‘I remember looking in the mirror. I saw it was me but I didn’t know who I was...’
ZALEHKA Price-Davies’ life changed immeasurably when she fell down the stairs on a weekend away in Ireland.
She suffered a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain which left her unable to walk, talk, read or write.
The 31-year-old, from Penarth, admits the person she was before the horrendous accident has now gone.
“I don’t think I’ll ever go back to being her. I mourn her. I feel like she died that day,” she said.
Zalehka, who worked as a hairdresser and ran her own cake business, was in a cafe and needed to go to the toilet when she fell head-first down the stairs four years ago.
“I don’t remember anything about what happened. I’ve kind of put a picture book together in my head based on what people have told me,” she added.
She was taken to hospital and was put in intensive care before being flown by ambulance to the University Hospital of Wales for further treatment two weeks later.
“When I first woke up I just remember having all these nurses beside me. I just thought they were aliens and that it wasn’t real,” she said.
“I didn’t know what had happened. I thought I was talking normally but I was just [babbling] like a baby. I was handed a white board to communicate.” She said her memory was badly affected by the fall.
“I just remember looking in the mirror. I could see it was me but I didn’t know who I was or what had happened,” she said.
“I knew the world I was in, but I didn’t know anything about it. I just had to learn everything all over again.”
Zalehka was transferred from the University Hospital of Wales to Rookwood Hospital where she underwent her rehabilitation.
“The first year after the fall was dreadful and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” she added.
“I ended up with a stammer. In the beginning it was horrendous and people would make fun of me.
“I would go to the shop and ask for a drink, and because I look OK they thought I was making it up.”
As a way of coping with the frustrations of her speech and mobility problems, Zalehka started writing a blog in an effort to help other people with similar brain injuries.
She then found The Silverlining Brain Injury Charity which is dedicated to building people’s lives after a brain injury.
It aims to invigorate, motivate and rehabilitate this group of people and help them discover a sense of purpose and add meaning to their lives.
“I did [the blog] as I felt there wasn’t enough knowledge about brain inju