Meanwhile, he had so many visitors and lots of friends and family and each one would go in and offer a different story to him and he would obviously just look. He wasn’t responding to any of us. If we asked him to squeeze our hand, he wasn’t able to. If we asked him to blink on command, he wasn’t able to. Fortunately, in Intensive Care they have televisions in there, and he always loved music and sport. So we constantly kept those channels on. And his eyes would look across at the TV, but he wouldn’t sort of respond to anything.

So, you know, this went on really probably for another three weeks. There was no response from him. And if he saw anyone coming to his bedside he would shy away like he would when he was a 2 year old and he was sort of in my arms, and wary of someone, his head would go to one side and he’d look strange at them as much as to say, I don’t know who you are.

And as I said, this went on for like nearly three weeks, and then one Sunday, friends went in and he, he smiled at them and everyone was sort of, you know, amazed, Oh smile for me, and smile for me But he would only select the certain ones that he would smile for. And then we realised that he was beginning to become aware, and, you know, that was quite amazing. He would sort of have sort of half recognition by the smiles, for people.

Corrie:Friends of his from the Scouts would go and visit him in hospital weekly sometimes more often, throughout the whole time he was in there. Lots, lots of people did different things. On Christmas Day Mum and I went to the hospital and the rest of sort of Mum’s family are down on the south coast, so I think we were seeing them Boxing Day, so it was just Mum and I and Wes really on Christmas Day and when we were in the hospital my best friend turned up with her Mum and her brother whose the same age as Wes and they’re good friends as well. Just to come and give us a bit of company at the hospital on Christmas Day, which we didn’t know they were going to do. And we just think well it’s so thoughtful that they did, given that everyone has their own family Christmas, but the fact that they’d taken the time out to think oh they might like a bit of extra company was very thoughtful. There were numerous instances of where people were providing help and support, not always financially just with their time or research or

Julie:Yeah, and sometimes you know, you didn’t know, which is why a friend of mine had said have a visitors book and get people to write in it, because sometimes you get quite a surprise, you suddenly open the book and realise that somebody had been in and spent a couple of hours with him.

Corrie:Yes.

Julie:You know. On the Christmas Day, unbeknown to us until we knew, that actually a friend of mine had popped in [friend’s name], on her way, before we got there, and popped in for an hour and I think my brother had as well. And we didn’t know. Did we? And when we had the book

Corrie:Yes.

Julie:It was good really, because it gave us, if people popped in when we weren’t there, but also sometimes, especially like with [man’s name] or [ woman’s name] they would sort of give us a little novel on how he’d been doing, or they’d done something particular with him and how well he’d done and things, so that proved quite useful to us because we could sort of see who’d been in and out, or done something, isn’t it?

How my injury affected me? Well darling, basically, my injury initially was, put me in a coma. And so I, would you like me to go any further? Ok, well, being in a coma it’s very difficult to talk in a coma and therefore communicate with other people, i.e. socialise or anything.

it’s probably partly paranoia, you know, that you’re in fear of something happening. I mean certainly after the bombing of London, you know, when I had the shop. I mean I wouldn’t get the tube to work. I was slightly at that stage paranoid about the tubes. I just walked to work, an hour there, an hour back, makes it a bit harder, but I just couldn’t for a while. So I mean whether that’s paranoia or not I don’t know. But I don’t like being in situations where there’s hundreds of people around moving in different directions and bumping and just doesn’t appeal to me at all. Well in terms of change in the past, I would have been more than happy. In fact it would have been part of my life really. Socialising. But now I can do without it, quite happily.

Why is that?

I suppose it’s a bit of an unnatural fear I suppose. Too many people, too much movement, too much noise. I can’t sort of filter it out. it’s just too much. It can send people into a bit of a spin almost. Or, you know, even with the fatigue thing, you know, sometimes I’d be on the tube coming back from Rehab from UK, coming back to [local tube station], and I’d wake up in Uxbridge, because I’d fallen asleep on the, on the tube. So you really don’t want to be heading out to London, knowing full well that it’s possible that you might just be having a bit of a nap and end up in Uxbridge, which is a nice place, but there again I wasn’t planning that.

Okay.

You’re just going to cut back on a lot of things. I mean, social isolation’s partly your own fault in a way, you just don’t want to socialise to the same degree. No.

Yeah, that’s, as I might have mentioned earlier, I come from [home town name] which is a big kind of going out club nightlife, which I got back into reasonably quickly. I think I suffered massively from body image and confidence when I was probably in that year, two years post injury bit. But after that bit, no I was going out just as much as I ever was, probably partying far too hard than I should have done. But I’d kind of come through that lack of confidence and body image and all that and suffered so much with it that I kind of felt that I owed it to myself to get out and go out. And after that I had a massive group of friends locally. I went out a lot and didn’t really care, and that was almost part of my rehab, was rebuilding my confidence and getting out.

You know, I initially always said to my friends, I don’t want to go anywhere where I’ve got to be carried in. I don’t want to go anywhere where’s there’s, you know, no loo And you know, you feel, you feel like, and you’re justified in feeling, that people are looking at you, because they are looking at you, and then the less you care, the less people look, and the more you kind of confront the things that you think are going to be a problem.

I mean this Friday I was at a party. I had to go up and down stairs. And it was different mates carrying up, like about six times and there were like a thousand people there and you know, you think is going to be a real pain, and you shouldn’t do it…And you should, you know, you’ve got to you’ve got to not let it stop you doing things otherwise you’re going to resent it even more.

He was at the park two weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon and, as I said, he’s only just started playing football again. So you know, it’s all aches and pains and, Oh my leg, and yeah, Oh great, great, fine, have a bath, you’ll get over i. And he came home this one Sunday evening and he said, Oh I was playing football today And I said, Yes, great, that’s good He said, And I headed the ball I said, Oh that’s great He said, Yeah, but he said, All my friends shouted out, Daniel, what are you doing?&rsquo And he said, What? What do you mean? What am I doing? I headed the ball He said, I forgot I had a brain injury He said, I forgot all about the accident And I thought that was totally amazing. I said, Well that was excellent And he said, Yeah, but he said they went mad. They said, What are you are doing that for? You know you can’t do it And then he said, And then I thought, oh so I can’t You know, I hope nothing happens And I said, Well if it happens it happens. And if it doesn’t that’s great And he was absolutely fine. No problem.

And sometimes it’s nice not to feel that delicate you know. It’s nice not to be delicate around your friends, you know.

Like my other friend I was slagging I’m quite rude to people. I feel like if you’re rude then people trust what you’re saying because they know you’re being honest. And you know, you don’t be rude to be mean, you know, but it’s just something you see and it’s not necessarily a positive thing and of course I take the piss out of them for it. So I was slagging off my friend’s shoes and he was like, Well your shoes are crap, they’re like, look how wide they are. And my other friend was saying, Oh there’s no point in having a go at anything about Sam, because he’ll just say it’s something to do with being in a wheelchair, and then you’ll be like, oh, sorry about that.

And you know, you need to have that, because remember when I talked about losing your standards? Losing your like context for your behaviour? You need to have that with your friends. If you’re not capable of having that with people they’re not really your friends, you know? So I’ve got a wide and close group of friends. They can say anything to me. They’ve said some stuff that really pissed me off actually. But like that’s any friendship isn’t it? And that’s we’d be like that anywhere. And you’d rather people were being open.

So, my social life was pretty good after it taking a massive hit, both in losing some friends, because you do, but they’re friends you need to lose really because the good ones stick around and the bad ones leave. So that’s, that’s a process that needs to happen as far as I can work out. And just finding out whether you want to do the things you did before your injury, whether they mean the same things to you. You know, I spent, you know, the first ten years after my injury going out a hell of a lot. I was 25 when I had my accident and I think I partied quite hard until I was about 32, 33. And then I moved on to a different stage in my life and that was nothing to do with my disability; that was to do with just wanting different things. I think sport and culture crept into my life when I got a bit older. So you got the confidence to leave the front door, that’s where you need to be, getting the confidence back is the hard bit. So, but to have the confidence you need to do it, and to do it, you need confidence. So it’s a vicious circle.

Because all the people that you used to deal with day in and day out, well that’s all gone. it’s like the same if you lose a job, that’s going to be socialisation or isolation’s going to start kicking in slowly. Because people don’t have the same reason or the same motivation to keep in contact with you, do they? But I mean also financially you’re going to be isolated. I mean you haven’t got any money to go anywhere really, have you? And you don’t want to be turning up broke all the time. People soon get weary of that one. That doesn’t, that’s not going to last is it? So you are going to be isolated.

And I think there is a natural fear that people have after you’ve had anything, oh you know, that’s a brain injury, ooh that sounds nasty, but – which it is – but people would wonder, there’s slightly, you know, there’s a always a question mark and you never get rid of that one.

That’s not such a happy story to report. I did, I think publicity about the huge level of compensation I got, seemed to get out. It was in the papers. And I got lots of begging letters and lots of fair-weather friends. I gradually removed most of those. I found out who my real friends were and I’ve really quite limited the number of people I really want to know. And even, even a friend from before the head injury, someone I knew at university in the late 1980s, a man who asked me to be godfather to his child. He was borrowing, pestering me to borrow money all the time, and I’ve even fallen out with him now, because I don’t, I said, I don’t lend any money to anyone now And he hasn’t contacted me for about six years. So really, I’ve become isolated again.

That’s very tough.

Yeah. But I think that if people are going to be like that, I don’t really want to be friends with them. And I had lots and lots of fair-weather friends.

I just want to get across to people who aren’t visually impaired… Since I’ve lost my sight, it’s, for certain people, it’s difficult for them to talk to me. They, they won’t come up and engage me or like, like on a social level. I mean this is happening – it’s really been pointed out at college more than anything. it’sat certain times like people will be less inclined to talk to me. Maybe they feel awkward or maybe, yeah, they just don’t know what to say; they’re worried about putting their foot in it or whatever. But, it’s really difficult because I struggle to engage people because I can’t see where they are, or whether they’re busy, or whether they’re doing something, and you know, it’s good to make an effort, don’t, if you see like a visually impaired person, like a, you know, like in a social situation, I mean you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t really hesitate to go up, because I’d always appreciate someone coming up to me and talking to me and you know, just making the effort and if I felt like talking to them, fair enough, I would be like, You know what, not right no. But I mean it’s good to make the effort because I know it’s, it’s a dark intimidating world when you’re blind and the social side of things has been quite difficult for me.

What exactly has been difficult? Just what you have described now?

Yeah, basically what I’ve just described. I mean striking up conversations with people and that, and you know, getting people to… My, I don’t know, it’s difficult. I suppose I might be asking too much because not everyone, unless you know someone who is visually impaired, I suppose you don’t really know what they’re going through or what, what to say.