Reclaiming Life After Brain Injury - How to Follow Your Dreams, Even When Life is Hard

In my final year at Mudgee High School, where at the time I was mostly an A-grade student, I was involved in a motor vehicle accident which resulted in me being in a coma for three months with significant frontal lobe damage. I was the driver of the vehicle.

My prognosis for ever regaining consciousness was not good – I was never supposed to walk again, my cognitive ability was forecast to be significantly impaired and as a consequence, my life was going to be mainly in the hands of carers.

With love, diligence, faith and enormous medical intervention from surgery to rehabilitation programmes I have subsequently graduated from university, I am mobile but mildly unsteady at times, I drive, I have good cognition though a bit slower than what would be considered normal, I am married with two beautiful children and though not currently employed have a "near" normal life.

During this journey of recovery, I have kept notes of significant key points of my physical and mental well-being.

Subsequently, I have written a book that describes this journey in terms that reflect my efforts and achievements, my moods – ups and downs, the monetary, physical and mental cost to others, the extraordinary help from others and the support of my faith and much more.

It is a story of hope! It does not play on the negatives but highlights the costs which a moment in time that can impact all of us. It is an inducement, an encouragement to others particularly in the age group referred to above, to think before they act. I have no reason to believe that I did not think the moment before my accident but it still happened to me.

I would like to make this book available to everyone at a nominal cost so that others may be saved from having my journey. Even if it influences one person and saves them from the trauma that I and others have experienced, in my opinion, it would be worth every cent.

There are many books written at the scientific and academic level – it is the simplicity and limitations that I have which come through in my dissertation that may just supplement and/or enhance the message that I believe young people need to hear as they progress to early adulthood and the joys that can offer if they make the right decisions now.