New lease of life for Seamus
RANSBORO MAN WINS NATIOANL AWARD FOR ‘ LIFE AFTER A STROKE’ AND CREDITS SUCCESS TO BRAIN INJURY GROUP
“I was living life in a black hole, I was in a very dark place,” 63- year- old Seamus Dennison recalls. The ransboro father of three adult children suffered a stroke in 2012. Afterwards Seamus became extremely withdrawn and isolated.
The retired civil servant said: “Suffering the stroke had a tremendous impact on how I functioned as a human being. I withdrew from society and would not leave the house.”
Seamus lost confidence in himself. He was especially conscious of his jumbled up speech. “What I was trying to say and what was coming out of my mouth were two different things because my brain was not firing on all cylinders. I ended up insulting people. I became very stressed with it all. I had even lost my ability to laugh or cry and it got me very down. It was confusing for me and those around me,” he recalls. Some people avoided conversations altogether with him. But it was his family that stuck by Seamus in his darkest hours. He says: “My family noticed a huge difference in my personality. My wife and I were on different wavelengths. It was very hard to have a conversation without having an argument.”
Seamus then got a referral from Sligo Hospital for an assessment with the voluntary group, Acquired Brain Injury Ireland. From that day on, things started to improve as Seamus says: “It changed everything for me.” One of the key benefits of ABII for Seamus was a new founded sense of awareness about his condition. He explains: “I finally realised that something was drastically wrong. They offered me a place and I stayed for five months of intensive treatment.
Seamus was one of just four in patients at the Acquired Brain Injury Ireland clinic in Tonaphubble, Sligo.
Services Manager, Teresa O’Boyle stresses that more places are urgently needed in the North West. She says: “There is a serious deficiency in neurology services in Sligo. There are a significant number of young people with brain injuries in nursing homes as there is nowhere else for them to go. We need more inpatient rehabilitation units and more investment in this area which is seriously under- resourced in the North West.”
Teresa adds: “Our Service provides rehabilitation for persons aged 18- 65 yrs, following brain injury from either traumatic or non- traumatic injuries. When we speak of traumatic brain injury, we refer to Road Traffic accidents, falls, assaults etc while non traumatic is associated with Stroke, brain haemorrhage, aneurysm, brain infections etc.”
She explains: “Brain injury is often referred to as the ‘ Hidden Disability.’ It affects every person differently. Very often Brain Injury changes people’s lives and the lives of their families dreadfully. We provide rehabilitation to those directly affected by brain injury and also provide support to their families.”
Seamus was one of the lucky ones in that he got a place in Sligo which he says transformed his life. “I had physical therapy, speech therapy and intense psychotherapy. I regained a lot of my independence. I became assertive again. I started to believe in myself once more. I will never regain what I had before the stroke; few people ever do. But thanks to Acquired Brain Injury Ireland I’m 95 percent of what I was. The biggest thing for me now is fatigue. I do not have the same energy,” he adds.
Seamus credits Acquired Brain Injury with turning his life around and giving him a much needed lease of life. He says: “I was living in a cocoon, completely withdrawn. I had trouble with my balance, my walking was not good. I knew that there was something wrong but didn’t want to admit anything. I just sat and watched TV all day and I was not even concentrating on what I was looking at. It was just a habit. After I met wtih ABI everything became unstuck and I realised there were major problems.” Seamus now gives talks to others affected by stroke, and still accesses ABI.
“It is very easy to relapse, so my meetings with Acquired Brain Injury are crucial.” Recently the well known and well respected Ransboro man won an Irish Heart Foundation award for Life After Stroke. This phenomenal achievement was marked at a special ceremony in Dublin.
Seamus says: “It was a proud moment for me and a wonderful day.” Thankfully his life has changed irrevocably from what it was four years ago but as he says himself, “I could not have done it on my own.”