Survivor Stories

In May 2019, aged 32 years old, I contracted encephalitis. It started as a headache at the base of my skull, dizziness and vomiting. The hospital diagnosed me with migraine and vertigo before sending me back home.

Just shy of my 25th birthday, I was on a date saying goodbye to a friend. As I stepped out of his vehicle, I got a whirling sensation in my head and high-pitched ringing in my ears and dropped to the ground.

In 2020, I dissected both of my carotid arteries while swimming. My survival chance was 2% but I strongly believe that with rehab and willpower, you can achieve the unexpected.

In 2016, I was doing well at work in Scotland, and I was about to start a new job in Cornwall when about a month before I was due to start, I had a stroke.  I was aged 30. 

On November 12th, 2021, I woke up feeling fine, but while on a Zoom meeting, I heard a pop in my head and the room started spinning.

My dad was working as a correctional officer at a juvenile facility. His radio was taken by an inmate, and while attempting to get it back, the inmate picked up my dad and slammed him into the concrete floor.

I was 25 years old. I was married to the love of my life; we had an 18-month-old daughter and I was also 24 weeks pregnant with our son when I felt a "POP" in my head.

In November 2020 my fit and healthy 32-year-old wife Suzanne suffered a catastrophic subarachnoid hemorrhage.

I had just returned from holiday when I started to feel really unwell and sick. I now know it was an AVM that had ruptured and I was suffering a bleed on the brain.

I was washing my dog after being outside when a horrible pain in my head made everything foggy and surreal as I was standing up. 

A big hurdle we came across in Danial's recovery were the delays and lack of awareness on hospital wards in meeting needs for an Autistic person’s 1-on-1 care.

I am a survivor of 2 brain injuries within the course of a few years. One by rape and one from an aneurysm.

I was approaching the end of my first year working as a Nurse Practitioner when I suddenly became the patient instead of the prescriber.

I am a wife, mother of three, and a second grade teacher. By sharing my story, I hope that someone might find comfort in knowing they are not alone and that recovery from brain injury happens at its own pace.

I had a SAH in January, 2019. I was 29 years old at the time: fit, a keen sports person, and it came out of the blue.

The doctors in Asheville were straight forward with my mom, telling her there was a 90% chance I wouldn’t make it out of the coma.

My name is Matthew and in February 2021 whilst out running I suffered a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage.

This story is about my mum, Mimi, who sadly passed away in August last year following a long battle with a brain injury.

I had a brain stem bleed in July 2017 at the age of 36, and a TIA 12 months later.  Being young, fit and healthy they were both totally unexpected.