Karen’s incredible story is one of strength and determination during Brain Injury Awareness Month

Transcript

00:00Yes, the doctors have to give you the worst case scenario, but there's life after it.

00:10Talking to consultants and they had said that it was very touch and go, that they weren't going by

00:16days or going by hours with her. Couldn't get any response out of Karen for a long, long time.

00:23And so we decided this day we would try some music. So we'll do the different Westlife songs

00:34with her and nothing. Green on my heart come on, two eyes just flung open and the eyes was dead

00:41open from it. Musgrave then told me on the 7th of August Karen would never speak again.

00:4814th of August, I went in to see Karen and she had just looked at me and it was,

00:54hi mum. Karen then was moved from Musgrave to Thompson House after nine months.

01:03Different, wasn't it? It has helped you a hell of a lot. And yeah, so with the work that I've

01:12been doing with the physios and all the rest, so Karen's actually now got feeling back on the left

01:17leg. No matter who meets Karen along the way, everybody will say, every time you see her,

01:23she's got a smile and she's always very, very grateful to the staff that have looked after her.

01:30Well, it's been a privilege to work with Karen. She really is an inspiration to us.

01:35And within the brain injury world, miracles do happen. People do progress. The importance of

01:40what Thompson House had was that Karen came here for two years. And as you've heard there,

01:45Karen made a lot of gains when she was here. And I suppose probably one of the biggest gains out

01:49of that was her voice. So when Karen came here, actually what we probably realised is that Karen

01:54knew a lot of what was going on, but wasn't actually able to communicate that. So that

02:00improved as she was able to access her own voice, but also some assistive equipment as well,

02:06assistive communication equipment. I just want to say thank you very, very, very,

02:10very much to the team. Brilliant team behind us. They've been absolutely amazing.