The Beginning

The fated date that changed my life: 13^th December 2009, or possibly the 14^th, depending on what counts as the event. I wouldn’t know for weeks anyway. What matters is, I went out for an evening drive on 13^th, and I woke up in hospital a week or so later with a partially scarred and shaved head. This part of the story is very hazy for me; I don’t know what I can remember, what I was told or what I imagined, so I can only try my best.

I think I realised quite quickly that I wasn’t making any sense to my family, my nurses and my doctors. What I wasn’t quick enough to understand was why I was having to wear padded mittens fastened with Velcro and tape. I am told that, even in the early days when I was barely conscious, I was able to fight off the fastening that usually holds these gloves together. I’m pretty proud of that stubbornness, and it put me in good stead in the upcoming months and years.  One memory of those ‘mittened’ days that I know isn’t mine is every time my family came to visit, I would instinctively hold my hands up to have the mittens removed – something that still tickles me. I now know that these mittens were to stop me removing tubes which were literally saving my life.

I think I’m getting a little ahead of myself here though. The reason I woke up in the state I did is because in the early hours of the 14^th I managed to attack a tree with the back end of my car. Thankfully, I had just got a reasonably new Clio which had a really good safety rating. Not even the most robust safety rating was enough on this occasion and the seat collapsed, throwing me into the back seats. In the transition from the front seat to the back seats I sustained a depressed skull fracture and an intracranial hematoma (a bleed on the brain) from the impact inside the car.

The circumstances of how I crashed are unknown (icy roads and swerving to avoid a deer are some of the theories which have been suggested since), and I have no memory of the event, but it turns out that luck was on my side. Despite being driving in the early hours on a quiet road, I was found by another driver and emergency services were quickly on the scene; because of this, I was given a lifeline. I was rushed to the local accident and emergency in an ambulance where I was assessed and, due to the injury, I was transferred to Royal Preston Hospital where they had the specialists needed to work on the injury. The injury was quite substantial on the left side of my head and to find the bleeds and clean the fracture meant on a long time in surgery. Surgeons performed a decompressive craniectomy – a removal of my skull, to be replaced with a plate at a later date. Due to the massive brain injury, doctors induced a coma to allow recovery and put me on my first set of anti-convulsion drugs; a thing that has had to become part of my everyday life.

After 10 days in the induced coma the decision was made to ‘wake’ me up; I have very little recollection, but I was later told that when my family visited me on the 25^th, I made the first sign of recognition – poking my mum’s nose, as I had done for years as an annoying teenager. Apparently, that made quite the Christmas present. I have fragments of memories of the first week and I have some souvenirs, such as the mittens and a set of the compression socks from when I was bed bound; but I think my first solid memory was probably in the new year when I had a visit from a speech therapist. This visit wasn’t so much helping my speech as an assessment to see how much damage there was; I can remember being shown flashcards of everyday objects and being asked if I knew what they were called and if I knew what they did. I found it very distressing that I couldn’t remember some of the words but was told that it was good that I knew what they did, for example I was shown a watch; I couldn’t find the word ‘watch’ but I knew it was about telling the time. All of this was made more difficult by that fact I couldn’t form eligible words. From my recall and from my own research, I know that I had Global Aphasia and over the next few days it recovered to Broca’s Aphasia (a less severe form, which affects speech but not understanding).

Despite the massive head injury, I didn’t have any other physical injuries and I believe that was a big part of my swift recovery. My family had realised very quickly the care that was needed, for my mental recovery more than anything, was not available in hospital. What I needed was mental stimulation – and a lot more than short daily visits from a speech therapist and evening visits from family. My doctors apparently weren’t sure if I would be able to walk due to the brain injury. This was conveyed to the ward nurses however nobody had told me about this, so the night team were very surprised and probably worried to find my bed empty in the middle of the night when I had decided to take myself to the toilet! I wonder now if I’d been told I might not be able to walk, if this would have become a fulfilling prophecy, but I doubt I’ll ever know. After proving that I was able to walk, there was then the issue of who would provide my full-time care once I returned home. Thankfully, my family came together to fix the issue and make my recovery possible. By sheer luck and coincidence, my gran had recently retired and was able to help with my care. With that and my mum’s ability to become part time for four months, they made a plan to cover my full-time care.

Leaving Hospital

Before I was able to leave hospital, a social care team had to visit the home that I would be going back to; they did insist that the pullup bar I had up in my doorway had to go, though – apparently head height obstructions are ‘a no, no’ for people with approximately 30% of their skull missing! The same social care team had to visit me in hospital to make sure I would be able to make it up and down the stairs at home. I took this challenge with gusto and even started taking the stairs two at a time, something which was asked to stop very quickly. Checks complete, I was finally able to go back home with my family on 7^th January 2010: a very short period, considering the injury, but a distressing time for me without the ability to converse. The whole experience in hospital has left me with an uneasy feeling every time I now visit a hospital, but I am immensely grateful to the staff who cared for me and will continue to be each time I visit. On the trip home I made my first step to my mental recovery by saying my first word; we were driving into a new speed limit zone, and I said ‘thirty’ (just in case my Mum had forgotten). Thankfully, my mum recovered quickly from this shock, and I made it home to see my grandparents and sisters.

Here’s where the real road to recovery began (pun intended).

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