Thank you for visiting my just giving page.

https://www.headwaysurrey.org/

I want to start this with a disclaimer of sorts, as the start is a lot of my personal story. I’m running the London Marathon 2024 for Headway Surrey because they have been a vital service and responsible for giving me the skills and tools as part of my recovery.

As is the case for so many charities following Covid and the cost of living crisis, funds for Headway Surrey are tight, and as a small local charity every penny makes a huge difference, so that they can provide the vital support for adults with acquired brain injuries.

Here is my story. I’m sorry this is so long.

I have quite significant mental health difficulties I was becoming very unwell when I ran the London Marathon in 2018. I reached crisis point and ended up in a psychiatric hospital a week later. After several months I was on home leave prior to being discharged. 36 hours later I had to go back in to the hospital to collect some more medication and attend a mindfulness session. Somewhere along the line I developed epilepsy, I have no idea when or how but while my dad was signing us in to the hospital I had my first seizure and when I landed I hit my head on the slate floor. I sustained a skull fracture on the right side, and the force of my landing caused my brain to hit the left side of my skull known as a contra coup injury. I ended up with a skull fracture and a subarachnoid haemorrhage on the left.

My memory of this is very hazy. I remember being on the floor in the hospital and hearing the words ‘seizure’ and ‘ambulance’ but I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I remember being in a bed in A&E, a nurse washing some of the blood out of my hair, and a nurse and doctor having an altercation about whether the wound should be glued and stitched. I remember hearing ‘transfer to St Georges’ and actually making the doctor pinky promise that he wouldn’t put staples in my head.

I vaguely remember being in a room, expecting my dad and sister to visit. I don’t remember my dad being there, and after the visit I remember my sister being there but wearing a Woolworths uniform. She stopped working there in the early 2000’s. My brain was superimposing older memories to piece together what I wasn’t able to remember.

After about a week I remember suddenly becoming lucid. I was still having seizures, and when they happen I have no memory of them. I don’t notice any warning signs, and I’m not sure if there are any. Afterwards I can generally respond to instructions and support to move, but it takes me some time to become lucid again and I don’t know that I’ve had a seizure unless somebody tells me.

An Occupational Therapist came to see me on the ward armed with a clipboard and some worksheets. I remember thinking to myself ‘I know why you’re here, we both know that I’m fine so let’s do your little worksheet love and then we can both go about our day’. She gave me a worksheet to do that I remember having used with the children in a language unit in a mainstream infant school. It was a load of words and I had to put them into categories (food, transport, animals etc). I couldn’t do it. That was when I realised that I had a problem. I was given the phone number of a member of staff at Headway Surrey on a scrap of paper.

I have attention problems, word finding issues, memory difficulties. I found processing what was happening a real challenge. When I was speaking I couldn’t really put coherent sentences together. I was mixing up words and replacing them with something vaguely related or similar sounding. My memory was probably the thing that frustrated me the most. I was ok during the day, but the following day I couldn’t really remember what had happened the day before. I started writing everything obsessively because little things like what I’d had for dinner a few days ago was of no consequence but it worried me so much that I couldn’t remember. I’d always said at work that my memory was my super power but I was relying on it far too much, and one day it would fail me. I've reached that point.

I found some photos of my head wound before it was put back together. I asked my dad why they were on my phone and whether taking photos was the priority at that time. Apparently I told him to take those pictures. I have no memory of this.

I started attending Headway Surrey a while later initially on a 1:1 basis and then going to the day centre sessions. The staff and volunteers there helped me with the cognitive difficulties that I had, and external strategies to compensate for the things during everyday life that were challenging.

In all honesty I’m still waiting for that magic moment where something clicks and everything goes back into place. I’m having a hard time accepting how that magic moment isn’t going to happen, and this is something that I often talk about in my sessions. They say in life that time heals everything. I’m still waiting.

I’m still going to Headway Surrey for 1:1 sessions, and Jo has been fantastic in helping me understand my brain injury and the effects, as I don’t really have the insight and understanding myself. Jo helps me to put the situations where I’ve had problems into context of how my brain injury affects me.

I couldn’t be more thankful for the help and support that Headway Surrey have given me. That has been a crucial part of my journey in helping me with my recovery and giving me the tools to be able to get back to work, live independently and being able to go back to my own home. There’s no way that I would have been able to do those things without the support that they’ve given me, and they’ve helped me more than they can ever know.

I’m now a Trustee for Headway Surrey as a thank you for all the work that they’ve done for me. It doesn’t go anywhere close to paying back the support they’ve given me, but it’s a start.

In April 2024 I’m going to be running the London Marathon to raise money for Headway Surrey, as a debt of gratitude, and the money raised will mean so much to them. They are a small local charity, but they give such specialist and life changing services. I want to help raise awareness of brain injuries and the impact that they can have, and the fact that help is out there. Headway Surrey have been crucial in changing my life after my traumatic brain injury and they’ve helped me more than they can ever know.

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Some shocking statistics, someone will have a brain injury every 90 seconds. There are approximately 977 people per year who get brain injuries and sadly all the statistics are on the rise.

Brain injuries are life changing, and they affect the person who has the injury but also really impacts on the people around them. Family, friends, carers, employers etc. The research tells us this, but I also know this from personal experience. Headway Surrey ensures that when a person’s life (and their family's) is turned upside down by brain injury, they get the help and support they need and deserve. I've been so incredibly fortunate and privileged to have such an amazing support network of family and friends who been there through my journey, and those who still are. My fiance Nath wasn't there from the beginning but has been coming to my Headway sessions to help understand what my cognitive issues are and how they affect day to day life.

Brain injuries may be from a road traffic incident, stroke, meningitis, encephalitis, tumour, aneurysms, sporting accident, work injury, assault, combat, domestic violence, hypoxia, falling debris, trip, fall or slip etc. Whatever the cause, it is their aim to help people live well with their brain injury and achieve their potential, whatever is meaningful and relevant to them and your family.

Headway Surrey support 18 adults in Surrey with acquired and traumatic brain injuries, road traffic accidents or strokes, and they also support their families. They have been providing a range of specialised services since 1985, from our base in Guildford (and online, via telephone and text, or at hospitals and other venues).

They support people with practice and repetition of key skills for the months or years to reach optimal recovery, and to learn compensatory techniques and strategies to reduce memory problems, socialisation and communication practice.

Headway Surrey are a small charity but they are so caring and passionate about helping people with brain injuries, and they offer such an amazing service and give so much cognitive, practical and emotional support.

For a small charity, any money raised means so much to the team at Headway Surrey and makes such a massive difference in the work that they can do. Any support that you can offer me as I take on this challenge would be so wonderful and would mean the world to Headway Surrey, and would be such a lift to me when the training is hard, running through the rain, cold and dark nights that winter brings, and on the day itself.

Thank you for visiting my page. I want to raise as much money as I can for Headway Surrey for gratitude for everything that they’ve done for me, especially Jo who has helped me so much and I cannot be more grateful. It would make such a difference to Headway Surrey as every penny raised helps them to provide the help and the support to those who need it across all of Surrey.