The day of my Dad’s accident was just like every other day. I remember Dad came in to say goodbye to me and that he’d see me later on. He had said bye to Mum and then he went to work. Well so we thought! It would have been around 20 minutes later (at least it felt that way) when there was this huge and loud banging on the door, it was a mans voice on the other side yelling something about my Dad. My heart sunk, my initial thought was how loud it was and whether this guy was trying to break into our house. Mum raced to the door and went outside and all I could hear from the spare room was her yelling out my Dads name, Mike. I thought that this guy had my Mum or was trying to hurt her or something so I raced outside to try to help her when all I saw was my Dad’s feet and legs on the rocks behind the work car. I ran over to see my Dad barely responsive laying face first into the rocks. He was with our Neighbor who was on the phone to the Ambulance while my Mum was trying to get words out of him. From this point I think I was in shock because my vision went blurry and I felt as though I was going to pass out after seeing what I initially thought was my Dad, dead laying face first in the rocks. I was crying my eyes out but in all of this panic I immediately thought of my younger brother, Shay. Shay had always been quite sensitive and he would have been awake by now so I made sure I went into his room and explained the situation lightly to him. I couldn’t stress enough to Shay that Dad was Ok and just to stay inside and get ready for school as I did not want him to see Dad that way. I got some towels out of the cupboard to put under Dad’s head and as I was walking back inside the Ambulance arrived. I mainly tried to stay inside to make sure that Shay was Ok so I didn’t see much of what they were doing. But before they were going to leave for the Hospital, Mum came in and gave me a big hug and said ‘He’s ok. They were the words I needed to hear. Then they were off to the hospital. I skipped the school bus to make sure that Shay was ok and he made it to school on time and got a friend to drop me off to school afterwards. It was the last place I wanted to be and I couldn’t concentrate all day. I wanted to be at the hospital and I remember it was only the 2nd period when I rung Mum crying just to check that there were no changes but he was fine. Well everyone thought he was fine, anyway. This was the hardest day of my life to date and I will never forget the pain that workplace stress caused my Dad but also my Family. However, at the end of the Day I just felt grateful that my Neighbor found my Dad in time and he really could ‘see me later.’ I feel blessed in my Dad’s presence every single day. I think the thing that affected me the most was that after most accidents (broken bones, trauma etc.) normally the day of the accident is the worst but from there you get better, grow and find that things can only go up from there. This wasn’t the case with my Dad. After the accident things just kept going downhill. Within the first year or so of my Dad’s accident it only got worse. I could see things changing about him like his moods and he was exhausted a lot of the time. Although these things would never bother me, he’s my Dad and I’ll always love him no matter what. I could see that it was taking its toll on him. Further down the track it has affected his memory hugely and his speech now too. There was a lot of confusion because we lived with him and we knew straight away that something was wrong with him, which was the easy part. The hard part was to get even DOCTORS to believe it which was extremely frustrating for all of us. I must say though our family Doctor, Dr Stephen McNally was the only Doctor at the time that was truly listening to my Dad and was doing all he could to help my Dad. A lot of people that my Dad has seen over the years have told him it’s all in his head. Well you know what? They were right! It is all in his head! A great big brain injury is inside of his head and for a long time no one was willing to give him the help that he needed which caused me a lot of anger. It still makes me angry and upset to this day but all in all I’m grateful my Dad is here with us, brain injury or no brain injury. I guess what I’m trying to say is that everything that has happened has just made me love my Dad more. It affects me when it affects him. As long as my Dad is happy then I will be happy with him. At the end of the Day it has made our family a lot stronger. I have learned a lot about taking life and the simple things for granted. Taking something as simple as remembering if you put the trailer on the car or not for granted.. sorry Dad haha. I have also learned that Dad may never be the same as he used to be however I don’t mind for no matter what life throws at us we will deal with as a family and love my Dad forever. I really hope that my Dad and my family’s journey can help other families going through similar things to us. I think the most important thing for us was to stop waiting for the old Mike/Dad to appear and to adapt to the way that Dad is now. When I say this, I don’t mean he’s a different person I mean adapt to Dad’s needs now in the present. He’s still the goofy and hilarious Dad he has always been but we don’t see this as much these days. but thats ok. We really try to make jokes out of it and make something that Dad would think was quite serious into something that is a happy memory or a funny one. We never get mad or upset when Dad forgets things or can’t get the words out we just have a laugh and love him for it. I think all we can do is to help him accept it and give him any kind of support that he needs. Just like he does for everyone around him every day.