My Story

It was a beautiful winter afternoon on Saturday 3rd March 2018, I’d been teaching photography in the morning and I was enjoying a family day out sledging in the snow. My nephew went ahead of me standing up on his sled and I thought it would be a good idea to try it too!

Unfortunately my snow sled twisted and I fell backwards, landing on my head. I got up and walked up the hill, said I was fine and then about 10 minutes later got so disorientated I didn’t know who I was, where I was, what day it was or what I was doing there. My sister filled me in on the blanks and said I went from acting normally to like I was living with Alzheimer’s disease.

I wasn’t knocked unconscious but don’t remember the accident or have much memory at all between that and the hospital. I was kept in hospital for 2 nights and told I had a bad concussion, whiplash and a torn eardrum. I was told (I think on the Sunday) that with my concussion I might wake up the next day feeling better but to make sure I rested for 48 hours. Ok, I’ll take a few days out of my business and then I’ll be good to go. Or so I thought.

Then at home, 5 days after the accident I woke up and new something was wrong. Like, seriously wrong. I was completely incoherent, my movements were extremely slow and nothing my Fiancé said to me made any sense. He took me to the emergency surgery at my doctor’s and I was told then that I had Post-concussion syndrome.

Say what now?

I’d describe living with Post-concussion syndrome as being robbed of part of my personality, feeling like I’ve been hit by the dumbstick as well as constant fatigue, headaches and a body that won’t move at a normal speed a lot of the time. One PCS warrior I know sums it up better than me she says it’s like her brain has been hijacked. Sometimes it feels like someone else’s brain is living in my head. Other days it feels like I have someone else’s body.

All those symptoms you see above? The only one I haven’t had to deal with is nausea. So yay for that! Over time my symptoms are improving but it’s been a slow process and one that I struggled to deal with for a long time. Initially when I got my diagnosis I don’t think I appreciated what I was dealing with, or naively assumed because I was a physically and mentally strong person that I’d beat this. I was going to bounce back quickly. This wouldn’t hold me back. But I was wrong.

I’ve gone through the woe is me, why me, my life sucks, anger, all the emotions and finally got to a place of acceptance. I know that it will take time and enough will in the world won’t make my brain heal but I can choose how I react to it. And I choose to be a warrior!

Every day when I wake up I don’t know what kind of day I’m going to have. I’ve learnt that if I do too much (and a lot of the time I don’t know what that is until it’s too late) I’m going to pay for it for days. Other times I wake up and have a bad day of symptoms and don’t know what’s caused it. It just happens.

There hasn’t been a day since my accident that I haven’t had headaches. It hurts where I hit my head off the ground and on the front of my head, above my eye, I assume where the brain bounced back and forth. To begin with I had headaches constantly but that has eased over time and now I’m lucky if it doesn’t start until the afternoon. When I try to do tasks that need me to think it literally makes my head hurt.

The dizziness doesn’t affect me in the traditional sense but seriously affects my balance. I’m going through physiotherapy to help my brain relearn how to walk properly. I use crutches and can only walk short distances. My feet often drag on the ground.

My senses are on overdrive so I’m very sensitive to noise and light bothers me too. I spend most of my life in my flat as the whole world is just too loud. And some smells are just hideous now.

For 5 weeks after the accident I couldn’t sleep for more than 5 hours and it was very interrupted. Thanks to floatation tank therapy that has now settled and I can sleep for longer and top it up with snoozefests through the day.

The fatigue is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before and has a huge impact on my life. I have to take breaks between the simplest of tasks and cancel and so no to so many things I want to do.

My memory is quite hit and miss. Thankfully my technical knowledge of all things geeky like photography is there but it takes a while for me to recall it. I’ve forgotten so many birthdays, conversations I’ve had both before and after the accident, what day it is, what month it is, that I need to eat. I can have a thought to do something but unless I do it right there and then or set a reminder on my phone, the chances are I’ll forget for days or weeks. You know that thing when you walk into a room and don’t know why you’re there? That’s my life 10 times a day.

On the irritability front I feel like I’m way less tolerant. I can’t help but get frustrated when I can’t manage to do something but I do try to be kind to myself.

A lot of the time it’s like I have no filter so I’ll say literally the first thought that pops into my head and there’s a hell of a lot more swearing these days. Sorry, Mum and Dad! I was brought up never to swear in front of my parents but I think they’re used to it now.

I find it difficult to concentrate on tasks for any length of time. I can’t focus for long and if it’s something I really need to use my brain for I have limited time before my brain tells me no more and my head pounds. I used to be able to do advanced level Sudoku but these days the easy stuff is barely a possibility. PCS makes me feel dumb but I know the intelligence is there. I just have to work super hard to use it.