neurorehabilitationFromTheTrenches

Before I get started I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage anyone who has been mentioned anywhere on this blog to submit an article. Email is fine: declan.treanor@gmail.com. Any submissions will be edited before publishing. Any subject is fine. However, it would be excellent if there is some educational aspect to it. My hope is that this blog would be a source, for anyone struggling with TBI, or anyone who has an acquaintance so afflicted. As I'm writing this I've thought of a number of other possible target groups. So, really anything. I got word this week that I will soon be heading into phase D in my epic rehabilitation. This is great news. It's progress. I've decided that now is as good a time as any to give this status update. When I became conscious following my coma. I had, and still have, three major stumbling blocks, that would preclude me from picking up my life where I left off. They are, in no particular order, my double vision, my (lack of

I first met Adja in my logopaedi group,in which, we, and two others, took turns making faces at each other, and into a mirror, and reading aloud tongue twisters. His English was quite good, and I quickly learned he's from Ghana. I do not have a photo of Adja and I'd urge him, if he's reading, to please send me one, along with any corrections he'd like to make. You see, Adja(sorry) has been released, this is why I'm spelling his name, I'm sure, incorrectly. Take it from me, he looks not a day over 35. Me: Hi Adja (it's pronounced like that) What do you do for a living? Adja: My mother is a goods handler of clothes, jeans, T. shirts etc, and a big time business.  We have consigns in Germany, America and London. Me:    And that business is in Ghana? Adja: Yes, every month we load a 40 ft container.  We want to make a very big business.  My brother and sister are in Ghana, I want to go live there.  We come here pick the clothes and go to Ghana to d

This is the first of my interviews. I’ve started with my meal buddy; there are 4 of us together for Fruehstueck, Mittagessesn and Abendessen. Anita, pictured with her husband Philip, has always spoken in great English with me so it was an obvious choice. She is a business owner and radio producer/co-presenter We arranged to meet one afternoon for coffee... Me: Please ignore the fact that we are being recorded. Anita: Oh I always know when I’m being recorded… but I’m talking quite normal. Well Declan how are you today? Me: I’m doing pretty well; my notes are terrible, my hand-writing is worse, shocking. Anita: But you can write, not everyone can write. Me: I’ll start with the most obvious question Describe the event that led you to here. Anita: I had a stroke. It was February, during my holiday in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, in the middle of the best time of my life. In the morning ,I couldn’t dress myself, I fell down. Me: How did this s

This accident has served to open my eyes and suitably enrage me. The God Delusion and God is not Great by Professor Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (sorely missed), respectively, sort of surprised me . I thought "they're better than this". I take that back and it took a near death experience, for me, to see how important books like these, by people like these, are. As I lay comatose in Malta, at least two totally futile things were happening. Firstly, well wishers were calling to my parents' house. I greatly appreciate genuine wishes of wellness. An alarming number of these well wishers took, with them, mass cards. I do NOT appreciate this. To think I was indirectly funding an organisation, like the catholic church, does not sit well with me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, to avoid any such future squandering, I am not religious. You might, rightly, call me an atheist. This fellow explains my motivation, or lack thereof, better than I ever could,

Guest Blogger: Claire Fastner What I wish I had known about coma... no, you don't just open your eyes As I promised in my first guest post, here's my second guest post on the topic of "waking up from a coma". This guest post comes a little sooner than expected, as it's buying Declan time to transcribe his interviews (I have done this before and it takes hours!). The Daily Mail , and even more reputable newspapers, make waking up from a coma out to be a straightforward process. Here's a quote: " He had been due to have a final brain scan when he opened his eyes, smiled at his nurse and gave her hand a gentle squeeze." Yes, the patient most likely did this; that, however, does not do justice to what actually happens. The most useful description of fully recovering consciousness I found was the  Rancho Los Amigos Scale, and it took Declan approximately two months to reach level 8.