The road to recovery is proving to be an arduous and confusing one for CrossFit coach Kerrie Olsen after she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a golf cart crash last month.
“Brain injuries are hard,” Olsen’s sister, Heidi Gustavson, shared via Facebook on Tuesday, May 19. “They are heartbreaking and terrible. Yesterday [Olsen] worked so hard on her new rehabilitation floor and crushed the therapy, but it was also a very hard day. As her sister it is killing me to see my spunky, loving, amazing sister not understand what is happening half the time. She is lost.”
Olsen fell out of a golf cart while vacationing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in April, sustaining a subdural hematoma and massive bleeding around her brain. She has been hospitalized ever since — first in Mexico, and then since returning home to Utah via medical evacuation on May 6.
Gustavson explained that Olsen was able to get one of her restrained arms free on Monday, May 18, which resulted in her ripping “items off her body” and “cussing” from her hospital bed.
“She also was able to get her hand to her head and dug a hole in it by her staples,” Olsen’s sister wrote. “This is why she is restrained. We can’t have her hand reach her head as it is uncomfortable and itches. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t remember even going to Mexico let alone the accident. She has so many staples in her head at this time.”
Olsen underwent surgery to have a custom ceramic piece attached to her skull on May 11.
“She is worn out and just feels icky,” Gustavson explained. “She has lost so much weight and is tiny tiny. She needs 3 people to get her up and work with her so it isn’t easy. Previous to this she was very independent and never needed or wanted help with anything.”
Olsen is expected to be away from her husband, Paul, and the couple’s three children, for “months,” which is draining the family both financially and emotionally.
“We visit, but the pain in the kids eyes is very obvious and it is extremely hard,” Olsen’s sister shared. “Her husband is the greatest, most supportive man but he is torn between being home with the kids and away from his wife or with his wife and away from the kids. At this time we are taking weeks off as a family rotating each other and staying at their house with the kids and their dog so he can be with Kerrie.”
Gustavson urged friends, family members and supporters to continue donating to a GoFundMe set up in Olsen’s honor, which had raised over $104,000 at the time of publication.
