In the months after a roadside bomb in Iraq struck his unit's vehicle in 2008, Sgt. Shane Van Fossen knew something wasn't right when he returned home to Georgia.

He started suffering from insomnia and had a really hard time remembering things.

"I would write lists to help me remember, but then I would forget where I put the list," said Van Fossen, who grew up in Raymond, Wash., about 25 miles south of Aberdeen. "It was one thing after another. Anything I had to think about I was having a hard time with."

Things got worse after doctors told him he would have to deal and cope with the way things were, and that his traumatic brain injury may or may not get better. "That was really depressing for me," the 37-year-old said.

But things improved after Van Fossen and his wife, Justine, an Army specialist whom he met during a deployment to Iraq, were transferred to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where he began attending Madigan Army Medical Center's Traumatic Brain Injury Program. The couple attended a TBI summit Nov. 4 at McChord Field to share their story about overcoming the debilitating effects of a brain injury.

At the Madigan clinic, doctors have helped change Shane's attitude toward the healing process.

"They basically told me, ‘If you don't try, you're not going to get better,'" he said. "I went in there (this time) with a whole different view on things."

In addition to working his new job as a recruiter in Seattle, doing various exercises and completing a variety of memory tests, Shane slowly started to see a difference.

"He's got more patience now, and his memory is much better," said Justine, who works as a lab technician at Madigan. "Sometimes he'll remind me of things I forget."

Healing from a brain injury is a dynamic, interactive process, said Dr. Fredrick Flynn, director of the TBI program at Madigan. "It can't be overemphasized that the attitude of the individual plays a major role." When the brain is injured, he said, portions around the injured site do have a capacity to recover. "There is a real self-reparative process that goes on," Flynn said.

And while Flynn admits there are still many issues about brain injuries that have not been discovered yet, patients who put in the work and have the right attitude have the ability to recover faster.

"It's about having patience and believing in (treatment)," Shane said. "I'm about doing what I have to do to make it better."

Shane urges soldiers who think they might be suffering from a TBI to seek help. "There is no excuse for a soldier not to go get treatment," he said.

Although the Van Fossen's ordeal has been stressful at times, the Browns Point couple has learned a lot.

"It's made us stronger," Justine said.