone who interacts with survivors. Surviving brain trauma provides insights that only a survivor can.