Robbie Frawley 0:25
Welcome to Stories of Recovery. My name is Robbie Frawley and on this podcast I interview people who have experienced and recovered from brain related conditions such as stroke, concussion, chronic pain and traumatic brain injury. We discuss their story and highlight the things which have been most beneficial and most important in their recovery. This might be specific treatments or medical professionals that were most critical. It could be books, knowledge or advice which they were given or which they found along the way. Or even particular habits, attitudes or practices that helped them the most. I've learnt that the brain is incredibly complex, that there are many different stories, that different things have worked for different people, and that no one's got all the answers. But if you or someone you care about struggling to recover from one of these, or another brain related condition, the podcast was really made with you in mind, I want you to know that others have been where you are now, and that they have gotten better. Hopefully, in the interviews that follow you'll hear a thing or two which resonate, and which help you to do just that. So who am I? Well, I'm a young man who grew up in country, Victoria, Australia. And I've had a number of concussions growing up playing sport. After the last one, which was over seven years ago now, I developed something called post concussion syndrome. I'd never even heard of this but it left me with ongoing fatigue, headaches, nausea, vertigo, cognitive fog, overwhelm and sensitivity to impact. It had a really dramatic effect on my life and it took many years, much effort and great assistance from others to fully recover from it. And now that I am back to 100%, I'd like to help you in any way I can to get you back to good health. My hope is that we can provide some light at the end of the tunnel for you, and also give you some useful tips and tricks that might help you along the way. Now, one thing to remember is that the brain is a really marvellous thing. And you can get better. I know that for me, when things were particularly tough, I really needed to hear that.
Robbie Frawley 2:44
I've left in as much of the context detail and information in these interviews as possible, which means they can be quite long, but they are split into key chapters to make it easier to listen and also to help you to focus on what you need to hear right now. And remember that you can pause and come back to the story in as many small bites as you need. So without any further ado, let's jump into it. In this final episode for the year, I'm speaking with Lloyd Polkinghorne, a 36 year old newspaper owner and editor and a former mixed irrigator from Barham in New South Wales. Lloyd was injured by a misfiring shotgun in 2013 whilst he was assisting neighbouring farmers to clear birds from their crops. The injuries he received are largely invisible, but the effects upon him are significant. He's one of the most resilient and courageous men I've come across and he's also an incredible community advocate. This conversation took place in January 2021, in Barham on the lands of the Barapa Barapa people of southern New South Wales. I'd like to pay my respects to their elders past and present and Aboriginal elders of other communities who may be listening to this conversation. I wish you courage and energy on your own journey forward and I hope you enjoy this wide ranging conversation. Cheers.
Robbie Frawley 4:30
Thank you very much Lloyd for having me here in beautiful Barham. It's a pleasure to be here up in southern New South Wales. Do you want to start off just by telling us a little bit about yourself and who you are?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 4:42
Yeah, well who I am these days is a bit of a complex discussion. So I was raised in Moulamein on a mixed irrigation farm.
Robbie Frawley 4:52
So that's what, an hour north of the New South Wales border?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 4:55
Yeah, basically, it's about 70 kms (north) and then it's part of the floodplain on the mid Murray. So, irrigation sort of came through the area, you know, a good 70-80 years ago. They were soldier settler farms and then they'd sort of brought irrigation in and the soldiers got to develop the country and yeah, so I was raised there. I was one of four kids and we had a great childhood, had lots of opportunities to play sport and those sorts of things. Footy and tennis and swimming. And then had all the on farm excitement, so motorbikes and shooting and all the normal things that country kids get to enjoy. And then did Primary School in Moulmein. And then did High School in Barham. So I'd do an hour on the bus each way to come into high school. And then yeah, I actually finished up school early, went driving headers, did a bit of contracting and then started an apprenticeship, essentially when I would have been doing year 12. So I didn't see any point continuing on with school, it didn't really agree with me. Yeah. So I got an apprenticeship with a diesel mechanic Caterpillar dealer in Swan Hill.
Robbie Frawley 6:14
Wow.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 6:15
Yeah. So went and did my time there. The trade school was in Melbourne, we were the first year to go through Caterpillar Institute in Tullamarine. So went through that sort of thing and then I actually broke my back when I was a diesel mechanic, and then eventually had to change and went home farming. And then it was a pretty intensive farm. So at that stage, I'd gotten married. And then our farm was a mix of summer cropping and winter cropping we'd also do a bit of contract harvesting and spraying. And then I was involved with industry groups and things too.
Robbie Frawley 6:58
Rice growing?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 6:59
Yeah, so rice growing. Central exec, I was a delegate on that. I was Wakool branch president for a bit. I was involved with some CMA, landcare teering groups. I was president of little athletics. I was a director of Moulmein Grain Co-op.
Robbie Frawley 7:21
Pretty involved!
Lloyd Polkinghorne 7:22
Yeah I had a few things going on, and then we had a real estate agency as well. So had my real estate ticket too.
Robbie Frawley 7:30
Far our, alright, well, that's a really good (summary). You were a busy man by the sounds of things!
Lloyd Polkinghorne 7:36
Yeah, there was always something going on.
Robbie Frawley 7:39
And then let's go back to January 2013. So that's a really good (summary) is that a good representative picture of what your life looked like at that point?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 7:50
Yeah, yep. No that was, you know, it was just another day for me. We'd actually, we had quite a big rice year, allocations were good so we'd done up a fairly healthy planting. It was a shocking year for birds. Like we had sort of flocks of 4000 Ducks leaning on crops and just wiping him out. Yeah. It cost us about 1500 bucks a hectare to grow rice and say, when I can smash that in the morning, like a good, a good mobile doc. So at the time, we've been doing quite a lot of shooting, and I had an older gun that my father in law had given me. And I thought I thought I'd get rid of that and actually buy a new, a new gun. So I went in, upgraded,
Robbie Frawley 8:39
sorry, just to paint the picture. So because of the ducks, it was sort of, like it was quite typical that the farmers within a was would go out. And when, when ducks or birds were landing on the crops to go out and sort of shoot to clear them. Is that
Lloyd Polkinghorne 8:55
Yeah, yep. So we generally all look after our own crops, and then later in the season, you actually get bald goods coming in, then they nest in the crop. Yep. And they actually fall the plant down, they twisted off and they make platforms to breed on. Wow, this is a duck still that bowl. Good. So they're also called Purple swamp pins. And it's just before the grain is starting to come out in the plant next to make some plants. They're all so yeah. And rather than making one nest, they just keep making this to show off to the lady. So like, you can have one bird that will just keep making this interest and just wipe it across
Robbie Frawley 9:34
just building impressive houses.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 9:35
Yeah, essentially here. Yeah, and they're, you know, they're quite hard to get out of the rocks. They just go and lay down right in the bottom. So you got to get out and walk through it. And yeah, and we gently tried to walk through in a line and just scare them off. And we generally go then to help the neighbours so they don't just go and reinvest. Okay,
Robbie Frawley 9:58
so that would happen every season. Yeah,
Lloyd Polkinghorne 10:00
but they don't like some easy don't get that many hog. It's not too bad. It's a seasonal thing depending on the breeding conditions where they come from and things.
Robbie Frawley 10:10
Yeah. Okay. And so then what happens? What happens next?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 10:14
Yeah, we had about 12 likes out with us. We've been shooting for a few days, just on and off, we had relatives come up and Annie. Anyway, this morning, we were over at neighbor's place. And we'll one thing it was a second crop we were shooting for the date. And we'll just get in the line. And then you just walk through the rice crop so he walked in through to full plant and probably a foot of mud. So it's pretty hard going in, and you're gonna be at a foot of water as well. So gumboots or the easiest way is actually snake is using an old snake is you don't care about and just buddy smash through it. Anyway, there was a bird came up and I am fired out of mist. And then I went to fire again and just felt like I'd been kicked in the head. So I dropped my gun in the water and it felt a bit dazed and a call a few of the blacks over to help me get out. I wasn't he didn't just didn't feel right. Yeah. Anyway, just one of those split second things that you thought they they get to the Gulf. Anyway, I, I got out and I said to the blacks, I was going home, I wasn't feeling real well, and hey, I just went home tried to have a bit of a rest. So straightaway, yeah, I'd hang around and I'd watch them for a while and then there but it wasn't wasn't feeling good. Just sort of go home and rest up was sort of busy time of the year for us. I was trying to fence and any was sort of getting winter cropping ready at that stage to work in up Pat axle spraying and yeah. Anyway, I, I tried. I went to the doctor over in Swan Hill, just to a GP and, and they tried to tell me there was sort of nothing wrong, and they thought it was a nasal infection, all these other things. And
Robbie Frawley 12:10
yeah, what symptoms did you have at this point?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 12:14
I just just wasn't feeling well, or it's hard to put my finger on it. I just felt not sharpened. And not well, it just felt off. Yeah. And so I actually went back to them better five times in 10 days, because I still wasn't well. And
Robbie Frawley 12:34
and that's I don't imagine being a young man from rural Australia. That was a common experience for Uganda the doctor five times in 10 days, either.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 12:44
Ideally, something's going to be falling out. When you decide to go and
Robbie Frawley 12:48
then to be going there and getting told there's nothing wrong with you. Yeah, imagine how frustrating and also sort of bewildering that would have been.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 12:56
Yeah, no, it was like there's probably some cultural differences with the doctor, trying to get him to understand Lenny, having tried to say it's a nasal infection and all this crap. That was frustrating, because like, No, I met a gun explode by my head. I think there's something going on. And yeah, and then I gradually just got worse and worse. So on. I'd start trying to work. Cuz he's still trying to do that half hour
Robbie Frawley 13:26
after the, like the actual hour now.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 13:30
Yeah, probably like three weeks. Yeah, I'm still trying to do a bit. And, you know, I'm old man on the farm and also had my uncle and stuff. And so there's this whole hierarchy. Yeah, busy time of year. And you're still a young bloke on the farm. So you're still expected to carry away? Yeah, that's wrong. And so you've got all these other external pressures. And so trying to push on and blokey environment. And so you just got to suck it up and keep going. And then, every time I tried to do stuff, I would just get these throbbing headaches that I couldn't control. And if I kept pushing, I just started vomiting. So just convulsing, I'll end up collapsing on the ground. Just flexfuel my guts
Robbie Frawley 14:15
up. What did you What did you, your father and your uncle think we're now saying this?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 14:20
My uncle? Yeah, it wasn't too bad. The dad was worried about me, but it's sort of hard when it's undiagnosed. Yeah. Most people want an answer of what it is. Yeah. So they can label you or say, yeah, he's got a broken here. No, but what he's like He had to get expired. He's not real. Well, that sounds a bit a grey grey area. And then yeah, so it turned out the muscles in my ears and stop regulating noise too. So I was hearing everything full noise, like just flat out. And so I'd get around and we'd look earplugs in remaps because everyone was just super loud. And yeah, we had little kids at the moment. And it got to a stage where I just basically lived in a dark room or in our bedroom, it was sort of in one side of the house. So it was sort of a quieter space for me. And leaving the area had a lot of tiles around the kitchen and stuff and a noise. Yeah, a lot of noise, a lot of ambient noise and became really susceptible to entropy noise or just that. We all think, like, I just barely get panner eyes, okay, the more they are just supposed to get blacker and blacker and just, I just buddy fall in a hate. Anyway, this went on for a few weeks. And then I couldn't even watch telly or anything look at it to watch telly and I couldn't read. It sort of just spent on hanging around, which is pretty hard. Like it's an uncomfortable thing when you're used to working and you sort of get so much spent so much of your identity is tied up in what you do and who you are. And
Robbie Frawley 16:09
especially Oh, I was gonna say when it's a physical job, but I mean, policy, any symptoms? Pretty much everything was almost off the table.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 16:18
Yeah, yeah, yep. And it got to a stage where I was that crop during the day, my wife wasn't willing to leave me at home. And so she was bringing me in the bedroom while she get to work and and then the mother in law and supervise me. And I just sit there and I just always been cold sweats and just feel really shit and have an ear. So we we tried some a different doctor over incurring so that's a bit further for us from all mean that sort of 100 goes away and yeah, and he was he'd seen me when I was a teenager. So he sort of knew me a little bit. Yes. And then they checked me out was a little bit concerned. He's like, keep an eye out for this, this, this and this. And anyway, I was about three nights later that one of them came true, which is one of the symptoms he described. Yeah, one of the symptoms he described. So lying in bed, and I just felt this discharge of fluid in the back of my throat. And anyway, it was just this salty shit. Yeah, it's weird. Anyway, turns out it was cerebrospinal fluid. So they they think between the nasal passage and your brain is like a little skin flap. And then they think the pressure wave of the explosion sort of punched a hole through that. And so I decided to like Brian fluid down my throat
Robbie Frawley 17:47
to cerebrospinal fluids of fluid that sits around your brain. Yeah, head, cushion it and also goes all the way down your spinal. Yeah, spine. Yeah, I guess that's pretty, pretty important stuff.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 17:59
Yeah. That's what I get super worried about with infections and stuff getting into that because it can roll you're pretty quick.
Robbie Frawley 18:06
Yeah. And that's your feeling that leaking down your throat?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 18:11
Yeah, yep. I just felt this lock discharge during the night. And, and I don't know, for whatever reason of the day, just dump a bit, and then stop for the day. And then during the night, we go again. And so they said, to get into Bendigo to emergency and so went down there didn't make it past really the waiting room because they are the same thing communication again, they didn't really see it as severe or whatever, because it was nothing falling off. And I explained them the background and you know, you're waiting around for six hours and then they go, Well, we don't really have anyone on call who could probably look at you anyway. And so he basically sent me home again. So I ended up in driving, driving back home like
Robbie Frawley 19:04
San Diego's what another two hours? Yeah, for where we
Lloyd Polkinghorne 19:07
were at time. It's three hours. Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, he ended up we just had because Lauren's trying to work and got kids and all the rest of it and the loss, pretty hectic. And then so I went back to kurang and said to the doctor, this is what's going on, and he put me in hospital straightaway. So put me on IV antibiotics are pretty crap all that time. wasn't in a real good way. And then it was probably in hospital for three or four
Robbie Frawley 19:39
weeks. And then where was that in cranking? kurang Yeah,
Lloyd Polkinghorne 19:42
I kept trying to get me into Melbourne so I could check me out. But I didn't have any beds available. And really, it wasn't a high priority. So just had to wear hang around.
Robbie Frawley 19:55
And so what happened at that point?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 19:59
Well that point they'd sort of, yeah, they'd worked out roughly what was going on with you. They wanted to get me down to Melbourne just so they could. But then there's some thought that was just waiting sort of for the flap to heal up between. Yeah, so that's basically lying flat, so you don't get any pressure. More pressure in your head from the fluid. Yeah. And so nothing intensive and basically, bed rest would discourage you to get up to go the toilet and all that sort of stuff. They just basically wanted you flat.
Robbie Frawley 20:35
Was that comforting at that point to at least have feel like you're you had a doctor who was on the right track? Or did you still feel pretty lost?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 20:45
Yeah, look, I was thankful at that stage. Yeah. The doctor I had was listening and was getting some treatment. Yep, I thought that'd be cool. Yeah, we'll get back here get rolling again.
Robbie Frawley 20:59
Couple of weeks, that I'd be good in fortnight for that.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 21:03
Weird, I was covered up and I missed my daughter's first day of school and all this sort of stuff. You know, it's, yeah. Anyway, that's, and then I got home, and I still couldn't do anything. I was still on.
Robbie Frawley 21:19
Okay. So they'd sort of said, Okay, stay here, or here for x period of time a week or something? And then hopefully, it'll heal up and then you can go back to life.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 21:28
Yeah. So I had to go home and I had to still rest up for a while. I don't, I'll still essentially, unlike God, but I still couldn't physically do anything. So I still was overwhelmed by light still couldn't watch dailies and read. Yep, sand was still pissing me off. And and then there was, yes, I spit swing in a dark room. And if I would draw, do anything lucky, I'd try and go out to the shade and just do a little job. And I did not basically the nominees just completely eroded, drenched in sweat just yet drenched in sweat. Yeah, yep. So my couple of things happen. So my heart, my brain start regulating my heartbeat. So the time of accident, my resting heart rate was like 64, or something, you know, I was running four or five gallons a day. And then after my accident, my resting heart rate was 110. So it was just flat out. And my sympathetic nervous system had just gone through the roof. It was fight or flight, and I was I was just way and up to the max. Everything was just an overstimulation. Yep, just couldn't go.
Robbie Frawley 22:47
How are you coping kind of mentally with that, like because it by this point? What are you like a month and a half? Yeah, of something that you're kind of thinking, I'll probably just, you know, see the doctor and then it'd be fixed. And I'll do this and then it'll be fixed or you'll start to see some improvement. And at this point, as you say, you're still in the dark, you're still being completely over sensitised by things. You'd go into the shed, which you'd go to every day and and you're on your hands and knees cold sweat, like what was that stone to have an impact or not?
Lloyd Polkinghorne 23:18
At that stage? I probably wasn't like I was frustrated that we had was too sweaty in on the door and roll man to give me shit about because I do contracting as well. And so he was he was always gonna prioritise outcrops was like, Oh, we all we did was contacted neighbours, so work pretty well. And nothing was always ready all at once. So we worked in well, but he'd always freak out. Because he, he drove and so when you're trying to harvest and, and the my brother moved back from Queensland to drive the head for that harvest, which it was good. So for me at that stage, it was frustrating, but I didn't. I wasn't overly concerned. No, no, not at that stage. It was just, you know, we'll heal up and would, and we'd go and then 12 months previous, we'd done succession planning, so it actually bought out my uncle and gone into partnership say
Robbie Frawley 24:19
you're you're under financial pressure.
Lloyd Polkinghorne 24:25
Yep, that's right. You put your head in the noose of debt and money and make things happen for Yeah. Anyway, we continued on like that for a while. And then it just nothing would get better. That was probably the challenging. Yeah. Yeah. The challenging aspect of it
Robbie Frawley 24:49
sort of Fast Forward then to like, at what point did you feel as though you you started getting better or you found a reason or what was this August? The turning point for your recovery
Lloyd Polkinghorne 25:03
mourn was super ongoing that I would have been using before I ever saw any light.
Robbie Frawley
That's the end of Chapter 1. In chapter 2 you'll hear what enabled Lloyd to turn the corner towards his recovery.