Rehabilitation Matters is a series of stories and perspectives from people who care about effective clinical rehabilitation and the benefits it provides. Started in Spring 2021 with this article by NRC Programme Director Miriam Duffy, the series includes viewpoints from patients, clinicians, surgeons, academic partners and others.
A mother, grandmother and midwife at Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) has thanked the team who saved her life and are supporting her rehabilitation journey after her life changed forever in a freak car accident.
Sonia Meakin, from Spondon, and her husband, Mark, were driving on the M1 motorway to meet friends for dinner when Mark suddenly felt strange and passed out at the wheel. It was later found he had suffered a heart attack.
Sonia said: “I looked across at Mark, and he had slumped over, his eyes were shut, and the car was out of control with his foot like a dead weight on the accelerator.
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A Nottingham Forest fan who suffered a traumatic brain injury and multiple neck fractures after he fell on the way home from a match has been invited back to the Forest stadium for a special surprise.
My story started when I was just five years old.
I was kicked in the shin at school, which triggered an extremely rare condition: Lymphangiomatosis of the limb, which in basic terms, sent my lymphatic system into overdrive and dissolved the bone and skin in my leg.
At the time of my diagnosis, there were only seven recorded cases in the world, and no cure.
Skilled surgeons can do amazing things, absolutely brilliant things, to save lives, treat injuries and tackle complex conditions. But once you’re out of intensive care, it’s only then that you become aware of the critical need for quality rehabilitation and mental health recovery for the long road back to wellness, happiness, confidence and health – that essential support to be the ‘same you’ as you were before.
But, shockingly, it isn’t always available.
It wasn’t until we, as a family, had to confront our own life-changing situation that we could see and understand the problem. In 2011, my daughter, the actor Emilia Clarke, survived the first of two life-threatening brain haemorrhages while working on the Game of Thrones television series.
Nora Flynn, 30, had a golf ball-sized brain tumour removed from the centre of her brain and had to learn to talk again, with support from a variety of rehabilitation therapists.
Long before I trained to become and occupational therapist, I was curious and interested in the concept of rehabilitation.
Simon Bell, 58, from Burton Joyce, was working on a roof in May 2023 when he fell 35ft from the two-storey building and landed on concrete.
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