Hello everyone & welcome to my page. Thank you for taking the time to read my story. On March 5th 2018, I suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. After a month in hospital, the doctors diagnosed me with the following illness and injury. From the fall, I burst my ear drum and had a hearing impediment in my right ear. My frontal lobe was subject to significant damage, with 3 skull fractures and internal bleeding. My vestibular system became impaired; my body could not recognise its position in space, and so all movement seemed disorientated and dizzy. I lost nerve function in my face (facial palsy), and my brain connectivity reduced to 10%. The neurones were not completing their paths and I was in, somewhat, a vegetable state. I struggled to acknowledge what happened to me. I lacked insight and responsiveness to auditory conversation and instruction. I couldn’t recognise family or friends, and didn’t comprehend simple life practices. Amnesia began with 5 second lapses in memory, whereby my brain then restarted, like a button pushed on a remote. In my mind, seen through my eyes, a walk to the toilet was the equivalent of climbing Everest. An impossible new task which caused life changing fear and anxiety. I felt helpless. Social interaction and awareness became limited, causing me to behave oddly in various, usually simple, scenarios. I suffered from Aphasia; an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. I looked to doctors with confusion and fear, searching for the appropriate answer to the question, 'are you hungry?' scared that I would say the wrong answer...I simply, didn’t understand. My brain registered all experiences as if I were doing them for the first time, and with that I briefly lived my days being scared of everything, not knowing what each situation would present. All facets of life felt foreign until I re-learned them again. I slowly became more comfortable, and my confidence improved with each small stepping stone. Clare, my neuro-pyschologist, has enabled me to process this event, to manage grief and find silver linings. She has been a big rock in my journey, but bigger rocks are always found closer to home. I owe so much to Cristina, my family and friends; for their strength and support, I am eternally grateful. With all my senses near- broken, and my mental depression amounting, during my rehabilitation, I found beauty in one thing. This one thing kept me going. Nature. With a camera, unexpected tears of happiness would form. They formed when I captured nature it in all its mesmerizing glory. Not knowing the context of modern society, I clung to the natural presence of trees, sun and sea, as that is the part of the world which my body naturally understood, without the need for brain connectivity. I was drawn to nature. I cannot explain it to you, without sounding somewhat strange, but with everything that happened to me, my brain lost, my thoughts lost, unable to recognise the world, nature and photography made me feel, it made me feel...protected. It made me feel safe. It made me feel connected to something, when my connection to people felt lost. I would venture outside and take pictures of landscapes, animals, and life, all in its simplest form. Photography became, well... it became my saviour. My medicine. Taking myself out of our modern society’s self-constructed problems and troubles, I found, and find, peace and comfort in my natural surroundings; a place that I can really call home, a humans first habitat, barren of modern mental pressures and illness. Photography is, to put bluntly, my healer. I am writing to you today to ask if you could help me. I would be ever so grateful for a small donation towards a professional camera which I am desperate to buy, in order to facilitate a fresh start. A camera which will serve as my medicine, a camera which could facilitate the start of a new career. A camera which allows me to start agai
