I wrote two novels, then a traumatic brain injury forced me to learn to write all over again
My recovery is the hardest fight I’ve ever had
I sat looking out at a crowd gathered for my book launch in Fredericton on March 30, emotional because of the journey it took to get there.
In September 2022, at the age of 26, I suffered a life-threatening brain injury during a boxing training session.
I was in a coma for five weeks.
During my recovery, which is still ongoing, there were times I was not sure I would ever walk, feed myself or write again.
On that day, sitting in front of patients and staff at the Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation, where I lived for two months after my injury, I spoke about my entire life being restructured for recovery, about my family being told that I might never be able to be home alone again, about engaging in daily therapy sessions to relearn basic life skills.
Going back there, I had to face the memory of all of those hard weeks and months of recovery. But I was also face-to face with people who had suffered injuries just like mine. I had once been where they were and could reach them in a different way than their care team.
I had come so close to losing the ability to write and was now sitting in one of the places which helped me redevelop that skill, among many others. I was looking directly at members of the care team who had worked so hard to help me.
The speech language pathologist who worked with me, day after day, retraining my reading and writing skills was right there. So was the physiotherapist who had helped me learn to walk again.
The idea that I would ever be able to write another novel seemed impossible in those days.
The injury
I wasn't in a fight when the injury happened, just a sparring session to prepare for one. I don't remember the session at all. It was wiped from my memory entirely.
I don't remember setting it up, speaking with the coaches, any of the planning, or the trip from Saint John to the club in Moncton.
Afterwards, I spent five weeks in a medically induced coma at the Moncton Hospital. While I was in that coma, my family stayed at my bedside.
I was initially fed through a tube in my throat and had to re-learn basic life skills at the rehabilitation centre, including how to swallow and walk, from a wonderful team of therapists.
Physiotherapists helped me build up the muscle and then retrain myself to walk at the rehabilitation centre, using special equipment and support.
For a long time after my injury, my vision was severely affected. I had a kind of double vision, where I also saw things slightly out of place.
No 'time off'
During this early recovery period, every minute of my days were scheduled, moving from one therapy session to another. I had no time off.
Even when not actively taking part in a therapy session, I was constantly working — just living became work.
I don't remember much from the early stages of my recovery because there was a long period when I could not retain memory.
I began writing almost immediately, working away in notebooks that my partner Charlotte would hand me. When I look back at these notebooks, the writing is crooked and meanders between the lines.
My memory of this time is almost non-existent. It was so bad that Charlotte would leave for work in the morning and I would forget that she lived in the centre with me almost as soon as she stepped out the door.
She would come back after work to see me sitting there with wide eyes, looking lost.
Throughout my recovery, Charlotte has been incredible. The strength that she carried me with, particularly in the early days, stuns me.
After my release, I lived in Fredericton because I needed to remain an outpatient at "the Stan." Charlotte and I stayed across the street from her grandparents in an empty house owned by a friend of theirs.
During this time, my family put a huge amount of effort and attention into my recovery. My mom Eilish Cleary was a doctor and believed deeply in the health benefits of engaging with nature.
After recovering to a certain point, I would go out to her house in Penniac and spend time in the woods behind it, walking with her through hills of roots and pine. She believed that navigating this kind of terrain was beneficial to retraining my mind and body.
My mom passed away in March 2024, but I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with her between my accident and her passing and know that it brought her peace to see how well I had recovered.
My dad and brothers lived in Ireland at the time but travelled to Canada for long periods. My sister spent a lot of time visiting me and celebrated my release from the Stan Cassidy Centre by bringing a cake and balloons.
I also spent a huge amount of time with Charlotte's grandparents, who drove me to appointments or played board games with me. As a result, I grew very close to them and they now feel like another set of grandparents.
After I returned to Saint John, I was still not ready to be alone, so I spent my days with a wonderful home-care worker, who went above and beyond with the amount of kindness and compassion she showed me. She would go to the gym with me, help clean the apartment, and walk me to and from appointments.
What was most beneficial, however, was just having somebody there for social interaction during the day. Keeping my mind active was key to a strong recovery.
I credit writing as a key part of my recovery. I worked with my dad, also a published author, to relearn to write from the early days of my recovery. We would do regular video calls, working on retraining writing techniques and story structure elements.
After working on small projects, I stepped back into one that I had been working on before my injury. What began as a short story expanded to become my recently published third novel Saints Rest. This kept my mind active and stimulated.
Though the process of working on the book was extremely difficult for a number of reasons, maintaining focus and retaining memory of earlier parts of the book as I got further in, I believe that it played a crucial role in getting me where I am today.
I am always grateful for how fortunate I have been with my recovery.
So I write this as a message of hope for others who've experienced a traumatic brain injury: life will be hard but there is light ahead.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
