Starting life again with no memories

What if an accident caused you to lose all of your memories of the past? For Jane Rosett, that was exactly what happened after she was in a car accident and her head crashed into the car windshield, and resulted in a traumatic brain injury. How would you react if someone from college came up and starting talking to you and you couldn't remember who they were? A client? A friend? Even your sibling? This article explores the aftermath of Jane's accident. The article itself was honest and someone's story, which are what caused me to read it. I really thought about what it would be like if I couldn't recognize people or everyday items, and had to be introduced to everything all over again. I wouldn't have the same personality or hobbies. In the recovery process, the people who would stand by me and would be willing to help would have to be extremely patient and understanding of the new experiences. Jane is a survivor compared to many other traumatic brain injury patients who survive their accidents because the recovery path alone causes patients to struggle with their sense of the current time and moment, let alone remember the past.

In Jane Rosett's New York Times opinion piece "Brain Injury and Building a New Life Afterwards", Jane tells the personal account of her own life and the struggles she goes through in her new life. She takes on a pathos appeal to her audience by just telling her story. The fact that she had to learn to live her life all over again at the age of forty five touches the audience. She writes of her inability to recognize people who come up to her and she has no clue who she is talking to and provides examples of those awkward experiences for her when she can't remember the people who know her. Rosett writes how the memories come back to her and what causes her pain. In the article, Rosett gives statistics of traumatic brain injuries received in past years and how the normal care is not enough. She gives the connections that she makes in her current life to her life before the accident, and she gives advice to her audience on how to converse with people who have had a traumatic brain injury and make them feel included. Jane Rosett uses ethos and her recovery story to appeal to her audience in her New York Times opinion piece.

Source: Rosett, Jane. "Brain Injury and Building a New Life Afterwards." The New York Times 8 Oct. 2011, sec. Opinion: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 9 Oct. 2011.