After traumatic brain injury, Overland Park poet designs game inspired by his recovery – Shawnee Mission Post

Share this story:
Noah Weaver (left) plays his new game Word Whizzes with members of his rehabilitation team at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals in Nebraska. Photo courtesy Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals.
Last year, Noah Weaver, an Overland Park-based poet and musician, was seriously injured in a car crash.
The traumatic brain injury he sustained left him unable to walk and with some speech difficulties. Weaver went on to spend weeks regaining those skills with physical and speech therapy.
Now that he’s back on his feet, the 28-year-old creative is inventing a new tongue-twister game inspired by some of his speech therapy at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals.
Weaver doesn’t recall much of the crash, nor does he remember what happened in the week or so following it.
But, he knows he was driving home on a highway from Stockton Lake in Missouri, where he was visiting his girlfriend. Weaver said at some point during the drive home, the front of his car made contact with a guardrail on the interstate, which caused it to flip and land on its side.
He said he was unconscious instantly.
Weaver was taken to HCA’s Research Medical Center in Kansas City, where he was treated in the immediate aftermath of the crash. During his stay there, he said his family was right there for everything.
“I’m so thankful to everyone who’s been by my side through all this, especially to my mom, my dad and my girlfriend,” he said. “There was always family in the room. There was always someone there with me for this.”
Later, Weaver was moved to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals in Nebraska for the remainder of his recovery.
“It was really strange to not be able to say things properly and to not be able to move on my own,” he said.
In Nebraska, he spent hours each week working on physical therapy. He was also doing speech therapy, which relied heavily on tongue-twisters.
Rachel Lindstedt, a speech language pathologist on Weaver’s team from Madonna, said tongue-twisters help patients with their “motor planning for speech production.”
About a week into practicing the tongue-twisters, Weaver said he was inspired to start writing some of his own. Eventually, creating new tongue-twisting phrases became part of his therapy, and he amassed a collection of more than 100.
At first, Weaver said he planned to make a book of tongue-twisters. But, a self-described lover of board and card games, he decided to turn it into a game instead.
The card game is called Word Whizzes. He is still working on developing it.
The context for the game is that all the players are wizards coming to a magical tournament. Each player has a hand of five cards featuring the tongue-twisting spells they use to duel the other wizards during the tournament.
When it’s your turn, you pick another player to cast your spell at and the intensity of the spell. You lay the card down on the table for the other wizards to view it, then to cast the spell, you have to say the tongue-twister a number of times — depending on which intensity level you selected — correctly to cast it.
The dueling wizard can rebuff the spell by saying the tongue-twister correctly the same number of times as the original caster. If both parties successfully cast the spell, the card is discarded. If there’s a “flub,” Weaver said the player who messed up the tongue-twister will have a point counted against them at the end of the game.
A player wins the game by having the fewest number of flubbed spell cards in front of them at the end.
Weaver hasn’t quite finished developing the game and hopes to start a Kickstarter for it soon. For now, anyone interested in the game can reach Weaver at redraspberrypublishing@gmail.com.
The exact timeline on all of that is unclear.
He recently played a prototype version of the game with members of his care team at Madonna during a visit to the rehabilitation hospital.
Lindstedt, Weaver’s speech language pathologist from Madonna, said she thought it was “really creative” and could see it having potential “therapeutic uses” to help others recovering from traumatic brain injuries in their speech therapy.
“It was just very rewarding to see someone turn a traumatic life event into something positive like he has,” Lindstedt said.
During his “year of free time,” Weaver said he started compiling some of his poetry into a book.
Called “Garden of Thoughts,” his book contains about 50 poems he wrote over the past eight years or so. He released the book in August, and interested readers can buy it on Amazon.
Additionally, Weaver made his return to the slam poetry scene, attending the Oh Snap Poetry event at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri just a couple of months after his accident, surprising some of his friends.
Weaver also recently released a song called “Good Vibes” that he wrote and recorded before the accident. The song is streaming on Spotify along with his other songs.
Keep reading: Leawood pastor exonerated for murder writes book about his ‘miracle’ life
👋 Hi! I’m Kaylie McLaughlin, and I cover Overland Park for the Shawnee Mission Post.
The work we do every day — like going to city council meetings, covering community events and keeping tabs on local business developments — is only possible with the support of our subscribers. To our more than 7,000 subscribers: THANK YOU! 💙
If you aren’t a subscriber yet, you can support our community journalism by signing up for a month of access for $1.
Here’s a little about me and my background:
I grew up in Shawnee and graduated from Mill Valley in 2017. I attended Kansas State University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2021. While there, I worked for the K-State Collegian, serving as the editor-in-chief. As a student, I interned for the Wichita Eagle, the Shawnee Mission Post and KSNT in Topeka. I also contributed to the KLC Journal and the Kansas Reflector. Before joining the Post in 2023 as a full-time reporter, I worked for the Olathe Reporter.
$1 for your first month, then just $8.50 per month thereafter. Cancel anytime.
$1 for your first month, then just $85 per year thereafter. Cancel anytime.

© Post Publishing Inc 2010-2023
Website by by Web Publisher PRO

source