The TBI Computer Geek

In my post about the contribution of my family, I mentioned how my sister and brother-in-law set me up with a computer while I was still in my rehabilitation centre. I should explain a little better about it.

After I'd recovered enough to do so, I became very desperate to be back online. I'm an economist and, since computers are so important for report writing in my work, I am very used to nearly always being online. As well as that when I had my accident, I was entering a time in my life when nearly all of my friends were leaving my home country, New Zealand, mainly to live and work in Europe . In this country, it's called an OE or overseas experience and this Wikipedia article explains it more. Being online was becoming my only way of keeping in close touch with a rapidly increasing number of my friends.

I'd been shifted from the intensive care ward in hospital to a brain injury rehabilitation centre. In New Zealand, the health industry is someway behind the information revolution and internet connections were unavailable to patients in the rehab centre. However, I was lucky enough to have, in my family, an extremely capable and helpful technology guru, my brother-in-law. He set me up with a mobile phone connection to the internet using my old computer.

As well as being useful for My Brain Trainer and writing for my recovery blog, the computer put me back in touch with all my friends across the world. It was a tremendous buzz to feel so much more plugged in with everyone, but don't take my word for it, here's the thoughts of my Mother, Lee: "Mike's computer allowed him to be proactive in his friendships again. No longer was he sitting around waiting for people to come to hospital to see him. He was back in control and we later realised just how important this was to his morale."

All this happened back in 2005 in little ol' New Zealand. Doing something similar should be a lot easier now, particularly so in larger, more populated areas. If your loved one has recovered enough for it (and not before!), I would encourage you to look in to getting him online, too.

Cheers,
Mike