The Journey of Brain Injury Survivors and Their Healers

Second Lives: The Journey of Brain Injury Survivors and Their Healers is written by Dr. Ralph 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 Ralph Lilly’s experience with a collage of stories about his patients and their healers. After his recovery, Lilly retrained in the emerging field of behavioral neurology, which focuses on behavior, memory, cognition, and emotion after brain injury.

Preview Second Lives

About The Authors

Ralph B. Lilly, MD

A neurologist for over half a century, Ralph B. Lilly, MD, suffered a traumatic brain injury in 1980 that led him to study how brain injury affects behavior. He was a clinical assistant professor with Brown University and the University of Texas and a behavioral neurologist with the Neurobehavioral Institute in The Woodlands, Texas. He focused his life’s work on treating brain-injury victims and counseling their families. Until his death in 2021, he lived in Washington, Texas, with his wife, Joyce, three dogs, six cats, and two horses.

Diane Kramer

Diane Kramer retired from the counseling and psychology departments of Austin Community College in 2008 and began writing essays, family histories, and fiction. As a volunteer with the Brenham Animal Shelter, she wrote a weekly column on animal welfare for The Brenham Banner Press. Her writing has also appeared in Alamo Bay Press anthologies and blogs Peace through Pie and Drash Pit. She currently writes website copy and press releases for Brenham Lifetime Learning and the Read of Washington County. She lives with her husband and their rescue dog and cat in rural Texas.

Joyce S. Lilly

A native Rhode Islander, after graduating from the University of Rhode Island, College of Nursing, Joyce spent several years traveling and living in Europe. In 1982, she was an RN at Butler Hospital in Providence when Ralph arrived bringing the new science of Behavioral Neurology. It was almost love at first sight, followed by 9 years in Rhode Island, during which time she attended Boston University School of Law.

Moving with Ralph to Houston, Texas in 1991, Joyce summoned her adaptability powers, bought cowboy boots and a Suburban, and she and Ralph shared 30 wonderful years as Texans in Houston and Washington On the Brazos where she was active in community events.

She is a plaintiff attorney and now her focus is representing nurses under investigation by state Boards of Nursing.

Joyce returned to Providence in 2023; she lives with her Westie, Franki, and her two cats, within a mile of where her life with Ralph began. Their lives were graced with good karma, fortuity and serendipity, for which she is, and Ralph was, forever grateful.

A message from Joyce and Ralph

An Absolute Must Read

Ralph’s clinical skills and expert witness testimony were sought by physicians, survivors, families, and attorneys to secure the best “second life” for survivors. His many patients marveled at his uniquely compassionate approach: “What doctor gives you his cell number and says call any time?” Lilly’s pioneering career spanned forty years from Brown University’s Butler Psychiatric Hospital in Rhode Island to Nexus Health System and private practice in Houston, Texas. He treated ER and hospital inpatients whose loved ones were in acute quandary, as well as outpatients who’d long given up finding a doctor who knew how to help. Lilly’s memoir is full of heart, not science, and will provide 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 Russel, a former patient whose story is in the book said, “Without Dr. Lilly, I’d be dead or in jail.”

Paulette Jiles

New York Times Best Selling Author

“These are remarkable stories of both disaster and courage. They are told in people’s own words and the story of Dr. Lilly’s recovery from his own brain injury is riveting. I urge you to read this valuable, extraordinary book.”

Gert: Brain Surgery 2022

Massachusetts

"....You and Ralph have given me words for things I had no words for! One of the things I had experienced early on was topographical disorientation. I kept trying to explain this to my Neurosurgeon and others and have just been saying that I sometimes lose my “internal GPS”. Everyone seems so perplexed at this. There are just so many ways I am in this book! I am about halfway through reading it. If I didn’t have to work and go to exercise class, etc, I’d be done by now. I’m so very glad we met."

Kris: Brain Surgery 2022

New Hampshire

"You don’t know me but you know my husband, Tom. I wanted to reach out to you to thank you from the bottom of my heart for recommending yours and your husband’s story. I can’t begin to express how much it has helped me. After my brain surgery this past September I have experienced so many of the struggles spoken about in Second Lives. I feel as if all of my struggles have been validated and that I am not alone in those struggles. My biggest complaint is the lack of mental help or awareness provided after surgery. I had no idea the lows that I would experience and am still navigating my way through to become who I am now. I am saddened for your loss, but what a blessing his words leave behind."

Linda Lee: Colleague and Registered Nurs

"… Dr Lilly’s own personal narrative of his injury and his struggles to survive and then practice is compelling ... The stories of his patients with traumatic brain injuries are told with his trademark humanity, kindness, and care. All are heroes in this book.”

Robert Westlake: Colleague; Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. Brown University.

Rhode Island

"…. This is not just a book about medicine and medical practitioners. It is a book about healers. Beyond doctors and nurses, it is about the essential role that loved ones play in rec every from head injury. It is about the incredible dedication and commitment required to deal with the confusion, the loss of memory, and the personality changes following brain damage. … Dr Lilly was a natural healer of this kind, and he spent a carer teaching others to take on and flourish in this role.

Have any questions?

Do you have questions or feedback about the book? Would you like to get in contact with the authors for press inquiries? Please fill out the contact form and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.