It's been awhile since my last post on this blog - time for an update. It's now eight and a half years since my TBI. Although I am still recovering, my life continues apace. I've taken a demanding new job. I've moved in with my girlfriend. I continue to make progress with my running. Steady as she goes, but with a thumbs up.
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| A new suit for my new job! |
I've moved in with my partner, a girl I was lucky enough to meet a couple of years back. She didn't know me before my accident and basically doesn't want to know the specifics of it (although she says I should point out that she's not callous and uncaring). Could there be anything better at getting me to move on from the debacle that was my accident and its effects?
I was lucky enough to complete that 60k (37.5mi) mountain run that I mentioned in this post. It was an amazing race to finish, but I won't be doing another ultra-marathon in a hurry. Now, I've got a new goal, increasing my running speed. Again, progress has been patchy: my TBI still causes issues with my running. However, I am slowly getting there, reaching an important milestone, my first 4 min km, just the other week.
As I've explained, I'm by no means free from the effects of my TBI. I am however definitely moving forwards.
Also, I decided to keep this post short, but readers might be interested to hear how I've gotten to this point. I can only encourage people to read through the posts on this blog. I think I go through mat of the trials and tribulations I've experienced along the way. It ain't been pretty, but I'm slowly getting there.
Also, I decided to keep this post short, but readers might be interested to hear how I've gotten to this point. I can only encourage people to read through the posts on this blog. I think I go through mat of the trials and tribulations I've experienced along the way. It ain't been pretty, but I'm slowly getting there.
Cheers,
Mike
29 comments:
Mike I've been following your post since 9/28/2011.... The day my 17 year old son was ran over by a van speeding 55 + mph. Seth was on 30 mile training ride on his road bike here in north Louisiana ....he died twice...his helmet was shattered...he hit the windshield then catapulted 180 feet backwards land on a bridge...the neurologist told me they were removing a third of his scull but the chances were imimienet death. Glasgow scale a 3... He lived....then they said he would be a vegetable...he awoke...then they said he would never walk.... 9 months later he walked out the hospital...then he ran a 5 k 6 months later...Mike he's BACK...STRONGER THAN BEFORE....nearly 2 years later...he running...lifting massive weights...his speech his the only thing yet to fully recover. Mike were christains and we give God and Seth's will all the credit. He wants to run with you in New Zealand. We're coming to the South Island in a year and it would be a honor to shake you hand and see Seth meet you personally.
Mike the crazy thing is Seth has never had a seizure....nor does he have memory issues....he is a chick magnet l...10 x the confidence and that he had before....LOL!
Go to Teamsethfoundation.org .... Check out the two videos on the bottom. His status is updated through Facebook....teamseth Hanchey
Thanks Mike.....CHEERS!
Charles Hanchey
Please excuse my poor spelling and grammatical nightmare...LOL
Charles Hanhe
Hi Charles,
Boy, it sounds like Seth has had one massive experience. I'm so glad to hear he's pulling through it. As he puts his life back together, I imagine he'll continue to face difficulties. However, with an attitude like his, I am very confident he'll eventually get to wherever he chooses to go.
As well as Seth, I hope all of your family found my blog helpful. Traumatic brain injuries are such a harrowing time for all involved. I myself have often thought that, in the beginning, mine was more so for my family than it ever was for me.
That would be amazing to meet up in NZ. I'll send an email to the address on your website and we can arrange a plan for it. A run with Seth sounds awesome.
Talk more soon.
Cheers,
Mike
What was your recovery rate in the third and forth year? The so called EXSPERTS told us that most gains are made in the 1st year...this was totaly bogus. Seth is continually improving....his right side was paralyzed. This came back one year later.
PS your suit looks sharp!
Charles Hanchey
Hi Charles,
On this one, I think you need to be careful that doctors usually talk about recoveries in general: they're not often used to seeing people who are take their recoveries seriously. It is my experience that people like Seth and me are a different kettle of fish entirely.
I don't really bother thinking about the rate at which I've improved at various stages in my recovery. I just think about the goals I've achieved. For example, it took me about three and a half years to work a 40 hour week again and five years to complete Ironman.
Even 8.5 years on, I'm still working on particular goals: currently I'm focused on my running speed. I don't feel like my recovery will be over until I have stuff I want to do that I think the effects of my brain injury might be a barrier to. As I write in this post, my recovery will be over when I say it's over.
For example, if I were Seth and I wanted to get my voice better, I'd ask myself, what do I want to do with a better voice? What's a good goal I could take on to help me make it better?
I hope you get my drift, what I think matters isn't my rate of recovery, it's what goals I've achieved.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. I'm sure that, if he puts his mind to it, Seth could beat the pants off me by achieving some of my goals faster. ;-)
A couple comments on the "experts". I was not happy with what the rehab specialists were doing with my son. I felt it was not aggressive enough. My Doc told me that they follow a regime aimed at the "average" TBI survivor. The key is as Mike has explained and demonstrated over and over is not to settle for an average recovery. My son recovered from a severe TBI, went back to university, finished his engineering degree and has been employed as an engineer for two years in "professional development program" as a future leader of the company. The Doc who led his rehab team came to me and said they they were wrong and I was right about my sons recovery. Don't accept average! Always set goals that are beyond what you think you can do.
Also recovery the first year is a matter of perspective. A severe TBI sets a person back to zero. They are effectively an infant again and need to progress to being independent again. Of course when you start from zero and measure to the end of the first year you will see dramatic improvement. It's like zero to 60 mph in 5 seconds. Actually recovery continues for years after but certainly will not look as dramatic as that first year. It will be significant none the less. Best wishes to all of the TBI survivors out there. Work hard, set aggressive goals and never give up. Your recovery will be complete when you are living a happy, satisfying and fulfilled life.
Bob G.
Hi Bob,
Thanks heaps for the comment. Although I think it's important how we describe our TBI recoveries, I haven't described my own recovery as aggressive. However, we should do whatever works eh? I can well understand other people wishing to do so.
Can I invite you to write a post for this blog on how you and your son talk about it? If you want to have a chat about it, can you please send me an email at howtorecover@gmail.com?
Cheers,
Mike
Oh, and perhaps a post on what you think completes a recovery Bob. I don't claim to have all the answers and am most interested to hear others' opinions.
Cheers,
Mike
Great news, Mike!
my 2year old son fallen from 15 feet pn his right side of head causing brain infarct and middle line shift he was in coma for 3days then turned to vegetative state and he was on ventilator for 15 days now after a month we took him to home ..he is moving hands and legs and eyes sensing pain and crying ...but he is not able to acknowledge by any means like eyes hearing and voice .....can anybody suggest something
Hi there, thanks for getting in touch. I wish you all the best with your son's recovery. I suggest two things to help him out:
# Stay positive. The power of the brain to recover is incredible. The key thing for helping it is time.
# Seek specialist medical help. As I write in this blog's No Joke Medial Disclaimer, there is no substitute for sound medical advice.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Did you ever get headaches or migraines? I have a TBI and cannot run or do much anything without aggravating my migraines/headaches. How long did it take for them to go away?
Are you left with any cognitive/psychological effects from your brain injury?
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for the comment. Of course, my accident has changed me - I'm different now to who I was. I honestly don't spend any time worrying about that, though.
I've made pretty awesome progress recovering from my brain injury - few people can tell I've had one now, when they first meet me. However, I still have issues. I've written about a few problems that do affect me still. For example, fatigue is the subject of a whole bunch of posts on here. I'm not rid of it yet. Other things continue to crop up occasionally: brain lock, for example.
The reason I don't worry about this has to do with two subjects I've written about lots on here, acceptance and determination to recover. If I get worried comparing myself to how I was before my accident, I'm not accepting my brain injury and its effects. By getting worried about it, I'm also not being determined to recover as best I can. I credit acceptance and determination as the two key things helping my recover - I call them, the Right Stuff.
When I think about it, it seems only human to wonder how I am compared to before my TBI. In fact, it may sometimes make me more determined to recover. The trick is not to get worried about it, I reckon.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. I myself haven't had trouble with headaches, but that's no surprise. Every TBI is different. I can only encourage you to seek sound medical advice to help you out with them. Have hope you'll recover from them, too.
By how long after ur tbi did u start to get back to normal ? I only ask cause I have a tbi and it's been a year since i have changed a lot in that time but there's still weakness or my right side leg n arm
Hi Ali,
Thanks for the message and your interest. The question of how long a recovery takes is a very individual one for a couple of different reasons. I summarise them below, but you're welcome to come back to me if you've still got questions about what I say.
Firstly, so much depends on the nature of your injury and every TBI will be different. As I wrote on this post, TBIs are like a fingerprint - every one is unique. Your recovery will depend on what part of your brain you injured and how badly you did so.
However, the question is also very individual because it depends on how you treat your recovery - your recovery is defined by you. I wrote one post focused on this issue, How Long Does TBI Recovery Take? In it, I say defining the length of a recovery is like defining the length of a piece of string. For me, it comes down to what I can do with it - can I still achieve the things I want to achieve?
I'd encourage you to have a think about what you want to do with your recovery. (I would never waste time trying to be normal - the only normal people are the ones we don't know very well.) You survived a brain injury. Good stuff, but what do you want to achieve now?
I wish you all the best for further recovering. As I said, please don't hesitate to get in touch, should you want to talk more about any of this.
Cheers,
Mike
hi mike my name is Kahu Vincent i also have TBI.
my speech therapist was telling me about your story which was a good read.
she also said there might be a video explaining your accident? might be a bit easier for me to concentrate than reading.
thanks for sharing your story ill read it more when i have more energy cheers Kahu
Hi Kahu,
Many thanks for the comment. I hope your recovery is going well. Yep, there are heaps of things I've written about on this blog. Please don't feel like you need to go through it all in one sitting. Instead, if you might have an issue you're dealing with, I hope you might come here and read up on what I've written about it. Don't miss the post labels down the right hand side of the blog's front page.
A few years back, there was a video on the current events show Campbell Live about my accident and recovery. It used to be available on the show's website, but was taken down from there a few years back. I'm not sure it's available now.
Be great if you wanted to get in touch. Please send me an email to howtorecover@blogspot.com. We can chat more about stuff then, if you like.
Cheers,
Mike
My 20 yr old son suffered a severe tbi on September 14th 2016 they removed both frontal bone flaps don't give him much hope of any recovery after 6 weeks put bone flaps back on few days later have to remove due to swelling again. I'm hoping more damage wasn't done there. Am hoping for a miracle at this point hasn't responded to commands considered in a vegetative state at least before the second swelling they did go in and remove bone flaps again
Thanks for the comment, Anonymous. I wish your son the very best of luck for his recovery. Please do not give up hope. As I wrote in this post, Have Hope! , the brain is such a complicated piece of equipment. It's very difficult, in my humble opinion, to fully predict outcomes. That's especially so when your son had his injury so recently.
As well as keeping hope, I suggest keep talking to your son's doctors. Although they don't know everything, they know much more about brain injuries than you or I ever well. I truly hope things improve for your son.
Kind regards,
Mike W
Hi Mike thanks for a good read and some reassurance. We are currently in ch ch hospital with our 14 year old with a TBI. Its good to read the things we need to look out for. We have right side weakness and no speech but are only 5 days out of ICU - coma for 7 days. Whats the best advice we can give our boy, he is normally a very active fella and is completely frustrated by the inability to move around. He also gets very restless and irritable when he is tired.
Hi BMX Bandit,
Thanks for the comment. Wishing your son all the best for his recovery. It sounds like he's still in the very early days. Keep the faith that things will improve.
Although I'm no medical expert, my advice is that you keep talking to your son, stay positive and loving. He needs all the encouragement that he'll get better, right now: he can and will become an active fella again. He needs to give his brain time to heal first, though.
I'm sure his therapists are also saying that he needs rest. I most definitely agree with this - ensure he avoids over-stimulation and, when he's tired and irritable, leave him be for a time.
There's a lot of stuff on this blog that I hope might help your son down the track. He's still in the very early stages of brain injury recovery, though. Give him time to pull that them. And, as I say, keep the faith things will get better.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike just wanted to let you know we have had success with rehabilitation. My boy is now back on bike, walking, talking is all good. He had 4 bleeds with rhs hemiparisis. But we are out the otherside. Still only 3 periods a day at school with some cognitive difficulties. He amazes us each day with the progress he has made.
Hi again BMX Bandit,
I'm extremely pleased to hear that your son is back into life. It's exactly for people like him and families like you going through hard times with TBI that I've written this blog. It's a big warm feeling for my heart. ;-)
I don't know much about really young people recovering from TBIs. I would think, though, that he'll continue to experience ups and downs from here on. Please make sure you keep talking to him about how things are going, keep encouraging him to live life. And keep listening to his doctors and therapists - they'll know way more about it than we ever will.
I hope you find the lessons on this blog useful, manage to apply them to a young guy like your son. Thanks again for the feedback. Like I said, it warms my heart.
Best regards,
Mike W
Hi Mike,
My name (nickname) is Torres from Vietnam. On the Friday 13th September 2014, I got an accident and that accident caused me TBI.
It took me 28 days in a coma. After waking up, I seemed to lose my memory, my body was disabled and I didn't realize that I couldn't move, couldn't get up by myself from bed, couldn't feed myself at all, but I did't realize this fact. I just stayed on the bed, looking around, I didn't question myself or others around me that why I couldn't move while other people around me did. It's hard for me to explain, I still remember that moment, but it's all that I can use my language to explain. I'm an English learner anyway.
The strange point was that I couldn't forget English, I could talk with some of my friends calmly and peacefully as if I was normal and OK as anyone of them. I asked my mom to take me to Saigon (which was the city I previously worked in).
After 1 months then, I started to remember what happened to me, I cried, and a lot, but not really remember in details. And I attended a rehabilitation program at a hospital in Saigon, I could walk by myself during that time with assistance from doctors and my loved ones.
After 3 months at that hospital for a rehabilitation treatment, I had to have one more and final surgery: To take a part of my skull being storing inside my belly (taken from the left side of my skull), and restore it to its former place in my head). After the surgery completed, I woke up, feel awesome, and, down again, really down, I was able to walk, stand up. Oh my God, I was in the previous condition where I was in just a few days ago. And I hopeless.
But I had to get back on, no one there could help me to reach the point that I wanted to get to. I tried and tried, exercise and exercise all other again. After all my efforts, I could walk, drive motorbike, running, write words, etc. Ah, I almost forgot, the TBI caused me disabled the whole body but my left hand and right leg recovered faster. And until now, my left leg and right hand don't seem to be normal as they were before, and I am still doing exercise hardly to make them as best as they can. I know that they will not be as strong as they were before my TBI. Life still continues and it keeps moving...
Alright, I just want to share my story with you all, and I would love to hear your stories, I can be reached at uyquang.eco (at) gmail.com
Torres
Hi Torres,
Thanks for getting in touch. It sounds like there are lots of parallels between what you're going through and how things worked out are continuing to work out for me. I wish you the absolute best for your continued recovery. Keep exercising, keep working hard and you will find you can still achieve the goals you set yourself.
Thanks for the offer to chat. This blog is devoted to stories about TBI recovery: although I've been one of the few contributors so far, I'd absolutely love it if others were willing to use it to share their own perspectives on TBI recovery.
If you're interested in sharing your perspective on here, would you be able to email me? My address is howtorecover@gmail.com.
Whether you are or aren't interested, I wish you all the best for your next steps in recovery. Make your Mum and others like me proud of the way you recover.
Best recovery wishes,
Mike W
Thats an amazing story after major Frontal Lobe injury it is incredible what happens to the way you live.
Anything is possible. sometimes with a TBI it takes a bit longer.
But keep it up and be amazing.
David
So its now 10 months from 14 year old sons TBI. He has rehabilitated from not being able to walk and talk, being taught how to swallow, toilet etc. Yesterday was 10 months since accident. He has just had clearance to BMX race again. Not all stories like ours have such a happy ending, and we are well aware of this. Its good to have a place to share stories if they are success stories or simply venting frustrations. Hoping everyone can take something positive from their TBI's like we have.
Now back to some BMX training...
Hi Kerryn,
Many thanks for the message. Your son sounds like he's got strong motivation to recover; that counts for so much, in my humble opinion.
If I might offer any advice, it would be to counsel patience: the road OF recovery is long and winding. Your son sounds much improved from the early days, a success story as you suggest. While I have no idea about his prognosis, though, I would guess that the effects of his brain injury will remain important for years to come. I'm over 12 years on from my TBI now; yes, I've kicked down lots of doors, but my TBI is still there all the same, I ignore its effects at my peril.
I wish you all the best for helping your son recover further. Best wishes for his racing too - that sounds really cool.
Kind regards,
Mike W
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