William (TBI): Chapter 1 - Life before the accident

Episode 1:  Chapter 1 - William Cole - Recovery from a farm motorcycle accident which resulted in a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) - Introduction & life before the accident.

In the first episode, we meet William Cole, a 25 year old farmer from Bookaar in Western Victoria. William had a farm motorcycle accident in 2017 which resulted in a traumatic brain injury.  In this first chapter of the episode, we welcome you to the podcast, meet William and hear a little about his life before the accident.

Transcript and show notes are available for each episode on the podcast website: storiesofrecovery.buzzsprout.com

Shownotes:

• 5:00 - The article in the Weekly Times where I first heard about William's story (note: The Weekly Times online is now a paid subscriber views publication, so without an active subscription you may not be able to read this article).

Transcript

Robbie - Host: 0:00

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 crucial. 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. If you or someone you care about is struggling to recover from one of these or another brain related condition, this 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% and again, have some surplus energy, 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. Now I've left in as much of the context, detail and information in these interviews as possible, which means they can be quite long, just under one and a half hours for this first one, but they're split into key chapters to make it easier to listen and 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. Now without further ado, let's jump into it. In this first episode, I'm speaking with William Cole, a 25 year old sheep farmer from Bookar in Western Victoria. William had a farm motorcycle accident in 2017 resulting in a traumatic brain injury. This conversation took place in December 2019 at his home on his parents' sheep and cattle property within the beautiful volcanic landscape north of Camperdown. William grew up here with his parents and his brother riding motorbikes, driving tractors, shearing sheep, and working with his family on their farm. He's a really wise young man, as you'll hear and I learned a great deal from this conversation, things which became critical to my own recovery. Finally, this conversation took place on the lands of the Eastern Maar people of south Western Victoria. And I would like to acknowledge them as traditional owners of this land. I would also 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. Will thank you so much for having me here, in your home and in this beautiful part of the world. I'm really excited to just sit down and have a chat with you. As I mentioned, I read about your story in the Weekly Times, two weeks ago, after an article in there and I was quite blown away by your attitude and some of the things that you said, and I just thought, wow, this is, the perfect thing that I think people need to hear, really the perfect candidate. So what a fantastic place to begin on this podcasting journey. Thank you so much for your time. Do you want to start off with just telling us a little bit about yourself? You've obviously grown up here in the south west. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that.

William Cole - Guest: 5:47

No worries. Thank you. Well, thank you for coming out. Um, you know, I was born out in the south west of Victoria and come from well in a place called Bookar, which is around all the mountains around there. I was born into a farming family, sheep, cattle and pastoral property where we have been farming here for seven generations. So yeah, I've always sort of grown up to be an outdoorsy kid playing a lot of sport and, going back I can recall going for rides on the motorbike with my grandfather, who's obviously now passed on, but yeah just a lot of vivid memories from growing up around this area. Home is, it's a very special place and very special to me in the fact of being involved in the agricultural industry. I really do enjoy being able to go outside and have a full day of work all week, all year if you really want that but there's always something to do and it's a lot of fun. So yeah, growing up naturally having those interests and always playing around with my hands, trying to figure out how that wheel would spin on the motorbike and stuff like that. So a very curious mindset, being a classic young south west kid on the, on the land.

Robbie - Host: 7:23

And so then, let's go back just over two years ago. So back to, I guess, September, 2017. So just before your injury, do you want to describe a typical day in the life of Will Cole?

William Cole - Guest: 7:38

Yeah, sure. Well I'd moved back here, because I did a couple of years up in the city and moved back home and I was working on the Western Victorian livestock exchange, during the construction process of that. We were working from sun up till sundown, not really acknowledging fatigue or when to take a rest.

Robbie - Host: 8:00

And were you playing football locally as well?

William Cole - Guest: 8:02

I was playing football. I wouldn't have been playing football at the accident time, but earlier that year I was playing back at Camperdown.

Robbie - Host: 8:20

That's the end of chapter one, stay online for chapter two. The accident and the initial treatment.