Head Injury and Brain Damage

ChwaraeTeg

ChwaraeTeg

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Re: Hat or no hat? That is the question.....
I have just finished reading the 16 or so pages on "Latest News" forum, with great interest.
In it, someone mentioned a television programme they saw. I saw it too and felt I had to post something that may help people who have found themselves in a similar situation.
.
Am not sure if this is the place to post a link which will help those who have been affected by head injury and brain damage.
.
It happened to me. Fractured skull, long term coma , on a life support system.
Unable to walk, talk, feed, dress or communicate for quite a while.
.
Was I wearing a hat ? YES.

.
I saw that television programme on BBC2 last week. I just would like to say,
there is always hope, and am truly sad for those left behind who didn't make it.

Meantime, once I was well and truly on the mend, my brother sent me this....
It is a book you can download for free and was a great help for me and my family..
.
http://www.tbiguide.com/index.html
.
If the link has to be removed, please send me a pm and I will send it to you.
( I Hope and pray you will never need to use it )
Tegs :)
 
I'm here again, so perhaps a little more of brain damage, and a few questions which might be helpful: copied from
TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY SURVIVAL GUIDE
By Dr. Glen Johnson, Clinical Neuropsychologist

COMMON INDICATORS OF A HEAD INJURY

This questionnaire is not meant to be a formal "test" to see if you have a head injury. If you have multiple "YES" answers, bring this questionnaire to your doctor. Additional tests (medical and neuropsychological) maybe ordered.

HEADACHES

Yes . No . .Do you have more headaches since the injury or accident?
Yes . No . .Do you have pain in the temples or forehead?
Yes . No . .Do you have pain in the back of the head (sometimes the pain will start at the back of the head and extend to the front of the head)?
Yes No Do you have episodes of very sharp pain (like being stabbed) in the head which lasts from several seconds to several minutes?

MEMORY

Yes No / Does your memory seem worse following the accident or injury?
Yes No / Do you seem to forget what people have told you 15 to 30 minutes ago?
Yes No / Do family members or friends say that you have asked the same question over and over?
Yes No / Do you have difficulty remembering what you have just read?


WORD-FINDING

Yes No / Do you have difficulty coming up with the right word
. (you know the word that you want to say but can’t seem to "spit it out")?

FATIGUE

Yes No / Do you get tired more easily (mentally and/or physically)?
Yes No / Does the fatigue get worse the more you think or in very emotional situations?


CHANGES IN EMOTION

Yes No / Are you more easily irritated or angered (seems to come on quickly)?
Yes No / Since the injury, do you cry or become depressed more easily?


CHANGES IN SLEEP

Yes No / Do you keep waking up throughout the night and early morning?
Yes No / Do you wake up early in the morning (4 or 5 a.m.) and can’t get back to sleep?


ENVIRONMENTAL OVERLOAD

Yes No Do you find yourself easily overwhelmed in noisy or crowded places (feeling overwhelmed in a busy store or around noisy children)?
IMPULSIVENESS

Yes No / Do you find yourself making poor or impulsive decisions
. (saying things "without thinking" that may hurt others feelings; increase in impulse buying?)


CONCENTRATION

Yes No / Do you have difficulty concentrating (can’t seem to stay focused on what you are doing)?


DISTRACTION

Yes No / Are you easily distracted
. (someone interrupts you while you are doing a task and you lose your place)?


ORGANIZATION

Yes No / Do you have difficulty getting organized or completing a task
. (leave out a step in a recipe or started multiple projects but don’t complete them)?


__________ Total Number of Yes Answers


If you have 5 or more Yes answers,
discuss the results of this questionnaire with your doctor.

........................................................................................................
This was a great help to my family and myself

-------------------------------------------------
Many Thanks and kind regards,
ChwaraeTeg
 
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It happened to me. Fractured skull, long term coma , on a life support system.
Unable to walk, talk, feed, dress or communicate for quite a while.
.
Was I wearing a hat ? YES


you could have been taling about me there, id always plumb for wearing a hat, advise people to wear one, but at the end of the day its there desision,

does anyone who has broken there heads still get pain in the fracture site? i do 20 years on,:(
 
Not nearly as bad as your experience.

Bleed on the brain. No fracture. Decided against drilling a hole to release the pressure.

I kept working (I'm a consultant - only as good as the last job). D had to drive me everywhere. So tired. Emotions, well, we won't go there. Once got halfway across a road, dual carriageway type, and couldn't figure out how to cross the second bit; if D hadn't have been there I'd have just sat down and cried. Daughters affected. Riding, well, wasn't allowed to ride for months.

Mine was a silly fall. A nothing fall. Fast canter, she went left, I didn't. Not a bruise or an ouch on me, just fell awkwardly and bashed my head on the ground. I was wearing a hat or I wouldn't be here.

I know it's each to their own, etc. whether to wear one or not, but those that don't seem to think they live in a bubble. The effect it has on the A&E staff, who thanked me for wearing a hat! The effect it has on family and friends. I really wouldn't wish any of it on anyone. I rode without a hat when I was younger and would love to do it again, to gallop with the wind in my hair, but after spending too many hours staring at hospital walls and feeling ill beyond belief, and the recovery, where you only realise how bad it was when you look back, I won't be doing it again.


Sorry OP, bit of a tangent there. Good to hear that you're doing okay :)
 
PendleEquestrain said:
It happened to me. Fractured skull, long term coma , on a life support system.
Unable to walk, talk, feed, dress or communicate for quite a while.
.
Was I wearing a hat ? YES


you could have been taling about me there, id always plumb for wearing a hat, advise people to wear one, but at the end of the day its there desision,

does anyone who has broken there heads still get pain in the fracture site? i do 20 years on,:(
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay PendleEquestrian and Mrs Mozart. It is about 15 years since my skull was fractured and I too have sharp pain on the fracture sites.
I try not to take medication as I do not like the side effects and it doesn't really help anyway.
What DOES HELP reduce the pain FOR ME is to put my head under a cold running tap and hold a compress of ice cold wet towel from the freezer on the site of injury.
.
The other bones that broke / were damaged, warm compresses seem to work better.

Mrs Mozart, no problems with a tangent at all . Thank-you for taking the trouble to reply .:)
You said your problems are not as bad as mine, but they are worse, because they are YOUR problems.
I am so sorry it had to happen to you, and PendleEquestrian, and me ,
but even though my life is not the same as it was,
I thank the Lord I am still able to enjoy it.
.
I hope we will all find better ways of dealing with our pain , our frustrations and meantime are able make the most of the good days we have .
.
It's not too often I discuss the accident and aftermath, but am happy to do so if it will be of help to anyone.
Maybe we should start a headbangers club ! (maybe there is one here already?) :lol:
Tegs :D
 
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Not horse related but a close member of my family sustained a head injury in a car accident. In her rehab group at the unit were several horse riders.

Living with a head injury has a massive impact on the rest of the family, it changes your lives in a way that cannot be imagined, and there's always a sadness for once was and what has been lost.

It frustrates me when I see people say 'yes, i know I'm not wearing a hat but it's my head, and its my choice'. It's so selfish, absolutely no vision or regard for who will have to pick up the pieces in the event of an accident. Who will have to cry at your hospital bedside and eventually take you home to administer 24 hr care for the rest of your (or their) natural life. Or agonize and live with the guilt of putting you in residential care.

I say, for the sake of your loved ones, wear a hat. We owe it to them to do everything we can to stay safe and not be part of the 'It'll never happen to me' club.

You made an amazing recovery ChwaraeTeg and I can't help thinking thats in no small part down to determination. You never know, your thread could provide a lot of hope to someone in those dark days after an accident.
 
I got kicked about quite badly racing once, and I went through a very dark depressive phase . It was only when I confessed to a retired jockey friend that I was having problems and he asked the simple question ,had I had a head injury in the last six months. He explained that it was simply a result of the accident and I was able to move forward from that moment on.Incidentaly my hat was smashed to pieces in the fall, but it saved my life.
 
Mike007 said:
I got kicked about quite badly racing once, and I went through a very dark depressive phase . It was only when I confessed to a retired jockey friend that I was having problems and he asked the simple question ,had I had a head injury in the last six months. He explained that it was simply a result of the accident and I was able to move forward from that moment on.Incidentaly my hat was smashed to pieces in the fall, but it saved my life.
Click to expand...

Thank-Goodness for your hat Mike007, and your retired jockey friend.
Hope you are well on the mend now.
Thank-you for taking the trouble to reply to the posting .
Teg :)
 
ChwaraeTeg said:
Thank-Goodness for your hat Mike007, and your retired jockey friend.
Hope you are well on the mend now.
Thank-you for taking the trouble to reply to the posting .
Teg :)
Click to expand...

This was in my youth(which is a distant country now) but I do so agree with what has been posted. My way out from the pit I was in was understanding the real reason for it. You might think you have walked away from a fall unhurt but that bash on the head has some very long lasting and sneaky effects.I justv hope that someone who is feeling like I did will read this and take it on board.
 
Thanks again Mike 007. Long-lasting , sneaky effects - Spot-on

gugglebum said:
Not horse related but a close member of my family sustained a head injury in a car accident. In her rehab group at the unit were several horse riders.

Living with a head injury has a massive impact on the rest of the family, it changes your lives in a way that cannot be imagined, and there's always a sadness for once was and what has been lost.

It frustrates me when I see people say 'yes, i know I'm not wearing a hat but it's my head, and its my choice'. It's so selfish, absolutely no vision or regard for who will have to pick up the pieces in the event of an accident. Who will have to cry at your hospital bedside and eventually take you home to administer 24 hr care for the rest of your (or their) natural life. Or agonize and live with the guilt of putting you in residential care.

I say, for the sake of your loved ones, wear a hat. We owe it to them to do everything we can to stay safe and not be part of the 'It'll never happen to me' club.

You made an amazing recovery ChwaraeTeg and I can't help thinking thats in no small part down to determination. You never know, your thread could provide a lot of hope to someone in those dark days after an accident.
Click to expand...

""Living with a head injury has a massive impact on the rest of the family, it changes your lives in a way that cannot be imagined, and there's always a sadness for once was and what has been lost.""

Thank-you again for this, this part particularly reminded me of something .
.
I grieved over the loss of ME .
lol, sounds silly,
daft thoughts barged right in - uninvited .... to the effect that without being able to ride, life was not worth living ...
.
How wrong I was.

(more to say, but later as I might get timed out ! lol )
Teg :)
 
For me, what was lost is now gone and I try to replace it with something better,
something that will last even when the body naturally deteriorates through old age.
(but that took a little while to discover !)
.
Once I (and my family) realised the impact on my way of thinking and behaviour,
we started to learn how to tackle it ourselves.
(This could not start happening until we had a breakthrough in communication. )
 
This is an issue foremost in my mind atm. I've just had my second riding lesson without a hat on and I feel horribly exposed on horseback without one. The horse I ride is a trusted schoolmaster but I'm well aware that even the safest horses can trip and fall or be spooked unexpectedly. Unfortunately my own hat is back in the UK and, when I asked about borrowing one, the RI simply said: "Mas já és maior, não és?" (But you're an adult, aren't you?). Wearing a hat simply is not the norm for adults here. In my last lesson there were 8 or so adults using the 3 consecutive arenas and not one was wearing a hat. I plan to carry on with my lessons, but I'm very conscious of the risk and I do wonder sometimes if it's worth it :(
 
HashRouge said:
This is an issue foremost in my mind atm. I've just had my second riding lesson without a hat on and I feel horribly exposed on horseback without one. The horse I ride is a trusted schoolmaster but I'm well aware that even the safest horses can trip and fall or be spooked unexpectedly. Unfortunately my own hat is back in the UK and, when I asked about borrowing one, the RI simply said: "Mas já és maior, não és?" (But you're an adult, aren't you?). Wearing a hat simply is not the norm for adults here. In my last lesson there were 8 or so adults using the 3 consecutive arenas and not one was wearing a hat. I plan to carry on with my lessons, but I'm very conscious of the risk and I do wonder sometimes if it's worth it :(
Click to expand...

Can you not buy another hat for now? If you want to wear a hat I wouldn;t let someone elses opinion stop you. :)
 
Some people will be sick of the sight of this (in which case, put me on UI :D).

brain001.gif



The swoosh shape at the bottom left should not be there.

It's very grounding hearing a Consultant discussing with another Consultant about drilling a hole in one's head.

I can still see my youngest daughter fighting her way into the ambulance.

It's not the riding, my family are fine with that (somehow!), but it's on the understanding that I take as much care and precautions as I can, which I do - I owe it to them. They have looked after me, dressed me, put up with my mood swings, fed me, done everything for me, all because of a silly fall.
 
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It will be 2 months tomorrow since my accident, my horse had a spook on the road and catapolted me through the air. I flew face down into the road before rolling a few times.

1 dislocated hip
grade 2 fracture in my sacrum
4 fractured vertibrae
fracture in pubic bone which runs all the way to above hip socket

Am I an inexperienced rider - NO Ive been riding for 25 years.

Only reason Im alive is because of my hat. People say its up to the rider to decide if they want to wear a hat or not but I feel compelled to try convince ppl just how important it is, I would be in a hole in the ground now if Id not put my hat on that morning.
Perhaps in time ill chill out and stop feeling sick when I see a picture of a rider wearing no hat but for now I will do my best to show how my head would have cracked like an egg

My hat
DSC05185.jpg

The road gave a cheesegrater effecg on my fixed peak
DSC05186.jpg


Unfortunatley my brand new Ariat jacket was cut to shreds by the ambulance men trying to get a morphine drip into my collapsed veins..this was unsucesful and my hip had to be put back into the socket with only gas and air
DSC05182.jpg


All very serious but on a nicer note on hearing about my accident Ariat sent me out a brand new jacket free of charge :)

Im still on crutches but thank god that my head was protected

Only 7 months earlier me and mum had ridden the horses to church on mums wedding day hatless, could you imagine if id been thrown onto the road on that day? Doesnt bare thinking about this photo makes me feel ill
DorothysWedding022.jpg
 
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My cousin was in an accident 3 years ago, that is a day a will never forget;

she was having a photoshoot, so was sat on very very safe pony bareback with NO HAT. Everything was going well until something caught the ponies eye. He darted forwards & then stopped, she went flying off & hit the top of her head on the fence to the school. She died in my arms less than 5 minutes later.
Doctors said a hat WOULD of without a dobt saved her life.


Since then I have never ridden/sat on any horse without a hat to me it just isn't worth it.
But i'm not going to hate people for not wearing a hat, their desicion
 
I am so sorry to read of your loss MM. It makes my issue pale into insignificance.



I know it is freedom of choice for people to choose to wear a hat or not.

It is my freedom to consider them fools for not wearing one. I won't ride with a hatless rider - if something happens I really do not want to have to deal with the aftermath. Their choice, they can deal with it.

Sorry if that sounds harsh.
 
148298_1514890432307_1235820011_31304119_7910328_n.jpg


All was going smoothly with this young mare, We had been off the lunge line for about four weeks and slowly building the work load. I had just begun cantering her the previous week, and in this session I had asked for a couple steps of canter when suddenly all four hooves lifted straight up off the ground towards the center of the arena. I was now riding a bucking bronco. Rear, leap, buck, buck, rear, leap, buck, buck, REAR! I was holding on for dear life and for a split second really felt like she would stop after she realized I wasn't coming off and that I wasn't the clawing lion on her back that she may have first thought. Then, my time came, she jumped with all her strength to the left and I was catapulted to the right, flying head first into the sand arena footing.

After hours of waiting I was finally seen by the doctor and instructed to have x-rays done of my back and neck. I still felt very cavalier about the whole situation and had even performed a dance to make light of the whole thing for my mom in the emergency room dressed in my stylish hospital gown before being whisked away to the x-ray room.

Sitting in the x-ray chair I watched the technician examine the digital slides as they appeared when suddenly he picked up the phone. I saw him murmuring something into the receiver but still did not think much of it. The technician came from behind the glass and said "We are going to hold off on more x-rays and I need you to keep your head still, were going to put you in a brace and have a CAT scan done." I nodded my head in agreement to which he said "Don't nod your head, don't move at all." This is when I thought things may be a bit more serious than originally assumed.

X-rays and CAT scan done, I was wheeled back to the room with my mom where we waited for the doctor to give us the news. He finally arrived with a smile on his face and first delivered the good news that the vertebra he looked at was not broken just compressed and could be an old injury. All worries left me for that split second between the good news and then the unexpected...bad news. He then began to explain that there was something to worry about and suddenly I felt lightheaded, felt like I was watching a lifetime movie, and did not feel like this was happening to me. My C-4 vertebra was compressed but the real worry was the fracture that appeared at the bottom of my skull. Within a crack of a whip I was whisked away by ambulance on an incredibly painful stretcher to Boston's most reputable hospital. I was immediately swarmed by the head neurosurgery doctors and nurses and once again put under a claustrophobic cat scan, this time to be sure that there was no bleeding through my brain and spinal column.

I was fortunate, there was no bleeding and both fractures in my vertebra and base of my skull had broken away from my spinal column and artery.

As a strong supporter of ASTM approved helmets, I have always worn my helmet in training and pushed others to do the same. Bottom line, my helmet saved my life. When the doctor was asked, "what would have happened if she was not wearing my helmet?" He replied, "the damage you see to that helmet would have been what happened to her head."

I cannot stress enough at this point what a helmet means to me and what it should mean to everyone in this dangerous yet incredible sport that we are so fortunate to a part of.

(Mostly copy pasted from my blog :p)
n49oo9.jpg
 
i am about 6weeks away from being a qualified physio. I spent 6wks on a neurosurgery unit on placement at the regions top neuro unit, I always wore a hat when riding anyway and thought others foolish for not wearing one. Since being there and seeing how these injuries affect those around the injured party, i would never contemplate getting on a horse without a hat and i would even wear a hat around young horses/unknown horses when doing things. I wear a hat to clip my horse just in case. My OH is a cyclist i will not let him leave the house without his bike helmet on either. It is an experience i will never forget and some days myself and even the much more qualified and those who worked there had to go into the office to cry about a patient/situation. The stories you have all put up here are v interesting and hopefull will make others think about hats. Im glad you are all doing well, and coping with the pain, and to those who have lost somebody through a TBI im sorry. x
 
Hi,

I work with adults with Brain Injuries. IT IS NOT WORTH THE RISK, believe me. Your life can completely change in an instant if you have a brain injury, and like others have said, its not just your whose life falls apart, it also those close to you. I do not think brain injury is understood very well.


The road to recovery from a brain injury, is often long, hard, frustrating, with lots of fatigue and having to adapt to a new life adjusting to your limitations and impairments.

No matter how much we trust our horses, they are live animals and can be spooked etc. What great advantage of not wearing a helmet can outweigh wearing a hat and protecting the most precious thing we have, our brain, which controls everything we do.

Just want to say a massive well done to those who have shred their personal stories of Brain Injury and the recoveries you have made.

Please wear a helmet, its up to you, but I know I would not want my family to go through what I have seen.

xx
 
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