Alan's Story
August 1996
I was driving to work early one morning; I was late for work so I was speeding with no seat belt on. I had been out late drinking the night before and I was very tired. It was a cold wet windy morning; I turned the corner and drove straight into a pillar.
I woke up four months later in Cork University Hospital from a coma; I was then transferred to Dun Laoighre. I cannot remember being in these hospitals. I spent six months in Dun Laoighre, where I learned how to talk, walk, sleep and go to the toilet again. I must have been like a child. Thank God I can't remember. I didn't need to be taught how to use bad language or smoke again either. Funnily enough I could do these all by myself. I went home to my wife and child, it was then things got worse as I tried to live as the man I knew before my accident. I was a stranger in my own home even though I didn't realise it at the time. I couldn't go back to work as a block layer, I couldn't go to the pub, I couldn't drive, I couldn't remember people's names or what I had for breakfast that morning. I was angry and frustrated.
"I didn't know me WHO AM I"
Around a year later I went to Headway, Thank God I met people my age just like me and people who understood. Headway explained what happened to my brain during the car crash and why I have difficulties. I was getting out of my home (which had now become like a jail), every morning. I had a reason to get up. I learned how to cook, read and write. I go out once a week to the gym, I am now working in my local area every Thursday morning and hopefully this will build into more hours and days in the week which is on the cards at the moment.