02/01/2026
In 1979, aged 15 and about to start my last year at school, I was knocked off my bike in a near-fatal road accident. Never have I been able to recall it - which is probably a good thing. People told me my recovery (survival) was a miracle in itself).
In coma for two weeks following brain surgery at two different hospitals - Gloucester Royal for a massive left-temporal subdural hematoma and Frenchay to repair/clip an aneurysm deep in the basal ganglia - I found out I'd also broken my neck in three places, paralyzing me from the neck down. There was a tracheostomy tube in my throat helping me breathe.
Over the next five and a half months, my right hand was coming back but with a shaky right hand. That shake has never really gone away. As my left side was beginning to return, it has always had a degree of ataxia remaining. I had a dropped right foot, too, for which I had a pair of leg braces with rods either side of my lower legs, attached to my heel. They were both attached to the heel of my shoes but on the right, a flat heel extension went through the heel to stop the foot drop. Each had pair of small black spurs either side of the heels.
People like to say they had to learn how to walk and talk again. It would be more accurate to say re-learn how to do these things again!
From what I learned after, the doctors had given me a 50-50 chance of surviving either brain op. and a poorer prognosis if indeed I did survive. It was predicted I would be spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair requiring 24-hour care if I did.
The fact that my cognition was returning - which I understand was quite remarkable in itself, gave me a lot of time to process what I had been told. As far as I could ascertain, there was a three or four week period of amnesia (?). It might be a month or more? Surprising in a way as the weekend before I had attended my first International Air Tattoo at Greenham Common with my best friend, Chris. My memories of that day are just as sharp as they ever were.
As I said, there was a lot of time to think. Try as I might, I could not recall having had that accident or any last memory that I could knit together the experiences of then and that time. All I could do was get used to the boring routine of hospital life.
Among the steady stream of visitors which created the illusion of popularity, where the visits of different hospital clergy. One of them was my the vicar of St Pauls church, the Rev. Michael Barnard. They all told me how lucky I had been to survive that accident; and they all asked why I thought that was? The only answer I could offer was that 'I was young and fit?' They all said it was because it was not yet my time to go and God had more work yet for me to do. What that work was I had no idea, but there was some comfort in their statement. I am not ashamed (why should I be?) to admit I was leaning on Him quite a bit - asking him to heal me from my injuries, in Jesus' name. The thing is, whenever we ask this, we expect an instant result. This isn't surprising in this day and age. Even in the 70's, we'd heard of instant results in biblical stories. When this doesn't happen, we tend to feel a little irritated and disappointed. Resentment is the result and disbelief is the result. It is often then asked, well, if He can do this for someone else, then why not me?
A fare question. But why not?
Immediate gratification means nothing has been learned. Nothing beneficial.
You could say that there are things we have to learn and that nothing worth knowing or achieving ever comes easy.
Like it or not, you have been droughted into a conflict you didn't ask to be involved in. This is a protracted campaign. There is no quick fix. No drug, operation or therapy that can return you to how you were before your trauma.
That's the bad news, sorry.
The good news, though, is that you don't have to accept the prognosis you have been given. Do that and you have immediately surrendered so much recoverable territory.
How do I know this?
Because I've been there.
Paralyzed from the neck down, I received physio once or twice a day. Inside my head, I was 'ordering' my body to work. Essentially, I was keeping those 'command' electric impulses coming from the brain, travelling down the neck to the spine, out through the nervous pathways, to the tendons, muscles, ligaments to the area intended. Excepting involuntary impulses which are essential for us to live: like the heart, bowel, lungs etc, everything else almost is voluntary.
So, like maintaining a garden path, it takes constant attention to keep it clear and usable. If left unattended, it will get blocked, overgrown and difficult to get through. It is the same in reverse.
I will admit, though, despite my valiant attempts at weight bearing and determination to walk again, flexing my hand and fingers; I could push down slightly with my (dropped) right foot - sending the command to raise as I did so, I didn't pay as much attention to bringing my (ataxic) left hand back. I preferred to use my right hand as much as possible. I guess because of an embarrassing incident with a jug of water in occupational health that caused my hand to 'flip' over while trying to fill a glass. Water had cascaded onto the table (I was still in a wheelchair) and onto my lap. My dignity was left in tatters as I was returned back to the ward!
It was several months after I was discharged that, while helping an old lady moving 200 logs from her front garden to her back, while automatically reaching for the first one with my right hand, I thought 'No. If I don't ever use it, it will never get better!'
With that, I reached and got the first one from the pile and 'put it, don't drop it!' into the wheelbarrow. After the third one, I felt a sensation of 'release' in my hand. Something I had not felt after the accident. Although I worked with more enthusiasm, my efforts were not complete until the next day! This fired my efforts up into high gear.
It was with renewed vigour and belief that now spurred my efforts to recover!
However, in the war to recover as much lost territory as we can, it is an exhausting battle waged on several fronts at a time.
'Blessed' with the gift/curse of disinhibition - in my case a quantum leap from introvert to extrovert in the blink of an eye. This was not really evident at the time as in my little world I suddenly seemed to garner a lot of attention. At the time you don't really appreciate how close you had come from your time on this earth coming to an abrupt end.
Of course, these changes to ourselves and our lives only really become noticeable when we are discharged from hospital. It is really disconcerting when we try to pick up where we were before. Whether a parent, sibling or a partner, this change is particularly noticeable as the pecking order has changed.
If you were on your own before, your independence receives a real knock as you need help to just complete even the most basic things you took for granted before. This is both embarrassing and galling at the same time.
It's all you can do just trying to cope with this change that has suddenly dethroned you from the comfortable way of life that you knew before. Just trying to keep your head above water is hard enough. It must be appreciated though, that the world as we knew it, the world with all the different attitudes, prejudices and fears - the world that we were once part of, has not changed. We have.
On the other side of the fence, it is just how we would have acted to someone with a tbi -if you're honest. Because we are a pain. Many of you blame those that haven't changed - the 'normal' people - for not understanding!
Even now, having read this, how many of you will still choose to attack me for stating a truth that seems unpalatable?
