Chéri Ballinger, former model/actress and now film producer and entrepreneur, suffered a severe Traumatic Brain Injury in 2014 after a fall onto cement in an action scene on the set. Since her TBI on that day, her life has never been the same. Chéri’s four-year recovery was full of challenges related to having female-specific symptoms that threw her doctors off.
I had been experiencing what I would say was a very mild, dull headache for a few days. A bit like a hangover and I couldn’t shift it. I later found out I had suffered a severe ruptured aneurysm.
I read Emilia’s story when she first published it and was touched by how strong she was after going through something so traumatic, but I never thought it would happen to me, until it did. Here’s Julie’s story...
Mel is a paramedic and had just returned home from a sporting event and holiday in Europe when she started to feel unwell. She knew she was having a brain bleed, but nobody took her seriously. Here’s Mel’s story...
When Richard McLean had a stroke, one of the things he found helpful was hearing how other people have responded to having a stroke, to hear their experience. "It’s somehow nice to know that what I’m experiencing, how I’m feeling, others have experienced and felt too" 'Oh yes, that’s quite normal' are some seriously reassuring words right now. Here's Richard's story.....
Tamsyn Wood, mum of 4 and carer to her husband Alex, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury during a rugby training session, describes the recovery pathway as being 'so complicated, navigating a system that you have no idea about until something like this happens to you - then, riddled with grief and trauma, you have to somehow keep it together enough to manage the fall out, with an unfriendly, unyielding system that seems to be in place only for the financially abled to benefit from.'
She hopes that by speaking out about her experience of wife to carer it may resonate with someone out there feeling just as lonely, fraught and frustrated with the care world as she is.