Kelli Trinoskey

Ride or Die | Collage, 2023-24

I created Ride or Die months after a remarkable recovery from a traumatic brain injury which I experienced on May 20, 2023. I was life-flighted to Ohio State and for the first 16.5 days, I was in the NICU, ICU and in and out of machines to monitor brain swelling, broken temporal and cranial bones and declining sodium levels. 16.5 days equals 1,425,600 seconds; the amount of time I had post-traumatic amnesia, skips back and forth in time as I cycled through mythologies of Bonnie and Clyde. My loved ones didn’t know how I would come back.

But then, I came to.

TBI changes everything and everyone at once. It turns a mom, a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter, a breadwinner, a friend…into a question mark; a fluke accident survivor; an unknown. Medics, physicians, nurses, therapists, neuro psychologists and loved ones change everything and everyone at once. With care and compassion, they show up for the rough days and for the miracle.

Collage is a medium that helps me visually and kinetically explore and process thoughts, feelings and experiences that are sometimes too fierce to only put into words. Creating this piece was a part of my on-going healing process. Healing takes patience, discovery, acceptance and loyalty, through thick and thin. It is Ride or Die.

Kelli is a staff member at the College of Medicine, Department of Marketing and Communications.