Hi, my name's Lex Oveson. Um, I was in the mountains in 2012, three years ago, and a tree was pushed onto my head and spinal cord. Um, my initial diagnosis was that of a concussion, and I couldn't walk. Uh, my legs were shaky and just splitting headaches. It was, it was awful. Um, a year after my injury, like, nothing was getting better, and my parents finally decided to run the first functional MRI, and we found that my score, on the severity level, was a four, which is really bad.
And I had been living like this, in just constant pain. I couldn't open my eyes very much. Um, I couldn't bear to listen to loud noises. Um, I was going to high school, and I had, like, two classes. It was, my whole entire life was just turned upside down. And then three years later, the neurologist that we had been working with pointed us towards Cognitive FX, and, and we had never heard of anything like that happening before.
And so we came here and...[laughs] Dr. Fong, she's just amazing. So she explained the process to us, and it almost sounded too good to be true, honestly.
But we did it. So I signed up for it, and I just barely completed it today.
But my first fMRI found that even after three years after the accident, my severity level was still a 3.3, and that my hypothalamus and different areas of my brain were completely dormant and only blood and oxygen were getting there. That was really hard for me to look at, and just, I don't know,I'd kinda been giving up. I was, I was sick of living this way. So we started therapy, and it was so hard. They, they poked at my brain, and they pushed me so hard, and I cried. I was frustrated. It was, it was killer. My brain felt like it was on fire. And then the second day was even worse. [laughs] So it was so crazy.
Um, but then the third day came, and I woke up, and I didn't have a headache anymore. I had been living for three years with this constant headache. It was gone. I, it was amazing. And I came, and it was like they'd made the tests easier, but they weren't. They were still pushing me so hard. But the neurocognitive tests, I was remembering 20 words that they'd given me on Monday to remember. And I hadn't been able to remember, like, conversations with people before this. And I just felt amazing. It was like I had to go low before I started to improve. And then Thursday, I was setting records for different things. I was doing things faster than they'd said
anyone else had done them. It was, it was amazing.
I finally was starting to feel like myself again. And then today, we just, we just got our results in. My score from the second fMRI is at a 0.99. A 0.99 from a 4. [laughs] They helped me get back to who I know I am, and how I wanted to function and live my life. Like, I feel I can live my life again. And I never would have been able to do that without them. If you are struggling and if you felt like I have, if you, just dizzy and headaches, if you are in pain because of a head injury, let them help you because they helped me. And they can help you.
