St Georges Day 

First of all happy St. George’s everyone and also HaPpY 93rd BiRtHdAy to my Nan . I miss and love you so much xxxx

Sorry folks that I haven’t written anything for a while. My head has been on vacation. I’ve been in brain fatigue central. It’s kind of boring there. No energy to do anything……….no motivation and it sucks!! You forget that after suffering a TBI that this happens to you until you come out the other side or until you piece everything together. Sometimes it’s not until you speak to someone like your physio or like I did Jeanette my OT that you realise. I process things so differently at the moment. Once there is events that happen my brain shuts its doors and drip feeds me the information over a number of days (I wonder if it’s paying my back for the drips I was on in hospital)?

This is what happened…….

Monday 18/04 we went back to Addenbrookes to take part in a focus group about my time in NCCU (neurological critical care unit). There was 5 patients and their partners (including myself and Deb). There was 2 doctors, a senior sister called Ingred, 2 admin people 1 was called Kate and a another lady. I recognised the senior sister but not the two doctors. 

The doctors started it all off and one said how he couldn’t remember any of our faces as they see so many people they all seem to blur into one. He explained why they have these focus groups and some things that have changed through the input from patients and family. We then took it in turn to say a bit about ourselves and what happened etc.

 I think it helped Deb to be with other people who had gone through a very similar situation to her. People who knew the pain, dispair, anxiety, fear and stress that she was dealing with. One gentleman even gave Deb his card so that of she just wanted to chat about it all to someone who understands then to give him a call. That was a lovely gesture we thought. 

I then said that I would like of apologise to all the staff in critical & Intensive care as apparently I had quite a potty mouth while a was in there because I was in so much pain. Straight away one of the doctors said that he remembered me. Wow!! I must of been bad!! When we had a little break I turned round to Ingred and said how she looked familiar to me and she explained that she did treat me when I was back in intensive care but not when I was in critical care. 

After it was all finished Ingred took some of us back into critical care. It was strange being back there. One bed was empty while we were in there and it was the room that I was in. So I got to look in and see the framework that all things that were attached to me would’ve been attached to. That was really scary to think about. I just burst into tears. Deb gave me a massive hug and had a few tears herself. 

From there we brought some sweeties and then went back to ward a was on and caught up with a couple of the nurses. It’s nice to go back and see them to show them the progress that I am making. To show then that the job that they do counts so much.

The day completely knackered me.  My brain has spent the week trying to process it all. The reality of it all. Seeing where I was fighting for my life. Scary stuff that needed processing and the realisation of how much of a work in progress my brain still is. As my brain has so much information to process needless to say my physical recovery got thrown to the back of the que. No matter how much I fought myself it wasn’t happening. That got me down……….but Monday is a new week, I’ve processed my trip to Addenbrookes so time to start planning my week.

Laters 💋