I would like it not to be, but as a single person with no children, it kind of becomes like actually, I don’t even have a career to throw myself into any more. So I think I’d like it not to be the most important thing, but it’s kind of, there is a gap in my life that I don’t have that fulfilment as well. I think at the moment. So, yeah, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say that I’m as career driven. I’d probably be very happy just to be in something meaningful and earning enough to live on comfortably. You know, and I’d be absolutely fine now. In fact, I probably would prefer to have a bit more spare time, but I’m adjusting to, especially being back in London, that I don’t have that. I mean in some ways since I’ve been in London, I don’t have to drive to work and I can and the working hours are a little bit less in some careers here in the UK than a 35-hour week versus 40-plus at home. So I’m not, I have probably made a deliberate decision to be here and know that I don’t have to be working 50, 60-hour weeks necessarily, because we are quite hardworking in New Zealand, so yeah. So there are some things that are better but.

And do you think that your experience so far will have any bearing on your parenting?

I think I would be very, very over-protective about children’s heads probably. I’m bit worried about that actually, because I’m from New Zealand and I quite like the idea of letting children rough and tumble a bit as well. But I know that I get quite cagey about children getting hit on the head. So, I think I worry about that. I probably do worry, like I’ve just spent some time with my friend and her two little children in the last few days and I do think it looks exhausting actually and I do worry about that, but I think probably any one sane should worry about their having children. So probably, you know, I just have to get on with it. But yeah, I do sometimes think, Oh gosh could I cope, actually cope with [laughs] like two year olds and babies and crying and screaming, but I think the advice that the psychologist gave me back in New Zealand about just making decisions about what’s important and, and like I think she said, Look if you can’t breastfeed, so what Like, just, you know, and I’d be absolutely pro-breast feeding. But she was like, If you’re too tired You know, and I think, I think maybe I have learnt to cut myself a bit of slack as a result of the accident, so, which is probably good to go on to motherhood cutting yourself slack as well, so yeah.

I think given my circumstances with having my father with a severe brain injury I kind of joke that you probably almost need to chop your head off to equal that in terms of such a traumatic thing to go through. Yeah, I think I, I didn’t really know that my family didn’t believe that there was anything wrong with me, but it did come out that they didn’t, and I had to actually cut off contact with them for a while, because I couldn’t, I needed to get better, and I got too upset dealing with it, and I think it did impact on my rehabilitation. Getting upset and not sleeping was not very good and my sister had sent me quite a nasty email and really abusive and pretty much told me I was crazy and making it up to get attention. I wouldn’t recommend a brain injury to get attention. That’s probably not a good idea. But, rob a bank it would much more effective.

But yeah, Mum did realise and she apologised, but it was a very, very lonely time and I still find with extended family I don’t really know how to, what they think of me. And I don’t really given that no one came to visit, no one helped, no one sent a card.

Yeah, I’ve avoided a few family gatherings, because I don’t know, I haven’t been able to face a whole bunch of people who might not know me, and like my sister and brother have both got, kind met boyfriends and girlfriends at that time, about that period, so there were kind of other people on the scene that I didn’t know that had probably only heard bad stuff. And I just made decisions. They also usually did them on Sunday nights which was not a good night for me either. So usually I wanted to be resting, particularly when I started working, I’d spend all day in bed on Sundays sometimes. So, no one, no one ever, and I haven’t spent Christmas with my family since before the accident as well.

Yeah. So I did probably fairly typical neuropsych testing. So I think, I had to draw some kind of diagram which I dismally failed at. To do some word association stuff and I think, there were sequences in numbers as well I had to do. So, I think I couldn’t do very many. I probably maybe five or six numbers which is definitely a lot lower. So I’ve got a psychology degree, so I’d done that sort of stuff in first year psych and I know that [laughs] I know that I was like above average back then so, so, yeah, I think, yeah, it was pretty tiring. That’s about all I remember as well.

And I mean the psychologist had tried to establish, I mean it’s always difficult, I guess because no one gets that testing done and has a baseline, you know, at 18 or whatever, so we don’t really know what we were before, but he tried to establish how smart I was I guess, and you know, I had a degree, what grades did I get at university, you know, what did I do for a job, that kind of thing. I guess to establish may be where my intelligence was prior to the accident. So it was, yeah it was quite, for someone I think who’d always had good memory, I’d always had a good memory, I’d always been pretty sharp and you know, I wouldn’t say I was always a very, very high achiever, but you know, I’d done very well in some subjects and school and you know, it was quite hard actually, like I was quite scared afterwards to do any kind of quizzes or board games or anything like that. I was actually quite scared because I knew that I’d like to win, and I wouldn’t be winning [laughs]. So, you know, so, yeah, and I think the first time I did do, I was playing some sort of game on a Playstation or something with my neighbour and I knew I was impaired, I knew I wasn’t as good as what I would have been, but I think I still beat him [laughs].

And from your own personal experience of brain injury, are there still things in your life that have been affected by your injury?

Yeah. Income. Career. I think I mentioned that I lost friends. But I’ve gained really good friends, so I think I’m grateful for knowing, especially I think the friends I made whilst I was unwell. People want to be your friend at your lowest then. They stick around through the good times too, but I can’t say the reverse works. So, yeah.

What else? I think my life isn’t probably as stable as what it could have been I think. Yeah, I think your early thirties are quite a crucial time in your career and quite…and probably in your personal life as well. But you’re meant to be kind of at your peak, you know, intellect and creativity and everything I think and to kind of, I do feel a bit sad sometimes that, so that’s okay that’s when, that’s when it happened when I was 30 and so, I think definitely I do still feel loss actually yeah. Yeah. I try to focus on the positive and I try to feel grateful that I’m in the UK in an amazing city and I get to do some of the things but it does sort of feel like plan B sometimes, not plan A.