Greg

I am an "ABC"--Australian Born Chinese-- person who cannot speak nor understand the Chinese language.

During the mid seventies I had been teaching high school science and was involved in starting Australia's first "Males against sexism" groups and conferences in Sydney. I completed an Associate Diploma of Welfare Work at the Sydney Institute of Technology in 1980 and then worked in the welfare field. I was involved in counselling at the Wayside Chapel and Helping Hand Mission; Australia's first ever disability-specialised radio program on 2SER-FM ("Wheeling Free") and working part time for the Australian Quadriplegics Association in community advocacy.

When I had my car accident, I was 35 years old. I was unmarried. But I was very much in love, in love with my work. I am going to tell you how and why Brain Injury is such a very difficult medical condition. Some older people, have had a big or little stroke. That is brain injury. Some are involved in a car accident, like myself, and some have had a disease like meningitis or brain cancer. Some brain injuries are so bad that people can die from them. My father is 86 years old. He now is in hospital with his fourth stroke. Four brain injuries. Alter his third stroke, at the age of eighty years, I said, "Dad, you are now more crippled than me". But every brain injury is different. My dad recovered from his third stroke better than I ever recovered from my one car accident twelve years ago.

Alter the car accident, I was in the intensive care part of the hospital for two weeks. When my three sisters saw me, they believed the doctors.

"Yes. Poor Greg". Poor Hing Ming, is going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He will never remember anything ever again. He will not be able to get out of bed again, never going to be able to walk again, never to talk again.

I was in my coma for two weeks. The next ten weeks, I was not able to talk, not able to get out of bed, not able to remember anything. In the five days before I left hospital, I was like a five year child. I was allowed to return to my rented house, receiving home care twice a week, and visiting the hospital every day. I won't detail my recovery from brain injury here, but I will explain how my brain injury affected my life. I told you that I was allowed to leave the hospital. At that time I was like a five year old boy. I know how to make rice bubbles. You open the box, and then you put milk into the bowl. Do you know what five year old children are like? They are not married. So, I was aged five. I was not married. As a five year old boy, I had no understanding of how bad I was. Intellectually, emotionally and socially. I could not manage money very well.

I could be very unpredictable in my moods, and very dangerous with the things that I tried to do. Four months after my accident, I bought a second hand car. Instead of catching the bus to the hospital every day, I drove my car to the hospital. Five months after my car accident, the hospital found out that ! was driving my just-bought car to the hospital. The next day they forced me to do a driving test. Luckily, I did not kill anyone, and I did not have a car accident. So ...except for the four months after my car accident, I have been driving my car every day. That is very unusual for most brain damaged people.

Brain damage can cause many injuries. We sometimes cannot talk, cannot move, cannot handle money, cannot marry, cannot drive. Brain damaged people like me get head aches every day, sometimes we have epilepsy, sometimes we cannot see or hear very much.

In the world of most people, we are usually put in the "TO0 HARD" group. Most crippled people have just ONE disability. They are either just "deaf", or "blind" or in a "wheelchair". Or they could be "crazy", or with "bad personality". But the brain injured person is ALL OF THESE. We may be psychiatrically impaired. We are sensation impaired, and we are physically impaired. The most difficult people to handle are those people who cannot be easily categorised. Are you sick? What is your sickness? Yes - physical. Yes- communication impaired. Yes psychiatric impairment. Yes - intellectual impairment. Go away! I only can handle one or two things at a time. You are impaired four ways. That is too hard to handle! "Is there a cure? NO! Is there treatment after the intensive care hospital? NO! Will you be able to work in a normal job?" NO, NO, NO, NO.

What rubbish! The professional people will tell you: "An improvement is always possible. Do not give up hope yet." I have met other brain damaged people in the support groups for people like me. In our own groups, we do not like professional people and caters to be with us. With people like us, we do not have to be hopeful and to be optimistic. We can be realistic. We can openly accept our limitations AND our bad experiences.

In year ten of my brain injury, I married a social work graduate from the University of NSW. Two years after marriage, I was "led" to psychiatric treatment, which stabilised my brain-injury-created craziness. My work with the Brain Injury communities started a year before my accident and my Chinese community work is exposing me to NESB clients who are brain-injured, or who exhibit brain injury behaviours. I am a foundation member of the Chinese Brain Injury Concern group. I frequently contribute to many Internet conferences, and in the future, I intend to publish Internet sites on these matters. I am currently involved with Toastmasters, and in this last community organisation I have had local and district roles, with varying degrees of rehabilitative success.

Greg Zeng
Area 33 Governor, District 70,
Toastmasters international

Brain Injuy survivor since 1985.