Hayley’s Story
Respond to this story!Story by Maggie Killington, as told to Kelly Lee
My story relates to someone who had a traumatic brain injury some 12 or 13 years ago. Hayley was a gorgeous young woman. She taught Japanese at a girl’s high school. One day, she was out driving her car and had an accident. She drove into a pole on the side of the road and got a severe brain injury.
Hayley was unconscious for a couple of months. When she finally came to, she began to have therapy. Eventually, she came for rehabilitation to the brain injury unit where I work. I was her first physiotherapist.
Now, the thing about Hayley was that it appeared she couldn’t move anything at all. She couldn’t move her limbs or even hold her head up. In fact, physically, she never did really recover very well. She can’t sit on her own. She can’t stand or walk. She can’t hold her head up very well on her own. So she needs a supportive wheelchair to provide all that support. She even has problems accessing an electric wheelchair. All she’s really got in terms of movement is a tiny little bit in one finger.
Hayley was very fortunate, I think, to meet a wonderful woman in occupational therapy called Netti. Netti really believed in Hayley and thought, like I did, that there were a lot of thought processes going on. But since Hayley wasn’t able to express herself, many people doubted she had any ability at all. We had to work really hard in the beginning to try to find ways for Hayley to express herself. After trying many things (such as computers, laser pointers, all sorts of things), we discovered that the best way for her to communicate was to have a pen in her hand. When a pen was put in her hand, we would ask her a question and she could just gently move her hand a bit to put a “yes” or a “no” on the paper.
Hayley was so excited. At last, she was able to talk to us and tell us what she wanted and what she felt like. Previous to that, she really couldn’t make any choices, which was very frustrating for her. Through Hayley’s ability to do “yes” and “no,” she was able to tell us that she wanted to go back to the university. She wanted to get her honors degree and then her Master’s degree or a Ph.D.
The next issue that Hayley had to contend with was that people didn’t really believe that she could really do the “yes” and “no.” They thought it was us imagining it—that, you know, her mother was imagining it. Everyone said, “You just want it to be so, so it is so.” But, in fact, Hayley was a stubborn woman and still is brilliantly stubborn. And she had to fight really, really hard until finally she went back to the university. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a support worker allocated to her. So her mother went to the university with her and was her support person.
She got her honors degree 18 months ago. She had a great celebration. Now she’s working on her Masters degree in opera.
That’s the story of how Hayley fought and got her degree.