Luncheon and Lecture
April 28, 2023
SECOND LIVES:
The Journey of Brain Injury Survivors and their Healers
Diane F Kramer and Joyce Stamp Lilly, RN
“Discharged from a hospital just means you’re not dead..”
These words of Ralph B. Lilly, MD describe his early struggle to recover from a traumatic brain injury. In 1980, Lilly was a forty-four year-old practicing neurologist waiting at a red light on his motorcycle when a drunk driver rear-ended him. After regaining consciousness in the ICU and being told what happened, he asked, “What’s a hospital? What’s a motorcycle?” This tragic experience transformed his life and his approach to his neurology practice: doctors treat those with brain injury; but loved ones heal them.

Second Lives: The Journey of Brain Injury Survivors and Their Healers was written by Dr. Lilly and Diane F. Kramer. After his death in 2021, Kramer completed the book with the assistance of Lilly’s wife Joyce Stamp Lilly. This memoir weaves together Lilly’s experience with a collage of stories about his patients and their healers. His many patients marveled at his uniquely compassionate approach: “What doctor gives you his cell number and says call any time?”.

Lilly’s memoir provides insight to general readers, family and friends of patients with brain injury, as well as those who treat them. His narration is unintentionally poignant, often punctuated by wry humor. He generously incorporates the words of his patients and their families in telling their stories. Their gratitude for his care is profound. As one former patient said, “Without Dr. Lilly, I’d be dead or in jail.”

Lifetime Learning welcomes Diane Kramer and Joyce Stamp Lilly will chronicle Dr. Lilly’s recovery and his specialization in behavioral neurology, as well as share stories of survivors and their healers.
Ralph B. Lilly, MD was a practicing neurologist for over fifty years. A native of Massachusetts, he graduated from Brandeis University and Dalhousie Medical School. He became established as an expert in treating brain injury at Butler Hospital affiliated with Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. John Cassidy of Houston’s Neurobehavioral Institute, now Nexus Health Systems, lured Ralph and Joyce from New England to Texas where Ralph was called on by colleagues, patients, healers, and attorneys to guide survivors’ into their second lives.
PRESENTERS
Diane F. Kramer retired in 2008 from her thirty-year career as a counselor and psychology professor at Austin Community College. She credits the viewpoint from which she writes to the diverse college students who taught her to value perspectives beyond her own. As a volunteer with the Brenham Animal Shelter, she penned “Critter Talk,” a weekly column on animal welfare for The Brenham Banner Press. She currently writes articles and website material for Brenham Lifetime Learning and the READ of Washington County.”.

Joyce Stamp Lilly is an R.N. and attorney who represents nurses before state boards of nursing. She and Ralph made Washington, Texas their home until 2021. Joyce was known throughout Houston and Brenham/Washington County for her extensive community service; including the Epilepsy Foundation, the Unity Theatre Board of Directors, and Brenham Lifetime Learning. In 2022 Joyce returned to her native Rhode Island where she and Ralph first met and fell in love.
Friday, April 21, 2023
​11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
​Janis Sneed Banquet Room
Blinn College Student Center, Brenham
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Lecture/lunch fee: $25 per person
BUY TICKETS ONLINE:
Registration deadline:  Friday, April 21
Select quantity
OR... MAIL CHECK TO:
       Lifetime Learning
       P. O. Box 513
       Brenham, TX 77834