Unwanted Visitor

Unwanted Visitor
Available on Kindle

Sunday 19 February 2012

I'm quite excited, I am addressing the conference on Acquire Brain Injury on 16th May 2012 at the Floral Pavilion, New Brighton.  I am scheduled to be first speaker and I will be speaking not as an author but as a parent.  My daughter, who is 29, stopped breathing when she was thirteen, which left her with an acquired brain injury.  I will be talking about our journey to learn to cope with her disability and to get her the help she needed.  I must try not to turn this into a rant, although I do get bitter at the way we were treated sometimes.  It took years for anyone to agree that my daughter does indeed have a brain injury and her behaviour was not just teenage stroppiness. Just because I do not have a medical degree, does not mean I know nothing, and just because I am a mother does not mean I will exaggerate the problems to get assistance with my daughter.  I think we are doing all right now, but we have had to fight to get her the support she needs, in fact we have had to fight for everything we have achieved.  I suggested calling my talk, 'Screaming in the Dark', because that is what it felt like, but that doesn't sound very positive does it. I am trying to write things in a positive light so I will have to think of a suitably upbeat title.  The message I will be giving to the medical professionals at this conference will be, listen to the family, they know their relative better than a tired junior doctor who has met her twice.  To the patients and carers and families, I will be saying, don't stop asking for help, it is available, you just have to be persistent and develop a thick skin.  Take a look at the Headway page on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/123530217665548/

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