Nine months after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a fall from a ladder, Alabama resident John Peacock is four weeks into an eight-week individualized rehabilitation program at Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, and his family says he is making real progress.
Peacock fell in November and spent nearly a month in a coma before being transferred to Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, where he began showing signs of movement, according to his wife, Alaina Peacock. The road to keeping him in continued care has not been easy. Alaina said insurance companies pushed the family to have John leave Brooks, and she spent weeks fighting to keep his treatment on track. After an evaluation in May, doctors determined John was not yet physically ready for the facility’s day program, so he was brought back for an individualized program aimed at getting him there.
“He didn’t get into the day program, which we’re still working really hard to get him ready for it, but brought him back for his own individualized program to get him ready for it,” Alaina said.
Alaina, the former head women’s basketball coach at Alma Bryant High School, stepped away from coaching to be by her husband’s side throughout his recovery. She said progress that once seemed out of reach has become visible in recent weeks.
“He is able to produce words now, whereas four weeks ago, he absolutely couldn’t,” she said.
Alaina said she has also learned how to support John outside of his formal therapy sessions. “They taught me how to have a conversation with him, and so that was the first week he was here and that was huge,” she said.
The recovery has separated the family. While Alaina remains in Florida with John, the couple’s two sons have returned to school — their younger son, Easton, a first-grader staying with family in North Alabama, and their older son, J.C., beginning his senior year of high school in Irvington. “It’s definitely heartbreaking because our oldest is a senior, so we have missed the beginning of his senior year,” Alaina said. Still, she said the family is doing what has to be done. “Everyone is where everyone has to be right now,” she said.
John has four weeks remaining in his current rehab program. After that, the family hopes to return home briefly before coming back to Brooks for additional rehabilitation. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help support the Peacock family.