All Survivor Stories

I originally acquired a brain injury as a teenager when I lived in England. The injury was not diagnosed for approximately 5 years. Eventually, I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and had a shunt placed. This unfortunately failed twice causing me to go into comas...

21 years ago, I was five months pregnant when my optician saw a brain tumor in my eyes. He sent me to the optical clinic at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds and within a few hours, I was transferred to the neurology department at Leeds General Infirmary...

I was 28 when I had suffered from a stroke in my thalamus. The thalamus is a paired grey matter structure of the diencephalon located near the center of the brain, and is the body's information relay station. All information from the body's senses (except smell) must be processed through the thalamus before being sent to the brain's cerebral cortex for interpretation. The thalamus also plays a role in sleep, wakefulness, consciousness, learning and memory. 

December 1st, 2023, began like any other. Friday, the start of the weekend looming, a list of small, easy jobs were lined up for the day when I was struck by the most breathtaking pain consuming my entire head.

My name is Veronica, this is my story. I was diagnosed with arteriovenous malformation (AVM) at the age of twelve. I was born with it, and I never had any symptoms before my arteries ruptured in my brain.

Back on May 31, 2009, at 31 years of age, an aneurysm ruptured in the right frontal lobe of my brain. When people hear that, their first response is almost always, "Wow, that's terrible." However, I quickly talk about how it was, far and away, the best thing that's ever happened to me.

In 2005, as a serving soldier in the British Army, I was on a training exercise in the jungles of Belize. Whilst cutting our way through a dense part of the jungle, everyone heard an almighty crack and a crashing sound as something extremely heavy fell through the leaves above...

In 2011 I was young (35), very fit, healthy, happy and planning to get married the following year in June 2012. In January 2012, I went into King’s College Hospital for a foramen magnum decompression to treat Chiari malformation (brain surgery No. 1). I was told it would involve 1-2 weeks in the hospital and another 2 weeks at home to recover. I thought, “Easy!” Little did I know that this is when my nightmare would begin.

I suffered my brain injury not long after I was born. I was born 11 weeks prematurely and due to a traumatic birth, shortly after I suffered a bleed on the brain. It is said that bleeds on the brain and stroke are the leading causes of disability and in my case, this is what happened...