While out cycling one morning back in 2005, I had a very close brush with death in a bad bike v van collision! I suffered a severe diffuse TBI.
I was lucky to survive. And a long recovery followed.
It felt like the accident threw me to the bottom of a very high and very steep mountain. And, to get the life I still wanted, I had to scale it. It has been a very long journey. And, in a number of ways, it isn't over yet - my recovery continues!
But I've been lucky. While bad, the accident didn't kill me. And, during my comeback, I've had the support of all sorts of people - a wonderful family, understanding friends and a big collection of very helpful health workers.
I've learnt a lot about recovering - about what works and what doesn't - during my comeback. Some of the stuff I tried is almost enough for me to call this blog, How Not to Recover! Yet, to help repay the people who helped me, I want to share what I've learnt about TBI recovery with a wider audience.
So I created this blog to share my thoughts on ways to recover from TBI. It certainly isn't a complete coverage of the topic. Every TBI presents differently. And, fortunately, I've only had one! :-) But I hope talking about my ways will, at least, stimulate thinking for all those other TBI recoverers out there.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. A brief overview of my recovery can be found in another of my posts, Have Hope!
Thursday, 22 November 2007
A Backgrounder on Mike and This Blog
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8 comments:
Carlo,
Thank you for your comment. I hope your recovery's going well.
While I think all TBI recoverers have something to say about their experiences, this blog is focused on TBI recovery. Would you please be able to rephrase your comment to say something about recovery? Do you agree or disagree with what I say about it? What have been your own key lessons and how might they help other recoverers?
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
My name is Richard, I'm a young Irish man and we have a lot in common. It's been seven months now since my brain accident, and I am improving more and more each day. I give you a lot of credit for my development because you've been mentioned daily by my mother. The stories that you have publicised of your accident and what you did to get back to yourself gave my mother advice and hope. There are times that I recognise that I am doing things wrongly but I feel it's the tips that my mother shares with me, which she reads from situations you have shared with the world, that make me see and do things differently.
It's strange that I value some of the things that I went through last year. I value the three months of amnesia because I don't remember the first three hospitals I was in, let alone my accident. I'm sure you recieve emails like this all the time, so I wont write too much, but I will give you a small summary of my accident. I used to live in Kuala Lumpur and I was going back last summer for the ten year reunion since my school's first graduation. Before I landed in KL I stopped for a quick visit to a friend in Thailand who also went to school with me in Malaysia. I had rented a moped and two helmets, but in the early hours of my second morning I wanted to ride back to where I was staying. I only had one helmet with me at the time and I told my friend she could wear it because I wasn't traveling too far. That was in late June and I only became aware of how my life changed in September.
I'm quite glad that I don't have memories of that awful time. I spent two months in a Thai hospital, and was in the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Ireland for eight weeks before I was realesed and became hospital free. I was told that I am the only patient to leave their buildings and move out, not to live in the family home. I feel like it's the past that you've shared that enabled this. I live with my cousin only minutes from my parents, but I had wanted to move out for a couple of years. Any twenty two year old wants to fully independent, and the past you've shared publicaly helped my mother enable me to get back to myself.
I've been brain training for months now on various websites. I'm sure you will be pleased to read that www.mybraintrainer.com is the one site that makes me have a better understanding of how my thoughts are changing for the better. I would just like to say, from one brain injured man to another, that the different situations and feelings you have shared have made my recovery and improvement better and better each day. Thank you Mike, you are not just a hero in my eyes, but in my friend's and family's too because I bring you up when I am asked how I have managed to improve so well.
Sincerley,
Richard Timmons.
Hey Richard,
Thanks so much for your comment. While I do know that a bunch of people read my blog, I don't often hear from them and comments like yours are very encouraging. I only wish I had more time to write for it.
While I am very glad you've found my blog helpful, I am absolutely sure when I say I am not the "hero" in your recovery; the only person that can be that is you! You're the one who decides to read my blog and decides to get up each day to recover a bit more. (You can mark my words that many people out there decide not to do those things!) While I am jolly glad if I've helped stimulate your thinking about how to recover, you are still the person that put that thinking into effect.
I'll add that I'm particularly happy if I helped out your family, especially your Mum. From the rigmarole I put my Mum through, I know the heart ache mothers go through watching their sons hurt themselves badly only to recover enough to want to be "fully independent". Such is the burden of mothers of independently-minded sons.
Finally, I wish you all the best for further recovering. Please remember, recover hard, but recover smart!
Cheers,
Mike
Hey Mike,
I hope you are doing well! I read almost all of your blogs maybe 3-5 i havent got a chance to yet bc I def will. Ive was in recent vehicle v predestrian accident just on oct 3 2010. I was in a coma for a month. the first thing i remember was waking up in the hospital room with all the nurse giving me medication and so forth. I dont remember asking what happened, how long have i been out, where are my family etc...all the imporatant questions that i should ask with my old brain. I was just so lost and couldnt think of anything. I was send home after 16 days in the recovery room after my treach was removed which i had trouble breathing with it and without it. I had to relearn how to walk to start than everything else after. I knew soemthing was really not "all there" Whn I was able to start moving arnd I read my discharge papers and sure enough I had a diffuse axonal injury and bleeding in the brain. I had 3 cardiac arrest and multiple surgeries in my internal organs to save my life. My ribs had to be punctured to my lungs on both side.
During the 2 wks in the recovery room I was not myself at all. I kept pulling out iv's line and the heart monitor, the things that was keeping me alive. lookin back at it now and learning more about tbi. I learned to understand that my comperhension skills, logic with so many others deficits that why it didnt register to me at the time not to take out the heart monitor lines but i took it off all the time. The Nurses kept telling me not to but i kept on takin it off. I was in a hit and run while walking on the sidewalk so Im left dealing with the recovery by myself. I hv so many deficits, many respones are so slow, thinking process and actually speaking it out. My behavior is not my normal self at all I say things that i shouldnt say. My emotions has been all over the place. My concentration, focus all of that is been affected n so much more. I was independent for 9 yrs living on my own and I was into sports. Basketball is my first passion,2nd is snowboarding, running, and grew up loving to swim. love for sports is there for me and it always will its been rough hving to put that aside to work on getting better. I miss playing sports so so much... not having any therapies on getting my life back has been nothing less than a battle, constantly.
My family is convince that my brain is fine bc the doctor told them that I remembered both Thai and english, hes ok. I was so close of finishing up College. Everything was going so well and now everything has changed. I need so much help...
Sam,
It sounds like you are having a very difficult time of it. From the sound of the amount of damage you did to yourself, you should be dead. Doesn't get much simpler than that.
You are not dead, though - you are still here with us. Why is that? You now have the chance to show us why. Your life may not ever be the same, but you can still make it a life worth living. If you want to play sport, you have it within yourself to play, still. It won't be easy and it might not ever feel the same, but, mark my words, you can still play, if that's what you choose to do.
Yes, you need so much help, right now, but it won't always be like that. If you want to prove you don't need help, then go for it, prove it.
What I'm trying to get at, Sam, is that you've been dealt a crap hand. Coming back from it won't be simple and it won't be easy. But you can show us how it's done. Go for it!
Cheers,
Mike
I had a drunk driver hit me on my lunch hr. I was a secretary at a hospice hospital. I am having trouble how to learn to post or email you. My left side doesn't co-operate all the time with lots of things. I started out in a wheel chair, to walker, to cain, now I use nothing at times. My balance is off. I did do a slow jog at my rehabilitation last week, I was so proud of myself I got teary. One of my physical therapist is my sister-in-law. She is great and patient.
Thanks for the comment, Tecie. You don't know how glad I am that you're reading this blog. Getting hit by a drunk driver is awfully unlucky (especially at lunch time), but you sound like you are focused on your recovery from the accident.
Since you've gone from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane, to no assistance, you will have learnt that recovery is all about taking small steps. But, if you take enough of them, small steps will carry you to the top of Everest. I wish you the best of luck for taking the next small step.
Cheers,
Mike
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