John and Julie from Ipswich had a busy life – work, a grandchild and two dogs. Everything changed when John’s car hit a truck, at 70mph. The couple share their experience of rebuilding their life, with expert treatment from Shaftesbury Icanho, our rehabilitation centre for acquired brain injury.
John: I was driving back from Coventry when I hit the back of a stationary artic at 70mph. I had a broken back, partially severed foot, broken knees and wrists. But one of the biggest impacts was on my memory. I lost over 30 years of my life, which I still can’t remember two years on.
Julie: When this happened to John, I just got through every day, not sure what was happening next. I was looking after everybody else, making sure they were ok – there wasn’t really any time for me. I was running on adrenaline. At that point, John was very different to what he is now, he basically just sat in the chair and waited for the district nurses’ visits. He would get very fixated on things and his anxiety would go higher and higher, which is not something he’d ever had before.
John: I’ll never forget arriving at Icanho and meeting Phoebe, the receptionist – she made me feel warm and welcome and that Icanho could really help. All the team at Icanho were absolutely brilliant! I hope to God that people don’t need them but I’m so relieved that the service is there for people who do.
Julie: Once he’d started at Icanho, John became more settled, having somewhere to go where he felt safe, where he could talk and express how he was feeling and someone listened.
John: One of the biggest things for me was that because of the memory loss, I didn’t know who I was. I get quite emotional when I think about it – who is John? What are his values? What does he stand for? The team at Icanho really helped me with this and I’m trying to draw a line under it now, because those memories have gone. My body did what it needed to do to keep me alive and my brain binned what it thought wasn’t important.
Julie: It’s still difficult now – I don’t know the memories from John’s first marriage before I met him, to fill in the gaps. But occasionally he’ll go ‘oh!’ and some memory pops up.
John: One of my goals at Icanho in my first three months was to improve physically. From when I had my accident, I went from a bed to a wheelchair, to a zimmer frame, to crutches, to one crutch to a walking stick. I wanted to progress to nothing! The physiotherapist at Icanho was fantastic; he understood and listened and worked with me. They were wonderful in supporting me and I worked incredibly hard too.
Ellie who does speech and language therapy tailored all the training and therapy to what I needed at that time. She set me a task which was really powerful for me, to think about someone who I thought was a good communicator, could be famous or a work colleague. I chose Morgan Freeman, and I had to list his qualities and that helped me identify what is important to me, what my values are. At the time I thought ‘what are we doing!’ But it was really helpful. Part of my job is doing presentations, and Ellie got me to do one to the team at Icanho. I spoke about my accident and she mentored and coached me, and it was really well received! That really did help me as well and it helped them understand this is who John is. It was wonderful.
Julie: Having Icanho meant having somewhere we could bring all our worries and ask all our questions. It made it so much easier being able to share it with somebody. Me being welcome to attend John’s appointments really helped because I could carry on with treatment when we got home. So for instance, seeing what his physio was doing, I could encourage John to do more of it at home.
John: Pippa the occupational therapist helped me engage with workplace skills, and enabled me to go for a driving assessment to get my licence back. I was worried because I didn’t know if I’d remember how to drive but Alex the physio reassured me that skill would be in my retained memory, and when I needed it, it would be there. I passed all the tests, on a manual and automatic and got my licence back! Driving is a huge part of work and life and allows me freedom. I didn’t feel nervous when I started driving again.
Julie: It was nice having the six ‘Living well with brain injury’ support sessions, where I met with other partners or family whose loved ones had been injured, and John met the group who’d been injured. Those sessions were really good. I got to know people who were in similar situations and quite often when we went for appointments, I’d know someone else who was waiting for their partner and we could chat. That was really nice and I think those groups are important.
John: Even though awful stuff has happened, I feel incredibly blessed because of the family I’ve got, and the rehab I’ve had. Julie came to visit me in various hospitals every single day – at some points, about 1.5 hours’ journey each way – and she’s come to every single meeting at Icanho. That was so important to me – we come as a team. And Julie and I feel part of an Icanho family, we feel that all the team are friends and I couldn’t have better friends.