We are brothers whose lives were turned upside down by two traumatic brain injuries. One of us survived a stroke, and our Dad had to learn to talk again after suffering a bleed on the brain. Now, we are cycling 500 miles through the desert to raise money for the charity Headway (www.headway.org.uk) which helps support people with brain injuries.  

Chris

Chris had a stroke in June 2021. In his words:

It was early morning. I was alone in my flat, getting ready for work. I felt fine (days before I had been riding the regional XC MTB championships). In a moment, I lost the feeling in the right side of my body, and the vision in my right eye was reduced to broad patches of colour. I waited a moment, sure that it would resolve, but it didn’t. I was able to call an ambulance, but by the time it arrived I was struggling to talk, and unable to describe what had happened. The paramedic said that it couldn’t be a stroke, because I was only 28…

The stroke had been caused by a clot passing through a hole between the two sides of my heart and blocking a blood vessel in my brain. I spent a week in the Hyper-Acute Stroke Unit at the Royal London Hospital. When discharged home, I was left with altered sensation in my right side, difficulty finding words, difficulty recalling information, ferocious headaches and fatigue.

As a result of medical care (including quite remarkable surgery to close the hole in my heart (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b0aEAFd6i0U&feature=youtu.be) and the patience and support of colleagues, friends and family, now, ten months on, I have recovered almost entirely (left only with a tingling sensation in my right hand, and an intractable inability to remember people’s names).

Whilst I was unwell, and recovering, I had a horrible sense of vulnerability that was difficult to shake. In the back of my head, when I persuaded Jack to sign up to the Basajaun, was the idea that working towards and achieving something momentous might be the best solution to that problem.

Dad

Our Dad had a subdural haematoma (a bleed between the skull and the surface of the brain) in March 2020. In Jack’s words:

We sat down as a family for dinner. We had been watching the football. I asked Dad what he thought about it. He didn’t answer. I asked again. He still didn’t answer. He looked lost. Mum and Chris were prompting him to speak, but he didn’t. Someone said that if he didn’t say something they would call an ambulance. He stayed silent.

At the hospital, imaging showed that Dad had a bleed between his brain and his skull. The doctors said that this was putting pressure on his brain, and causing the difficulty with speech and the confusion.

Dad was in hospital for a month. His condition was frightening. We would visit in the morning and he wouldn’t remember by the afternoon. He struggled with simple tasks, like opening an app on his I-Pad.

Dad had surgery to relieve the pressure in his skull, and his condition slowly improved. Even when Dad came home, it took a very long time for him to fully recover. For months, he was a much smaller personality. He would sit quietly in the coroner of the room, or at the end of a table, whilst conversation happened around him. He would often simply fall asleep.

We are enormously fortunate that he continued to recover, and that we got our Dad back.

When Dad was first admitted to hospital, I spent a lot of time on Google, trying to better understand what was happening. At some point, I found the information library on the Headway website, with leaflets and factsheets which gave me an insight into what Dad was experiencing and what I could do to better support him. These insights were invaluable, and why I suggested that we raise money for Headway with our ride this summer.

The plan

On 30 July we will ride the Basajaun (https://www.transiberica.club/basajaun/), a 760km, unsupported, offroad bicycle race through mountains, forests and deserts in Northern Spain. We intend to complete it in less than 72 hours.

Although we have both ridden and raced bikes for years, at 760km, non-stop, the Basajaun is a leap out of our comfort zone. We hope that by taking on such a challenge, we can raise as much money and awareness as possible for Headway.

Over three days, we expect to:

· Burn the calorific equivalent of 125 Big Macs.

· Climb a total height of almost 2x Mt. Everest.

· Ride each day for more time than the average sloth sleeps. 

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