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Dan's Story
Dan's Story
I knew after being asked to write my story of recovery from head injury that it would not be easy or necessarily what was hoped from my perspective, but here goes.
To give some background information to my injury, I was just out exercising my dog. The unfortunate accident resulted in my skull breaking in three places. I was lucky to be seen when having my accident - someone stopped cars driving by to help, both of whom were being driven by doctors going home.
I was down for the count, and supposedly lucky in that I was close to requiring surgery which could have resulted in a longer recovery time and potentially more impacts to my brain.
Before the accident, I considered myself a reasonably smart guy who knew his stuff and was not concerned about the world in which others thought of him. In the beginning after the accident, I had those same feelings, however I regularly updated myself as I was provided information on my recovery. I would say Dan S RS PATIENT STORY things like, “The last time you spoke to me I wasn’t great, but I’m back to normal now.”
I knew something was wrong, however I wasn’t really sure what it was. I knew I struggled to recall information and answer people at the hospital when they performed their tests. The physical side of it was also weird, as I was a relatively fit guy but struggled with the exercises they asked me to do.
I have no memory of the first two weeks while being at Royal Perth Hospital. I remember arriving at Fiona Stanley Hospital from a transfer ambulance, where I was placed into a special room by myself and slept a lot. My first toilet visit while in this room required me to wait for an hour while the staff moved everything around so I could use the toilet. I must say I do not remember everything that happened in the hospital, but I do know my abilities were tested regularly. On the whole, they were a great bunch of people in the hospital who did look after me.
Being a typical male, I was still deluded about my current abilities. I was certainly ready to leave the hospital, but was not very excited to have the rehabilitation staff visit me regularly at home to review my physical and mental return to life. Oddly enough, however, these people really impacted my life and really did help my recovery. I didn’t want them at my house in the beginning, yet by the end I didn’t want them to finish coming.
While writing this story, I only now remember the odd condition that was never addressed in hospital but was the reason for my unsteady state when walking around due to dizziness in my head. I have been told it is BPPV. One of the rehab ladies performed the first part of the recovery with an exercise that involved rolling from my back to my side in a particular way. Although this massively improved my condition but didn’t get rid of it. On a later trip to the hospital after the rehab people stopped visiting me at home, a lovely physio who had experienced the same condition through a hair dressing incident, repeated the exercise which removed the horrible condition all together. I really do wish that had been addressed sooner in the recovery process - it was a major hinderance and one I was certainly not aware of or able to address myself properly given my mental state of mind at the time.
It reminds me again of my situation, as through the hospital process, I lost my car and motorbike licence and had to re-sit the test later. This was a degrading procedure where I was initially treated like a failed drug user until the examiner realised that I was not taking the driving test due to drug abuse. The medical process for organising the testing was so good in comparison for me trying to organise it myself!
I must also say the hospital was fantastic in continuing to seeing me for a while with specialists who helped my mental, speech and physical recovery. It is hard to understand at the time what is being offered, however I think back now and realise it is so important!
I also had a lot of support from my work colleagues, who pushed and were able to get me working again relatively soon in my recovery period. I had been working fly-in, fly out but they were able to get me working back in Perth through a consultancy for about six weeks. The ability to do that was very rewarding, although I admit, I was still not myself and am not really sure how I was perceived while working there. After the six weeks of work ended, I was unable to obtain employment for another few months.
My girlfriend and my three children were critically important to my recovery, spending a stupid amount of time by my side, sadly a lot of which I have no memory of. My eldest child lost a year at university due to handing in an assignment a few days late after being at my bedside instead. She, along with my other children, are stupidly smart and she is about to finish her degree, mostly with high distinctions, only a year late! I will add that my girlfriend and accountant mate, who organised all my finances and tax, were also a critical part of my situation early on.
About 10 months after my accident I was still unemployed, and the hospital contacted me again for neuropsychology tests. Over a couple of visits I underwent about seven hours of testing and a young graduate provided me with the results. While I was horrified with the results, in a way I was glad that I would be able to improve from there. I knew from the testing that I was still not great but was improving. I did enjoy some of the testing results where I performed very high, however it was the memory recall that was hurting bad.
I will say here that I was so grateful that my previous work was able to return me to working onsite about 13 months after my accident. When I returned, I was not the same person for a while, and was very scared of who I was and my abilities. I must admit the first few months back at work were a blur. It was also hard when searching through computer files to find a great piece of work and then discover it had been performed before the accident.
I was there another couple of years before I braved a new job, one that didn’t require so much FIFO. I do miss that place and the work I could be getting done there. It was awesome, and they did treat me well there, especially my immediate work colleagues. During this time of recovery, I lost my girlfriend, who was so good to me after the accident. She held on for around 18 months but didn’t stay. I still miss her now, but that is something that cannot be undone. I suffered some serious depression during this time too, and still have my ups and downs over three years after the accident. I have not been able to get the desired help by psychologists in any significant way, but realise they can help some people through their problems.
The good news is that I am starting to understand my condition, with the slightly longer times required to say the desired/ correct words and with my very low recall on people’s names (expressive dysphasia).
I know from what I have been told that after what happened to me in the accident I am lucky to be alive, and even more lucky that I have been able to recover, to live a relatively happy and normal life. I am glad that the people at the hospital, rehab staff, work colleagues and friends and family were all able to help me to get through this. Without them, it may not have happened that way at all!
I enjoy my new job and see good potential for me to progress to new and different things.
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