Meet Donna O’Donnell Figurkski

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Donna O’Donnell Figurkski a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Donna, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
Wow! Purpose! How does one find purpose in life? “Purpose” is such a tricky word. There’s never just one path. There’s never just one ending. My purpose in life twists and turns as I encounter new adventures.

I remember my first serious purpose happened when I met my husband, David. I was only 16 years old. We met at a Saturday night dance in Erie, Pennsylvania. How I knew that I would marry him after only dancing with him for fifteen minutes is still a mystery to us both. But I knew.

Other purposes arose in a roundabout way. After high school, I wanted to be an airline stewardess (as flight attendants were called in the mid 1960s), but I was height challenged. I was simply too short to meet airline requirements. There was no way I could stretch myself even one inch. So that purpose went by the wayside. I went off to college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study who knows what. I was lost.

My primary goal was to marry David, which I did when I was 20 years old. A year later, we had our first child––a daughter. Juggling the schedule of a husband in graduate school with scattered hours and a newborn/toddler gave me crazy purpose, but I still wanted a career. I enrolled in cosmetology school, took classes at night, then worked for a year in a popular salon–styling, cutting, perming, and coloring hair. I loved it, but it was short-lived, as we waved goodbye to Rochester, New York, and headed to California for David’s post-graduate work at the University of California at San Diego. My New York cosmetology license didn’t extend to California, and we were expecting our second child, so that purpose fell to the wayside too.

But I’m not one to give up, and soon another adventure presented itself. While living in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, I volunteered in my daughter’s first-grade classroom. After spending another year working as a paid Teacher Assistant (TA), I fell in love with six-year-olds and teaching. When I realized that I could work doing something I loved and get paid for it, I knew I found my new purpose. What a great combination!

Near the end of the 1970s, it was time to trek across the country again, as David took up his position as a scientist and professor at Columbia University in New York City. With tears, I left my classroom and the 1st-graders that I grew to love, but I carried with me the promise I made to my mentor teacher: I vowed to pursue my teaching degree. I knew it would be a long and arduous road of evening and Saturday classes after working all day as a TA in another first-grade classroom––this time in New Jersey. Yes, it was challenging to juggle home-life–with a husband and two young children–while balancing my classes and homework. There was never any doubt that every minute had been worth it! At graduation, I strode across the stage, clutching and waving my magna cum laude teaching degree in the air. That degree allowed me to hang my shingle outside my door:

Room 106
1st Grade
Mrs. Figurski

or

Room 109
3rd Grade
Mrs. Figurski

I taught first grade or third grade for nearly thirty years. I accomplished my second major purpose. But there was more to come.

The next purpose was thrust upon me unexpectedly, but I never hesitated, and I willingly undertook it. In 2005, my husband, David, had a traumatic brain injury, which required three brain surgeries. His neurosurgeon gave him a 1 in 600 chance of living. But he did! In an instant, I became David’s forever-caregiver. My focus was, and still is, to always make David’s life as easy and as normal as I can––and to make my life as normal as possible too. My caregiver’s hat is always on. Brain injuries last forever.

Another purpose in my life began many years ago–in the mid 1990s. It may be the hardest goal for me to accomplish. I took summer courses at Teacher’s College in New York City to help my first graders improve their writing skills. In one course, the professor required each teacher to write a picture book story. I’d read hundreds of picture books to my classes, but I had never written one before. That was a huge challenge. I shook when it was my turn to read my story aloud in front of my professor and the class of about twenty teachers. Imagine my surprise when they all loved it and encouraged me to send it to a book publisher. Little did I know what a daunting task that would be––but I sent it. I learned that entering the world of children’s book writers may be just about the hardest thing I will ever attempt in my life. Though my children’s book manuscript received many “good” rejections, it is still not published. But that hasn’t stopped me from writing about twenty more stories, which I continue to submit with fingers and toes crossed that someday a publishing offer (the miracle I’m still hoping for) will come.

Though seeing my books in the hands of children is hopefully in my future, I’ve had better luck writing for the adult world. In 2018, my three-award-winning memoir (Prisoners Without Bars: A Caregiver’s Tale, which is about my caregiving journey after my husband’s traumatic brain injury) was published. My second manuscript, which describes my method of teaching young children, is currently being submitted to publishers. I am now working on a third book––this time with a co-author. This book delves into the many facets of brain injury through the eyes of both the survivor of brain injury and a caregiver of one. I’ve also written chapters for anthologies about brain injury, and I’ve published many articles about brain injury for both online and print magazines.

Helping the brain injury community (survivors, caregivers, family, and friends) has become a major purpose in my life. I’ve created an award-winning blog about brain injury (Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury) that has numerous resources and gives anyone voice to tell his or her story. Also, twice a month, I host an 80-minute radio show (Another Fork in the Road) on the Brain Injury Radio Network. Every show becomes a podcast, so it can be listened to at any time. Titles and links to all my shows (I started in 2014) can be found on my blog (survivingtraumaticbraininjury.com) or at blogtalkradio.com/braininjuryradio.

As I remember my past years, I marvel at how my goals and purposes have sometimes been accidental and have sometimes been woven from my experiences. I smile with eagerness and a sense of adventure as I peer ahead to the anticipation of new journeys and more purposes.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Some chapters close, while others open. That’s the joy of living, and it keeps life interesting. Though my teaching career formally closed in 2011, when I retired after nearly thirty years in first and third grades, my teaching skills live on.

I never knew that one of my most important journeys through life would be to become a caregiver for my husband and an advocate for brain injury. But when David had a traumatic brain injury, I plopped another hat on my head. Being an advocate means that I share not only my newly learned information about brain injury and the devastation it causes, but I also divulge firsthand knowledge about David’s brain injury. I am a learner. I am a teacher.

Brain injury is a silent epidemic. Most folks know nothing about brain injuries. I didn’t––not until 2005, when David had surgeries for his subarachnoid hemorrhage, aneurysm, and arteriovenous malformation (AVM)–all in less than two weeks.

Brain injury finally appeared on the radar of the general public as newscasters reported the devastating effects of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on troops as they returned home from the violence of the Middle East. Folks noticed. When newscasters also disclosed the overwhelming number of concussions and brain injuries happening on football fields, more folks got the message. The perils of brain injury were at last being acknowledged. This was important.

All these events fed into my need to spread the word––to help enlighten the world about the horrors of brain injury. Since 2014, I have been a radio host on my show, Another Fork in the Road, on the Brain Injury Radio Network at blogtalkradio.com. My show airs live on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month, and then it’s saved as a podcast. Neurofatigue, depression, suicide, personality change, anger management, and various physical disabilities are some of the topics I address with my team of panelists. I also host survivors of brain injury, caregivers for survivors, and medical professionals, as well as authors who have written books about surviving or caregiving and thriving while living with brain injury. If you have a story to tell, please contact me (donnaodonnellfigurski@gmail.com).

I’ve also written many articles about brain injury for various magazines, such as The Challenge!, the magazine of the Brain Injury Association of America, and TBI Hope, and I’ve penned chapters that are included in several anthologies.

I love talking, and I have been a featured speaker at the Rays of Hope Conference of the Brain Injury Association of Arizona (BIAAZ), as well as at many other venues, including book clubs, libraries, bookstores, and service organizations.

Did I say that I love to talk? Why yes, I do! I’ve been a guest on numerous podcasts and done tons of video-interviews from around the world, like Recovery After Stroke with Bill Gasiamis (Australia) and The Power of the Patient with Bri Allison.

But when I can’t talk out loud to people, I blog. It’s so much fun to write and share my thoughts with my readers on Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury (survivingtraumaticbraininjury.com). Bringing awareness about brain injury to the world is my passion. I’d do just about anything to help folks understand this horrible condition and how it can happen to anyone, at any time, and anywhere––maybe even stand on my head. Well, maybe not “stand on my head,” but I’d definitely bend over backwards.

If you’d like to learn more about my personal journey as a caregiver for a survivor of brain injury, please read my book, Prisoners Without Bars: A Caregiver’s Tale. It’s a heart-wrenching love story that shares, yes, “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” It will make you laugh, cry, and G-A-S-P!

I also tap into my other passions. Teaching, writing, and theater are at the top of my list. My roles––as Red Ridinghood in the Girl Scouts in second grade, a few roles in college, and then more in the community theaters in my towns were fun,­­––but it was my role as a teacher of first and third grade students that put me on center stage. I entertained while I taught my “captive” audience to read, write and do ‘rithmetic. It doesn’t get better than that!

One of my hardest journeys–and one that I still pursue–is publishing my children’s picture books. I think I love writing as much as I like talking. Entertaining children with stories that are not only fun but are also ones that they will resonate with is my dream. Finding the right publishing company is one of the hardest challenges I face, but I will not give up. There is an editor out there who will love my stories, see their value, and help me to get my books into the hands of young children. I KNOW IT!

So no matter how many journeys you pursue, feel lucky and enjoy each one. I do!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The personal qualities I wish to emphasize here are:

Persistence: I never give up.

Patience: I will wait however long it takes for my dreams to come true.

Ambition: I do everything I can.

There are so many good qualities wrapped up in everyone, and many of those qualities overlap. As I reflect on my life-journeys, I see a theme. Yes, no doubt, I am ambitious. I do whatever I can, and to do that requires me to be determined, focused, fearless, and motivated on many different endeavors. I’ve even been accused of being a workaholic, and I guess that’s true too. Hard work does not deter me from accomplishing what I want.

I successfully set my mind to getting my teaching license–even though I was working from 8 am until 3 pm as a Teacher’s Aide and juggling family life (with two young children and a husband who worked long hours). It wasn’t easy, but when I decide to do something, I seize the idea like a dog with a bone. I guess you can call that “persistence,” “perseverance,” or “tenacity.” I have proven this quality since the mid 1990s when I submitted my first picture book story to publishers. Despite many rejections throughout the past nearly thirty years, I continue to pursue my dream of one day having my books (tattered, worn, and loved) in the hands of young children. I won’t give up.

Patience is another quality that I have learned over the years. That was not an easy one to accomplish. It was kind of forced on me. Learning to wait and wait and wait to hear back from an editor about a submitted manuscript could try the patience of a turtle. But there was no choice. The best advice I can give while you’re waiting patiently for anything is to busy yourself with something new. I wrote more stories and submitted them too––and waited some more.

Being patient was important when I was faced with caring for my husband, David, after his brain injury in 2005. Patience helped me to become more compassionate and empathetic when my fast-paced life slowed down–because David’s had. David’s injury thwarted much of the spontaneity in our lives. The damage to his cerebellum took a toll on his balance and his ability to walk. Now it takes him a much longer time to accomplish anything that includes mobility. Frankly, just about everything takes him longer to do because many of the physical disabilities he is living with have affected his dexterity. So I can hurry up and wait and become impatient and frustrated, or I can accept his condition and reset. I’ve chosen to own our new normal–to go with the flow and enjoy this life we call ours with as much patience as I can muster. But I admit I am grateful for technology. With my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air and with Google at my fingertips, I am never bored while waiting for David.

Ambition, persistence, and patience are qualities that describe my life well, but there are so many more––self-awareness, flexibility, reliability, confidence, cooperation, resilience, and creativity. The list goes on and on––focus, loyalty, being outgoing, thoughtfulness, honesty, and curiosity.

Now it’s your turn. Which qualities best describe you? I can’t give you advice on how to develop a specific quality because mine took time to develop, and some developed in unforeseen forks in the road of my journey. Your qualities are already part of you–even those of you who are at a young age. The best advice I can give is generic. Your qualities already define who you are. It will take time and practice and maybe some unexpected detours to develop them. But you can do it!

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
There will always be obstacles in our paths as we travel our bold journeys through life. It’s how we face those challenges and how we set out to conquer them that define who we are.

My dream of publishing my children’s books is both the hardest and the longest journey I have been on. And it’s not a path I intend to quit anytime soon. For more than thirty years, I’ve written many stories for children, with titles like Fragly Can’t Croak!, Feeling Not Good Enough Feels Yucky!, Disappearing Watercolors, and Frogs Don’t Go to School, with the never-ending hope of their being published. I long for my books to be featured on the shelves of bookstores and libraries. I can’t wait for them to become the favorite stories in elementary classrooms, like so many were in my classroom. I dream of my books being read and reread by children, and I imagine their giggles as they live and frolic inside the pages with their favorite characters. Yes, I can only dream––until my dream becomes a reality.

Searching for the right publisher is a daunting task! I can’t count how many times I think This is it! I found the right publisher. This editor will love my story. So I write the cover letter to the company’s specifications. I follow their guidelines carefully, and I submit my story on a wing and a prayer. Then I wait! In the early years, I regularly checked my mailbox, but now in the time of technology, I haunt my email ten times a day wishing for a positive response and fantasizing about book talks––school and library visits and book signings at bookstores.

This dream is still just that––a dream. But “carrots” continue to pull me along: the “good” rejections and my four stories that were published in workbooks for teachers (Literacy Place 2000) by Scholastic Education’s reading program for schools. I am so excited that two of my stories were published in the third-grade book, one story was published for fourth grade, and my fourth story appeared in the fifth-grade workbook.

The “good” rejections compel me to work even harder to make my dream become a reality. Here are a few “good” rejections from editors for various stories that I have submitted over the years:

“Your writing is ‘on the cusp,’ but …”
“… it’s funny and charming and a story young children will relate to well, but …”
“I enjoyed the rhythm of your writing, as well as the amusing images evoked, but …”
“I think it’s a great story, and I hope you can place it elsewhere. It was really, really hard to let this one go.”

One editor even wrote: “We receive approximately two thousand submissions, but we only publish a handful of books per year.” It feels like I am playing the lottery––and we all know what those chances are.

See what I am up against? But those “carrots,” my belief in myself, and my conviction that my stories are good further motivate me to carry on. (You can read a lot more “good” rejections on my “BUT” page at “Musings by Donna #57 Love it – BUT …” at donnaodonnellfigurski.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/musings-by-donna-57-love-it-but/.) Though this dream seems insurmountable, I will keep submitting my stories. Please cross your fingers for me.

I’ve dealt with many major struggles throughout my life. Earning my teaching degree was difficult but not impossible. The satisfaction and joy that I felt as I entered my classroom–my very own first grade classroom–was worth every minute of my hard work. Imagine my joy as my first group of six-year-olds followed me into Room 106.

Another major challenge was when I was faced with “signing on the dotted lines” for three brain surgeries for my husband, David, after he had suffered a traumatic brain injury in January 2005. Being told that David had only a 1 in 600 chance of surviving was a huge personal challenge. Thankfully, David survived. But his hospitalization has been followed by years and years of trials and misfortunes, as David and I struggle to regain as much of our pre-brain injury life as we can. This journey will be an ongoing one that will last a lifetime.

Life is not just one long straightforward journey. Many challenges are entwined in our lives, and each one often requires a struggle. It’s how we face them that defines us. My own approach to a challenge is that … I will not give up!

 

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