One of our graduates recently told us an incredible and inspirational story that we couldn't wait to share. A version of the story that follows will eventually run in an edition of UMR Magazine...
Most engineers rely heavily on the so-called left-brained skills associated with literal analysis, and Thomas “Trent” Givens is no exception. But Givens, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from UMR in 1988, no longer takes his ability to think like an engineer for granted. In fact, Givens no longer takes anything for granted.
“I have survived two brain tumors and have managed to climb up the ladder in the engineering field despite my memory deficits,” says Givens, a deputy branch chief within the Schreiver Space Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base. “Fortunately, the location of the tumors left my engineering skills intact, but I will never be able to write poetry.”
He is quick to add that he wasn’t necessarily a poet before the tumors.
Today, Givens enjoys coaching youth soccer. But his son was just one-year old back in 1995 when Givens suffered a Grand Mal seizure during a business trip to Seattle. “At some point, the EMTs had to resuscitate me,” he says. “I was dying.”
Givens was stabilized enough to be flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. An MRI showed a mass the size of a small lime in his right temporal lobe. Neurosurgeons removed part of his skull and then extracted the mass along with most of the right temporal lobe. The surgery left him without some of the abstract thinking skills and spatial abilities linked to the right side of the brain. “It was so bad at first that I could not find my bedroom in my own house, and we didn’t live in a mansion,” Givens says.
Three years after the initial surgery, a routine MRI showed that the tumor had grown back. It was smaller but more aggressive. This time, Givens had surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy. He says he has persevered through faith, family and hard work. He now lives with his family in Palmdale, Calif. At Los Angeles Air Force Base, he assists in supervising employees and is in charge of developing and maintaining the Space & Missile Center System Engineering Handbook, among other things.
Givens, who has annual MRIs and takes anti-seizure medication, still has to worry about some short-term memory problems and the possibility of suddenly getting lost, even in familiar places, but has become pretty savvy when it comes to planning for those moments. “When I’m in a meeting in a conference room and we leave on a break, I mark my territory by putting a Diet Coke can on top of my briefcase in front of where I’m sitting,” he says.
To contact Trent Givens, email Thomas Dot Givens At LOSANGELES DOT AF DOT MIL .
