Ian O’Carroll does not remember much about his 21st birthday party. He celebrated it in the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire – just four months after suffering a brain haemorrhage which changed his life.
Now 36, Ian from Rathfarnham in Dublin, was a third-year chemical engineering student with a bright future ahead of him when he suffered this devastating blow. “People thought I was going places and so did I,” he says. Academically gifted, he worked hard and was a keen golfer and rugby player.
A former student at St Mary’s College in Rathmines, he won a Leinster Schools Cup Winner’s Medal in fourth year when he was thrilled to play the final in Lansdowne Road. “It was unbelievable. We won it on a replay,” he recalls.
At the time it would hardly have seemed possible that within a few years Ian would not be able to walk or talk. He got the impressive Leaving Certificate he and his family probably expected, and with 550 points for UCD, sailed through the first few years of his course .
He was in bed asleep when he had the brain haemorrhage, just two days before he was due to sit the third-year exam. He has no memory of it. "The next year or two didn't happen for me," he says.
Transferred
After four months in hospital he was transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Two things stood out for him there – the "phenomenal" progress the staff helped him achieve, and the state of the building itself . "At that time it was like something out of the Crimean War,"he says. "It' a place that encourages you to get better and not to give up hope, when life can feel at its lowest, so I wished it was more uplifting."
But while he may have felt that his surroundings were bleak, this did not hold him back. “I went into rehab in a wheelchair, unable to do anything for myself and hardly able to say a few words,” he explains. He had also lost the use of his right arm and hand but by the time he left Dún Laoghaire, he could do many things such as dress himself and tie his shoe laces, with just one hand. He was also able to walk a few steps while speech therapy was really successful.
It’s a source of sorrow for Ian that he never got back to college but he no longer needs a wheelchair . He has a job with Allied Irish Banks. He says his family has been his rock – his parents Liam and Mary bought him an apartment. He has an adapted car, a Skoda Fabia, which he bought himself.
He is optimistic about the future. “At last I see myself becoming independent and self-sufficient. I look forward to the future with hope and confidence.”
He enjoys his work and while he does just three hours a day (fatigue is still an issue) he likes his colleagues and the people he meets. "The work can be repetitive, but, I know I am lucky to have it especially at the moment, with the recession the country is in."
Reaching out
Last month, much to the delight of his family and friends, Ian walked the entire 10k Spar Great Ireland Run, raising over €2,250 for Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Ireland. He says he did the walk to draw attention to the work of this charity and to highlight the Facebook page he set up to reach out to other people in a similar situation.
“Anyone who has had an ABI can come on and chat and meet people who have had and are having similar experiences, he says. “My social life is not what it used to be. It’s difficult to meet people who see beyond my disabilities. If they knew that I did a skydive in New Zealand a few years ago, they wouldn’t believe it.”
Ian says that people meeting him for the first time sometimes judge him on how he speaks, or don’t see beyond the spasm in his right hand. “My old friends are my best friends as they know the real me.”
He says he sometimes gets stuck for words. “My flow of speech is often interrupted. I can think it but can’t say it and this can be embarrassing,” he explains.
“People can judge me wrongly. It’s true what they say, ‘never judge a book by its cover’.”
It's particularly frustrating when he meets a girl he likes. "Sometimes by the time I get around to saying it, she's gone and again, I'm judged wrongly. It's not exactly good for the morale. It's not the way things were one time".
Confidence boost
One thing he was told when he was leaving hospital was that he would never run a marathon. But training for the Great Ireland Run and doing something to help Acquired Brain Injury Ireland has boosted his confidence.
“It was a massive achievement for me to walk 10k. I go to the gym two or three times a week and do a bit of walking as well. It may not have been a marathon but it sure felt like it to me!”
Ian’s Facebook page: http://iti.ms/13uTnb8
