Immense potential still remains to sharpen Matt’s language skills and mental agility moving forward. I hope my words are more than just “blah, blah, blah, in one ear and out the other,” and that you haven’t lost your desire to understand this journey. I sometimes question what is and isn’t noteworthy, yet when I reflect on the components and intricacies of a computer’s operation—microchips, caches, storage, hardware, software languages, and computations—I am reminded of what this painstaking process is all about: rebuilding and compiling his brain, piece by piece.

That compilation wasn't just happening while he was awake. On October 15, 2021—three and a half years after his accident—Matt mentioned that he had his first dream. At the time, I wasn't sure if it indicated anything of note. A quick search later confirmed that late-stage dreaming is a true milestone of cognitive reorganization—a sign that his brain had moved beyond basic structural repair to running complex internal simulations, consolidating memory, and integrating new language patterns during REM sleep. A silent wonder settled around me, as the sheer magnitude of this revelation slowly seeped into my subconscious, justifying my instincts and underlying drive.

Reaching that level of neurological synthesis, however, took immense groundwork. A year prior, we began with Phono-Graphix Learning—a program that uses visual phonemes rather than traditional phonics to decode words—but it proved impossible for Matt to grasp and immensely frustrating for both of us. Yet by February 2021, eight months before that first dream, he was at last ready to give it another go. The emphasis was on character recognition—an endeavor I knew would be an instant favorite (sarcasm intended). It was an eye-opener; identifying each letter was still problematic, and he often relied on his go-to strategy of reciting the alphabet from "a" just to land on the elusive "f." Unable to learn the way a child does, he needed repetition and metronome training. We started at 30 beats per minute and steadily climbed to our 60-bpm goal with 75 percent accuracy, but turning that speed into fluent speech remained an arduous uphill climb.

By mid-April, we had logged eighteen grueling hours of breaking down different words letter by letter, or into block units—somewhat like syllables—with extra attention to consonant clusters. Decoding remained an uphill battle because, for a long time, if a word wasn’t already in his mental inventory and didn't roll off his tongue automatically, relying on phonics—his fallback strategy—was of little help. He frequently made random guesses, swapped connecting words (in, at, for), switched suffixes (-ing, -ed, -er), and, all the while, fiercely resisted pronouncing what he didn’t recognize. If he got stuck on a word after a few failed attempts, or if a mispronounced one got lodged in his head, he’d flatly declare, "This isn’t helping," and give up. I couldn’t resist thinking how much faster the process would be if he didn’t push back so hard, though inwardly I knew it wasn’t fair of me to judge. The challenge lay squarely within his TBI and compromised self-awareness; he didn’t choose this, and he had never been this way before. Still, the evidence was undeniable: as his decoding reached an eighth-grade level, his delivery developed a natural inflection, and his Composite Reading Score surged from 71.5% in March 2021 to a remarkable 92%.

To sustain that momentum through the summer, Matt and I committed to an additional twenty hours of letter, number, and picture exercises. The heaviest emphasis fell on the stubborn "f" and "h." Matt worked through a grid to the beat of a metronome, clocking twenty minutes daily. Starting at 30 beats per minute, we gradually increased the tempo to an optimal 60 bpm. After three months, his accuracy soared from 55% to 90% on his best days. Still, Matt remained skeptical that this helped "in any way, shape, or form." Undeniably, though, the combined home and clinical undertaking measurably boosted both his character recognition and decoding skills.

It would take two long years to adequately rebuild his verbal storehouse while simultaneously regaining proficiency in working through the unfamiliar. But now, thanks to that intense groundwork, he was finally making headway, proving once more that "slow and steady wins the race."

Speech therapy was yielding similar strides. In the eight months since Matt resumed sessions—following a three-month break the previous fall—the change in his day-to-day speech was night and day. On a ten-point scale, Jessica and I both assessed his verbal expression at a solid eight. The flat, robotic cadence of early recovery had given way to a richer, slower rhythm—louder, clearer, and full of natural inflection. Nowhere was this more obvious than when conversing with a stranger: he engaged effortlessly, asking thoughtful questions and trading banter without prompting.

The proof of his expanding mind kept cropping up in quiet, remarkable ways. During a word-association exercise, Jessica showed him a central object and six blank descriptive rays to fill in. Upon removing his completed paper, she gave him sixty seconds to recall every adjective. Matt didn't just remember all six—he reordered them alphabetically. Later, while managing his personal budget, in a startling glimpse of insight and self-correction, he caught a miscalculation midstream. Realizing the total didn't make logical sense, he independently pinpointed his error—seeing that he had multiplied instead of divided—and reworked the math to find the correct answer without any guidance.

Progress, nevertheless, didn't mean a complete absence of friction. By late July, Matt disagreed with our cost-benefit analyses and openly debated Jessica for most of their 30-minute sessions over her $40 fee. Although it embarrassed me and hindered constructive therapy, she recognized his right to an opinion and to express it. My efforts to help him understand the impact of his blunt demands had a modest effect, yielding a few peaceful visits without complaints. This represented a raw, ongoing growth opportunity: mastering the art of filtering comments to avoid offending others, especially those unaware of his condition.

Ever on the lookout to expand our cognitive repertoire, I found the WALC™ 9: Verbal and Visual Reasoning workbook. I loved the sheer variety of activities. Matt averaged four worksheets a day, each prompting him to draw on past experiences, synthesize knowledge, and carefully compose his thoughts. The exercises challenged his mind across a wide spectrum of logic and emotion. On one page, he had to spot visual absurdities, such as a chair drawn with straight legs on the right and a rocking base on the left. On another, he explored social nuances by describing scenarios that would make a person feel happy, anxious, or embarrassed. He tackled abstract reasoning by distilling the literal and figurative meanings of idioms like "All that glitters is not gold"—a complex conceptual leap to articulate cleanly. Most touchingly, when asked to write four wishes for himself and others, he wrote that he longed to become a professor once more and wished that my garden would yield a bountiful harvest. Working through these pages gave me a much deeper window into the nuances of Matt's evolving language and comprehension.

Beyond workbooks, the loving support of friends blessedly filled our calendar. We contacted a longtime friend and neighbor, Susan, a retired high school French teacher, to ask whether Matt could interview her about her teaching experiences. Matt compiled a list of pertinent questions to start the dialogue and reviewed them with his speech therapist, who was especially impressed by his open-ended questions and how far his writing had come. Ahead of the interview, Matt and I role-played. When they met online, the Zoom app failed to connect. Undeterred, they texted back and forth to troubleshoot. When that failed, Matt independently generated and sent her a Google Meet invitation—a platform he had never used before. Susan naturally assumed he was a seasoned pro. I was in awe of how effectively Matt communicated via text, collaborated on a workaround, and saved the interview, ultimately conducting two successful sessions with her.

In the most academically demanding arena of his recovery, Matt’s weekly technical talks with Dave evolved into a profound exercise in cognitive flexibility. To share his engineering knowledge, he swapped dense PowerPoint paragraphs for bullet points and short headings, elaborating on them as he spoke. When Matt was “in the groove,” his delivery was animated and natural, rich with expressive gestures and steady eye contact. Mind you, real-time interruptions—such as a question mid-lecture—threw him off balance and often broke his train of thought, making it difficult to find his footing anew. We quickly learned to hold all questions until the end.

By March 2021, Matt upped the ante. Rather than revisiting familiar topics, he synthesized four complex journal papers into a single talk. This forced him to logically organize new material and master tongue-twisting technical jargon on the fly—a far cry from a basic recap. The ultimate testament to his progress came a month later. With nothing planned for his session, Matt pulled up a PowerPoint deck he had prepared in 2018, just before his accident. With zero preparation, he presented the entire talk off the cuff. With zero preparation, he presented the entire talk off-the-cuff. How he conveyed the material—his pace, clarity, and overall command—was spot-on—a breathtaking milestone of spontaneous recall.

Increasingly, Matt became aware of when he misspoke, whether in a casual chat or a lecture. Where he once gave up in frustration, he now paused or poked fun at himself, saying, “Blah, blah, blah. Let me try that again.” Recognizing the error, however, didn't automatically unlock the right words; sometimes he would rattle through several related terms before the correct one surfaced, or run through the alphabet in his head to catch the starting letter. People periodically commented that it was still a struggle to understand him because he intermittently slurred his speech or forgot to clear his throat. Being sensitive, Mike and I were mindful of how often we emphasized these moments. It was tedious for him to have his faults constantly showcased, especially when he genuinely believed he expressed himself “beautifully.” Playing a video recording of an exchange occasionally helped him see what wasn't so beautiful, though he only tolerated that mirror so often.

The constancy of our many systematic drills was the stepping stone that gave breadth and depth to his real-life exchanges. Family gatherings, weekly calls, and day-to-day chitchat offered prime opportunities to practice talking, fueling Matt's confidence and rekindling his desire to gain community proficiency. The mere thought of this prospect left Mike and me torn between hope and the haunting fear that his hard-won progress might stall or, worse, deteriorate. That anxiety wasn't unfounded. In March 2022, I inhaled sharply at a scary statistic that read, “advancements in cognitive abilities can diminish if a TBI survivor doesn’t maintain a high level of engagement.”

There’s the proof, Matt—onward we soar! In the spirit of a true Star Trek fan, we boldly venture into unexplored cognitive territory. In widening circles that ripple across the far reaches of possibility, we keep stretching outward, never forgetting what came before. Charting the galaxy, star by star, the voyage continues.

© 2026, Sarah Watkins