Recovery Journey Summary
I was a forty-five year old man from Newcastle-under-Lyme in central England, who in July 2015 worked as a freelance IT security consultant with London’s Metropolitan Police Service. While on a leisure ride from my home to Nantwich in Cheshire, I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) consequential to a collision between a car and my bicycle. I was flown by air ambulance to the nearest major trauma centre (Royal Stoke Hospital), where neurosurgery relieved the pressure building up from a blood clot in my brain. I was assessed as Glasgow Coma Scale 3 (severe) during the first two weeks of a four-week comatose period. Upon emerging from my coma, I had locked-in syndrome for six days; I couldn’t speak or move my head, but I could move my eyes and listen to spoken words around me. I spent a further eight weeks in a specialist NHS rehabilitation centre, before being discharged to home.
Despite fantastic clinical support from the NHS, it was only after coming home that I understood I was now embarking on the real life recovery journey. I was incapable of doing much other than get through each day during the first nine months following discharge. I recognised that I needed a new purpose in life, so in June 2016 I began pursuing voluntary work opportunities. I started off in a charity shop sorting clothes, then took up a befriending role with senior citizens via the Royal Voluntary Service. I progressed to become an ‘IT buddy’ at my local library, enabling me to leverage some of my IT skills. Of most importance, to myself, I felt useful again.
In July 2017, following a year of volunteering, I returned to professional work with the Met Police as an IT security consultant. The Met had pursued my availability since my period in the NHS rehabilitation centre in October 2015, during which time I didn’t feel capable of returning – so my eventual acceptance was unexpected and unplanned for. I was surprised to find that I’d lost very little of my expert IT security skills. The biggest challenge I experienced in returning to professional work was my severe short-term memory limitations. However, I’d developed numerous note-taking coping strategies which I was able to rely upon.
In June 2018, I enthusiastically embarked upon a three-day training course to learn new IT skills in Amazon Web Services (cloud technology). Despite immersing myself in the learning experience, I found that within seconds I lost retention of any new skills being taught. I worked on a variety of freelance IT security engagements leveraging his existing skills, before retiring in July 2019.
Prior to my professional retirement, I became involved in voluntary work again. In 2018 I was engaged in charity work supporting the elderly with technology, which I expect to pursue indefinitely. I’ve also been involved in university / NHS research projects whose aims were to establish return-to-work programs for people who’d experienced traumatic injuries.