Broken Mind: a Brain Injury recovery story

Epilogue: 6 Years Later

In hindsight, it seems obvious that when a person flies seventy feet out of a rear windscreen, there are long-term ramifications. Especially when learning to walk, write, and wipe their own arse had been such gruelling rehabilitation.

But hindsight will always come late to the party, so when you are struggling with crippling fatigue every day, you figure it's just because you have two toddlers. All parents feel tired, right?

But this burden of fatigue pulls you so low, you think it can't possibly be normal. This isn't liveable. You feel angry all the time—from simmer to seethe—and bit by bit, you've been pulling out of scheduled activities where you're required to interact with other people. You hide under the radar, rarely leaving the house.

When it only worsens with time, you wonder if there is a medical explanation. Maybe something to do with iron levels. Or your thyroid. Tired people are always talking about their thyroid.

So you take the tests. But they say there's nothing wrong with you.

It's only after many tears, headaches, anger explosions, feelings of panic, and repeated medical tests coming back negative, that it occurs to you that your head injury may have something to do with it.

You had been so excited to be 'normal' again, when you'd been able to drop your naps, that you'd completely put your head history behind you. Who wants to remember that sort of thing? It had been embarrassing, having to nap like a little kid. And it was frustrating to combat the impressions of laziness and luxury it gave to other people—normal people—who'd had to study or work through the full day.

On reflection, you suppose it's unsurprising that two small children create enough mental stress to regress your brain's stamina. Parenting is the most exhausting thing you've ever done, and now it's broken your normality, along a fracture-line you'd forgotten was there.

You're thankful that you're back in New Zealand when their government pays for several hours of childcare each week, but it's not enough to allow you a midday nap every day, and you can't afford more childcare. On days where Adam's working and the children stay home, you manage with coffee, clock-watching, and large amounts of aggrieved desperation.

The naps still help, even if you can't get one every day. You're more capable of managing your small but frenetic family, and you don't feel like you're only moments away from shattering into a million pieces.

'I've found my parameters,' you tell Marie when she visits one day, and you watch her children help yours build brightly coloured block towers. 'It's not the full recovery I'd hoped for, where I could pretend all the head stuff never happened, but I understand my limits more. So I think that when the kids are more self-reliant—dressing themselves, using the toilet, things like that—I won't need to rest so much. Hopefully, eventually, I'll be back to not having to do it during the day, at all.'

Even with improvements, you expect fleeting echoes will always be there. Reminders, that pop up when you don't expect them. Like the time your thirst mechanism lapsed, you'd forgotten to drink, and you'd had to go to the doctor's clinic for intravenous rehydration.

Or the time when spending an evening under strong white ceiling lights left you feeling dissociated, like you were in a dream. You had been too disconnected to notice when someone was speaking to you, even when they stood directly in front of your face. And you'd walked into several door frames on your way out.

But those echoes are few and far between. You can foresee most challenges, and you make plans to manage them.

You'll be fine. You've got this. You've got what you craved twelve years ago, in a hospital room built for four.

You have your life back.