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Intensive care: experiences of family & friends

People's stories

Aged 31-40

Interview 02

Interview 02

Age at Interview: 39
Sex: Female
Background: Customer services advisor, married, no children. Ethnic background/nationality: White British.

Brief outline:In 2003 her husband had an accident while cycling on his mountain bike in woods close to their home. The accident left him with a serious head injury, fractures to his neck and spine, and a collapsed lung.

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When her husband first came back home he had a lot of mood swings and she worried that these might be permanent.
Print And you came home. So how was it when you came home, for you? Because physically you needed to be there all the time? Yes. And also his needs, how did you cope with all of that? I don't really know [laughs]. There was just really no choice to it. I just had to get through each day I suppose. There were times when I thought, “Oh, is it going to be like this for ever?” kind of thing. In the early stages he would be very difficult for most of the day. But as he gradually began to improve, then it would be more changeable. And is it at this point you would have found having someone to speak to, maybe outside the family or someone from the hospital helpful? Yes, I think perhaps away from the hospital. Just somewhere that you felt that you could talk confidentially and that wouldn't go on his medical record or be repeated to my husband. What were your main concerns at this time? Just to have reassurance that this kind of thing was normal for head injuries. Having not experienced anything like that before, I didn't know whether it was the head injury or whether he'd be permanently like that. Just reassurance that things would get better I guess. I think further down the line, because of the head injury, it would have been really useful to speak to somebody. Because I was a bit reluctant as well to tell people about his depression thinking he may be put in a psychiatric ward or something.

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