Uticopa Blog

Physiologically speaking, the brain as the most important part of our lives.  Yes, the heart is the ticking clock that keeps our organs functioning, but the brain is the controller without which the body is thrown into a directionless trauma bereft of instructions, devoid of organisation, floundering in uncharted seas.

So, consider the two case-studies below when, as so often happens, that unexpected trauma of injury to the brain occurs.

Case study 1. 

Car accidents are a daily fact of life.  In fact, for most of us, we hardly notice when yet another report reaches our television screens or favorite newspaper.  For those working in the media, it is yet another boring feature to cover or even to ignore.  Yet for the victims......

Brian Cullinan was a journalist at The Sunday Times and The Times. However, even he was ill-prepared for the scenario which faced him when he himself was involved in a traumatic car accident. Suddenly he was not the reporter, but the victim.  Emerging into consciousness after the accident, he found himself unable to speak or write.  His severe brain injuries were set to become the most horrifying shock of his life. In an instant, everything he had worked for was destroyed, his whole family life in tatters.  He knew that the shame that was bubbling up inside him was irrational, but it was there all the same.

Case study 2. 

For the general public, strokes happen to the elderly and are something that we haven't time to think about in our busy working lives. However, for one  40-years-old man things changed rapidly.  One minute Ian was working in his own landscape gardening business, and the next he felt an alarming electric shock down the left side of his face.  He knew he felt ill, so managed to drive to a local garage and attempted to call for help.  "But the words wouldn't come out;  I was tongue-tied. I opened the door to get out and fell flat on my back.  I could see people looking at me warily. They thought I was drunk. Luckily, there was a doctor filling up his car who came over and told me, ‘I think you've had a stroke.'  I remember thinking ‘that can't be right;  I'm too young.'"  After that, things moved rapidly and that same evening he was operated on to stem a brain haemorrhage, an operation which undoubtedly saved his life. His brother, of all things a funeral director, was his first visitor. ‘I told him he could put his tape measure away', said Ian.

Enter stage left, a wonderful charity called Thrive.  This amazing organisation is a gardening scheme that was set up for people just like Brian and Ian. It is a charity with various large communal garden sites which offer brain-injury victims their own small plot and plenty of help and support to do as little or as much as they can manage. For both Brian and Ian it was a lifeline when they needed it most. It was not until each started Thrive's therapeutic gardening scheme that their previously uncontrollable feelings of frustration, anger and shame began to dissolve.  For both, Thrive proved the catalyst for a miraculous transformation, enabling them to slowly recover their power of speech and build a new inner self-confidence and self-esteem. But most striking has been the change from embittered self-criticism to a more relaxed, confident and content way of life for them both, at last happy to share a joke or chat with friends.

Nature has lessons for us all, especially in countries where all four seasons are clearly delineated.  It is only by seeing plants constantly fade then renew themselves that we can get a grip on what life is all about.  Each Spring we can look at how thin, sometimes sickly-looking, pale green shoots by degrees become stronger and eventually blossom into full working parts of the environment, doing their bit to feed the myriads of insects that depend upon them.  With the help of brain-injury charities like Thrive, so too can man.
Perhaps you are a recent brain-injury victim like Brian or Ian and would like help to find a therapist? 

Similarly, for therapists themselves who would like to learn more about Thrive's methods or help in its struggle to raise much-needed funds, go to www.thrive.org.uk, or Click to make your donation to The Times Charity Appeal, of which Thrive is one of this year's Christmas charities.
 
None of us know when we too might need Thrive's help, just like Brian and Ian.