Have you seen our STARS patients feature on the Metro North Health Facebook or Instagram pages? Check out our superstar patients and their words of wisdom:
“I believe the ambulance saved my life because of how quickly they got to me. I had a bleed on the brain and broken bones. After 13 days I woke up from my coma and I have been in hospital for six weeks. I feel good when I’m around people. I’m getting better every day and it could have been a lot worse, I’m counting my lucky stars.”
#MondayMantra Ben, 45 years-old, #STARS brain injury patient pictured with his baby Georgia.
“I started experiencing some strange symptoms I put down to old age. Then one day I was completely paralysed from the waist down. It all felt numb and like pins and needles. I was diagnosed with a left posterior fossa – dural AV fistula at the base of my brain. It’s not super common but could be a result from the whiplash I received from a car crash I was in a couple months prior. They’ve put a wire through my groin up to my brain gluing the vessels together. I woke up from that surgery with an immediate 20% increase in mobility, it’s amazing.”
#MondayMantra Peter, 50 years-old, #STARS rehab patient who is striving to return to work as a Queensland Police Officer, the gym and bike riding soon.
“I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was five years old, only because my mum was reading the Reader’s Digest magazine, which had a story on the symptoms. She took me to a doctor and I’ve been on insulin ever since. Back then, mum would check my levels in a test tube by what colour the liquid would turn after putting different things in. She’s done a great job keeping me and now my dad alive, who has recently been diagnosed in his old age. My parents are both 93!”
#MondayMantra Zechariah, 68 years-old, type 1 diabetic at STARS.
“I got out of bed, lost my balance and hit the wall with the side of my face. My wife said you’re not well and called an ambulance. She knew something wasn’t right. Turns out I’d had a mini-stroke. I had a hip replacement last March, so paired with this incident, it has really interrupted my walking which I love. My goal is to get back to walking and do the groceries, have my coffee and read the paper. It’s the little things. That’s life, it’s all the bits and pieces that add up.”
#MondayMantra John, 81 years-old, STARS rehabilitation patient.