Bruce Powell

so my name is Dr Bruce Powell I was an intensive care specialist a head of Department in Western Australia State medical director for organ donation prior to that I came over from the UK ended up in Western Australia um with my family um my fantastic wife and my two um wonderful young boys about four years ago um I was competing in in a competition sort of 7,000 event riding Challenge and unfortunately during a long s steep downhill part of the ride apparently um there's a a hair pin on the way down a very long descent and I didn't see the hair pin and hit a lamp poost at 65 km an hour head on I vividly remember the downhill and it's starting to to accelerate and and and the the road was quite bumpy and it was cold I remember being cold and I'm crouched down on the bike and then suddenly

there's a voice on one saying dad and I remember opening my eyes and it was my son he was holding my hand and I was apparently in an intensive care unit um and then there's no there's no join in there there's there's no there's no gap between going downhill and holding my son's hand it's really strange it's like a film just changing scenes my wife said you you were sitting there looking at your your identification um Tab and you said to me I figured something out you know oh I said what's that then I said I'm a patient you know and she said yeah know you've you've you've been here for a week and I always thought that was quite tragic that there's me not having any that I've had a crash you know both my arms are broken and my neck's broken all those things and yet the only Insight I have is that I might be a patient you know so spent almost 4 months in the hospital coming up to 4 years and the challenges that remain are those that might be familiar to others about memory

and and focus and and fatigue especially um you know the first year I don't really remember thankfully my wife is an extraordinary woman very generous very patient she cared for me now that I've survived the crash and Incredibly lucky to be as healthy as I am with those challenges of the bread injury that that lie with it I had a I had a whole plan to go back to work and I actually started my back to work program that was that was my aim my aim was the recovery from Crash would be defined by me getting back to work I think for a lot of us what we do for living is part of our identity and and I really struggled

by losing that I I'll admit now that there were times when I would get onto the train I didn't know where I was going I was so tired cognitive fatigue is a whole new thing for me I never got tired I was the one who could do 80 hours a week 12 16 hours in theater and I had no no strategies for dealing with fatigue so I would just carry on until it was exhausted being fatigue meant that I was genuinely confused I had no idea so I got on the train and I didn't know where to get off I didn't know really where I was and I remember feeling very disorientated quite frightened by that and I'd never had that before and I realized that I was always pushing always you know exams

with with hours with time my career I was always pushing with the brain injury I can't do that so I not only have to accept that I don't work in health anymore I've also had to deal with changing my whole strategy my whole um working life you know as an intensive care doctor a success for us is you is is a patient leaving the unit really that's when the battle starts it's not when it finishes I'm starting to to think about being an advocate for break injury I think I'm in a truly unique position to have to have now been on both sides of the bed as I say you know I think um and it's important that I make something off that I've come to realize that that each person's brain injury is incredibly personal and

depends on the context and the injury of course and the followup I think it's very important to to not try to generalize too much about particularly one's experience of the Brin injury I think the single most important thing is that the greatest Ally to us all is time in other words you have to be patient it's hard to be patient when you're trying to ReDiscover your old self but you have to be patient and the same with carers you have to have hope and you have to be

patient