I met my husband when I was 15, soullmates and the best of friends, we were married in Sept 2009 and had the most amazing wedding on a beach abroad. You never know what you are going to come up against in your married life, and commit to eachother in sickness and in health. My husbands 30th bday came the following June and it was also the night of the England world cup football game so we had debated going away to celebrate his bday (hindsight comes to mind) but i decided to hire a room in a bar which had a screen on for the football and arrange a 30th celebration for him.
The whole day leading up to the evening of the party I had the most unbelievable headache which was strange for me as I never suffer from these. Anyway may have been some sort of warning but I wasnt to know at the time.
Long story short about 11pm that evening we had been enjoying the party with our friends when two boys and three girls entered the hired room from the bar upstairs where we were celebrating we had also put on food and money behind the bar so didnt waht people we didnt know there. They were asked to leave and got aggressive but the bar staff usehered them out and we thought that was the end of it. We left about midnight and this is the moment my whole world changed as i knew it.
My husband saw one of the males that had tried to enter the bar standing outside ( even though we had been told they had been removed from the premises) and being the man that he is went to shake his hand so there were no hard feelings. In a millisecond the man had punched my husband in the nose before my eyes i saw his nose move across his face and then as i screamed and tried to put my arms up to protect him he was punched again in the head and fell onto the side of the pavement.
Fast forward from the chaos that followed and being told at the hospital i had 10 minutes to sign consent for them to save his life - He had just turned 30!! Midnight
He had a subdural hematoma and they operated straight away - with the next 72 hours being vital i dont know where i was at that moment living in a nightmare.
Seeing him after teh operation in ITU and in an induced Coma was the worst feeling I could ever describe. I cant even write about it.
My husband made no improvement 1 week later so they decided to perform a craniotomy and remove part of his skull to release pressure on his brain. I didnt even know that was somthing that could be done but why would i? I do believe this saved his life. Even though it was the most awful thing to understand how can someone survive with no skull?
Im not even sure what space of time this is without referring to his notes as I still find this so hard to understand and deal with but my husband did wake up and i was determined to fix him!
Apparently a miracle statistic of 3% my husband came through this physically unaffected he was able to learn to walk and talk again, even though we were told he died 3 times and would never be the same again.
So much happened to aid his receovery and he was in hospital for nearly a month whatever i write here wil never describe the horror, torment, miracle and crazy time of this moment but im sure some of you understand this.
We moved in with his parents so I could get some help looking after him, while he was so vulnerble without a skull we had to wait 6 months for this to be put back and in between this time he needed his nose fixed and cheek as this was also fractured.
I was so grateful and thankful to have him by my side that none of this was as scary as the thought of not having him.
My husband is still having surgery to get his head looking better and still needs a second operation on his nose but he is the man i remember and getitng more like him as time goes on he will never be exactly the same as we have had the experience of Trauma, life & Death and shock that changes a person. But one amazing thing came out of this hideous, experience which we still face emotionally daily - i found out in the October after it happened that we were expecting and the baby that i had told him we were going to have when he was in the coma was due the following June a year exactly after it happened.
Our little boy was born June 2011 the most special thing in the world kept us going with the thoughts of him when we felt our lives had fallen apart - 2 days after he was born my husband had a second cranioplasty to remove the one he had December 2010 as it had left him with a gap between the plate and the brain. Life and death faced me again!
And this December he is having another operation to improve the appearance of the indentation on his head.
His attacker will also be home in December even though we are still dealing with this - how that is right I dont know!
I write this (in very short form as its been a hell of 2 years) to help others that need positivity, Hope, understanding or any other way this could help anyone else and also for wives or partners, mothers, fathers or children who are experiencing or have experienced wathching their loved one go through a life and death expereince that pain of feeling helpless and out of control is the worst feeling in the world the pain that someone nearly took my husbands and my life away is unthinkable and how we were told if his brain scans were shown to any surgeon across the world they would say there is no way he would survive................... believe, believe, believe as I didnt stop believing and hoping for a miracle!
Sending so much strength and hope to anyone dealing with or caring for someone with a TBI xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ps. is anyone on phenytoin after a TBI? what are expereinces of it and weaning off it
how many times have any of you heard this?
Ever think how luck you are? 
do you remember receiving your injury
What organizational aids work for you?
