Brenda Perkins

Meet Brenda Perkins. Brenda was the 2nd recipient of The ‘Kel Strong’ Scholarship awarded in December 2019. She was a teacher who sustained a traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident on March 18, 2017. Among her traumatic brain injury, she had a serious neck injury and cervical fusion surgery as a result of that injury. While Brenda was in recovery, she developed balance issues that resulted in falls that she hit her head. She had 4 concussions in a two-year period. Her symptoms worsened with each concussion. Brenda was teaching at the time and had severe short-term memory issues, she would forget names and couldn’t get the words out she knew she needed to say to teach her students. “It was incredibly frustrating and embarrassing. I was also experiencing bad migraines,” Brenda said. “I was having to consider early retirement from the profession that I absolutely loved.” It was at the end of a very frustrating school year in early 2019, after receiving therapy through Methodist Hospital, but wasn’t getting well, that Brenda was referred to TIRR Memorial Hermann outpatient clinic for treatment where she finally began to see a great improvement. Brenda was working with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists at TIRR until unfortunately, Brenda’s insurance declined her treatment for speech therapy. It was crushing to her because she was finally beginning to get better. Her physical therapist recommended that she apply for the ‘Kel Strong’ Scholarship with the hope that she would get the help she needed in getting speech therapy after her insurance denied her speech therapy. Thanks to our foundation, she received the speech therapy services needed to finish her speech therapy so she could continue her passion, which was being a teacher.