Jake Kasel

Jake was picking up pucks on his backyard hockey rink when his skate hit a hole and he fell, hard, hitting his head. 

“A buddy of mine saw me lying on the ice and woke me up,” Jake says. It was potluck night, and Jake’s house was full. Friends helped him into the house. “I went upstairs and laid down,” Jake says. “My wife thought I had a concussion.”  

Then Jake had a seizure.  

An ambulance took Jake to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where imaging showed damage along the front, back and center of Jake’s head. Jake’s brain was swelling. “They tell me that they sedated me and put me in a coma for seven or eight days,” he says.   

Jake needed a craniectomy to open his skull and relieve the swelling.  

Surgery went well; Jake regained consciousness 10 days later. “It was about 20 days after the injury before I was really conscious,” he says. Jake did physical, occupational and speech therapy “all day long” for five days. He pushed hard: “I wasn’t just going to lay in bed and be there for a month,” Jake says. “I set the bar with my doctors, nurses and therapists that I had a mission to get out of the hospital as soon as possible.” 

Back home in Northfield, Jake worked with occupational therapist Jessica Solberg, OTR/L, CLT and speech therapist Jan LaFavor-Clay, MS, CCC-SLP at Rehabilitation Services’ Northfield clinic. “I felt so good so fast,” he says. 

Speech therapy has been especially engaging. “It’s getting me a lot more cognitive. Jan helps with more than just speech. We work on improving my attention and memory; I'm learning new skills such as Sudoku and word puzzles to work my brain in different ways. She’s got me doing things at home that are productive. I’m doing real well with the challenges she gives me,” Jake says. 

“Jan is wonderful to work with,” he adds. “We usually go long because we’re chatting. We have a lot of good talks about life. I’m real talkative, and it’s a good rehab for me.”  

Still ahead: Surgery to put back the piece of skull that was removed, then “spend a few more months getting back to 100%.” 

“I’ve got a big family, a lot of kids, a good job – I gotta get back to all of that,” Jake says. 

It helps to aim high.