peter
“One morning on my way to work I heard a rattling noise from my bicycle, but before I could look down, the mudguard got stuck in my front wheel, I flew over the handlebars and literarily landed on my head. Luckily had a helmet on. I quickly got up and looked at my hands and knees. I felt no pain, I had no scratches or bruises, I was okay! ‘How lucky’, I thought. I left my bike in a nearby bike shop and walked to work. On the way, I felt a bit weird, like something was off, but I was late already so I didn’t pay much attention. When I arrived to work I finally took my helmet off and saw that it was cracked. I told some of my colleagues about what happened, and I started my day. It was only when we had our first meeting I realised that I was staring at my colleagues and even though I could hear them talking, I didn’t understand what were they saying… Later, I went to make tea and I found myself paralysed, standing in front of the kettle saying to myself: Pick up the kettle! Come on, just pick up the kettle… I had all sorts of symptoms and I wasn’t getting better so I went to the hospital where, after many, many tests, they told me I have a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Obviously, I went online to find out more about my symptoms but all I could find were these extreme cases of really bad car accidents, strokes, and sports impact concussions. There was nothing in my ‘mild’ category. Four years in, I still have symptoms. By now I’ve learnt how to manage most of them so I decided to document it all online in the hope of helping someone else. I launched a website which documents my journey of recovering from, and managing, a brain injury. So far the response has been amazing. So many people have been getting in touch saying that they finally feel like someone understands it, or it’s like reading their own story. But mostly, it’s been people saying thank you for finally giving them a resource that helps them and that they can relate to. I want to try to keep sharing this and get it out there to help even more people. My first piece of advice is, always wear your helmet when you ride a bike!“
Find out more: http://patiencelivingwithabraininjury.com/