I am Shane Thrower. In 2003, aged 34, I was cycling when a car hit me at 100 K's an hour. When I woke up, I was in a new world. I had a traumatic brain injury, and my life had changed forever. This is my story. Copyright Able 2018 I was flung up and smashed into a window screen. OK, let's get a GCS. I bounced over the car. Blood pressure's high. My head impacted on to the tar-seal. Can you tell me your name? 15 years later, I might not have any external injuries, but the injuries are inside. When I was a child, I was always playing sports. I loved playing cricket. I was always competitive, so I was always trying to be, you know, Lance Cairns and trying to score the most runs. Back in 1992, a good friend and I decided to do the Coast to Coast in a team event. I like pushing my body, and I love the competition. I'd started hearing about 24-hour races and some 48-hour races, and I thought, 'Geez, I wanna get into this side of the multisport.' He was fiercely competitive. I mean, he raced hard. We all raced hard, so we were all competitive. But Shane, yeah, put a lot of effort in, and his determination certainly got results for him. He was good to have on your side. He really was. He was big, loud... larger than life, you know. Yelling and screaming, but everyone's friend. In 1997, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I had to get the testicle removed, and then they said that I needed to have chemotherapy to get rid of any cancer that might be lurking around. I did not want chemotherapy, you know, hurting my immune system, so I said I wanted to beat this with a natural diet, natural medicines and a real strong positive mindset. My family were quite concerned about this, but they were pretty sure that all the cancer had been removed with the testicle. I needed to look after myself really well with a natural diet, and I had to mentally be on top of myself. I trained as a chef and worked at Christchurch prisons as a cooking instructor. I found this job very, very rewarding, and it taught me a huge amount about people. I realised I really wanted to work with at-risk youth. So I decided to enrol at teacher's training college. I wanted to be an inspirational, motivational teacher. I loved it from day one. You give chives. Imagine that. He, sort of, jumped up, and it was like a fire cracker had gone off, and he leapt across the room and introduced himself as 'Shane's crazy quiche'. Got everyone out of their seats, gathered them around, and he was going, you know, and here we've got this, and it was like a David Attenborough cooking show. And, you know, everyone was like, 'Whoa, it's an omelette.' I realised straight away that this the career I was always destined to do. I was fit, strong, and life just seemed to be going really, really well. So I set my latest sporting goal, and that was to do the New Zealand Ironman. On the 6th of May 2003, I went for my first training ride. Just before 5pm, I was cycling along Lincoln Tai Tap Road. I was feeling great. And then blank. We got a call at about 5.30 to say that a cyclist was being brought in, who'd been hit by a vehicle on the Tai Tap road. One, two, three. When he arrived, all they could tell us was that they've got this male cyclist whose name is Shane, and they didn't have any more details. There was no ID on him. Such were the severity of his injuries, I didn't recognise him. OK, let's get some oxygen on them. He had abrasions down his whole body. He had a big swollen right leg. He also had dislocated shoulders. And I mean, that's massive impact stuff to pull out both your shoulders. Jesus, mate, are you all right? The primary concern with him was this major head injury, but until you've got a CT scan, you don't know exactly the extent of that injury. OK, let's get a GCS. And I kept looking at him, saying, 'Is this Shane Thrower?' But I wasn't sure, and we managed to get his flat phone number, and I said, 'Listen, is Shane there?' And they said, 'No, he's gone on a bike ride.' Claire, my sister, was living with Shane, and Claire gave us a call and said that she just had a ring from the hospital. You know, someone's come into the hospital, and he wants that person to be identified. I then phoned a mutual friend, and I said to him, 'I think I've got Shane here,' and he said, 'Oh, no, just examine his goolies,' he said to me. And I said, 'Sorry, what do you mean?' So of course, since Shane had had testicular surgery previously and had an orchiectomy, which is the removal of one testicle. So I went back into the trauma room, and, sure enough, there was only one. The jigsaw was coming together. He'd gone on a bike ride. He had one testicle, so I think we were on the right track, so I was pretty comfortable that we were dealing with Shane Thrower here. Breathing's regular. So, we've got no flail on the chest, and abdo's soft, was it? Correct. Once we were happy that he was stable, then we could move off to the CT scan. There were no obvious bleeds on the scan at all. And that's always one that is a little bit worrying, because you really don't know how things are gonna pan out. The assumption is that the brain's basically been shaken and all the neurological and fibres, if you like, have been stretched and pulled here and there. And then it's a matter of just completely trying to rest the brain in this induced coma to give his brain the best chance moving forward. He was really puffy. One side of his face looked a bit like Shane. The rest didn't. It was pretty horrible, and you think, 'Man, is this guy` How's he gonna get through this?' I didn't hear about it till about 9 o'clock at night. My uncle called me to say that we needed to get up to the hospital quickly. I knew that he had a hit to the head. But at that point, I had no idea what that meant. It could be that someone wakes up the next day and says, 'Gidday, I'm fine. 'You know, everything's rosy. Let's carry on.' Or you can have a very protracted and severe course with a lot of neurological fallout. I was terrified. Yeah, I mean, you just think the worst. My life as I knew it was over. * On May the 7th 2003, I was in intensive car at Christchurch hospital. I'd sustained a traumatic brain injury. You put all your faith in the doctors and nurses, and you just have to leave it up to them and just, yeah, sit and wait, play the waiting game. You need to keep a really low stimulus environment for someone that's sustained a closed-head injury. He needed to be put into a closed, dark side room with a bed in it, a chair for me to sit on. There was very little in that room. When I woke up from the accident, I actually thought I was in a bad dream. I was so confused as well. I didn't` You know, I was getting told that I had this accident, but then I'd forget. I still have no memory of the first six weeks in hospital. Everything I know is from medical files and diaries and from what people have told me. I now know that I got hit from behind at 100 K's an hour by a lady that had sun in her eyes. I was flung up and smashed into her window screen and then bounced over the roof of the car and down on to the ground. Jesus, mate, are you all right? The right side of my face took the impact on the ground. Where am I? You're in hospital. You've been in an accident. Shane's speech was quite jumbled and confused initially. Size... About time. He wasn't that orientated to time or place or person. I would literally sit in the room with him and reorientate him, because he couldn't remember five minutes previously. Where am I? You're in the hospital. You've been in an accident. It was clear that Shane was in a state of post-traumatic amnesia. Post-traumatic amnesia is that time after a head injury when someone's brain is somewhat scrambled and they can't make sense of their environment and they cannot lay down new memories. They can struggle with a lot of stimulation, so we're talking things like... the noise of a` just being on a busy ward can be quite disturbing for them. Also light ` any bright lights can cause a lot of headaches for them. It's like the world became a scary place, with just things happening. Someone wheeling a trolley past would be an issue. It was like he was hearing everything and reacting to everything. I think at that point, I realised that the head injury was possibly worse than his broken bones were. I thought that he was just gonna be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and never be capable of doing anything. I had to relearn how to do basic things again. I had to relearn how to talk. I had to relearn how to walk. The brain is made up of lots of axons or neurons, which are all interconnected together. And so initially following a brain injury, the connections that were initially just of impacted by the swelling will resolve, and they'll be working back to normal. However, there may be some axons that have actually been ruptured, and in which case that pathway is now broken, so the way the brain will compensate is a bit like the way we would manage if we had to get to work in the morning, going through the motorway, and we find the motorway there's been an accident and we can't get through on the motorway, so we then adopt a new strategy for getting to work. Using these alternative routes are more tiring for the brain. For me to take a step, I would have to look down at my foot and tell my foot to step. Shane was motivated and focused to do whatever it took to get him functioning. Because he was so determined to get better and to get out of there and get moving, all of that took energy, so he was even more tired. The fatigue would overtake me, and I would, you know, crash. I used to stare out of the window of my room and see people running and walking, and here I was stuck in my bed. In the early stages, I felt anger towards the driver that had done this to me, but I realised that I could not hold this anger towards this person because that was wasted energy, and I needed to use that energy to heal myself. My friends realised that I wanted organic food to help with my healing, so they got on to a roster system where they'd have` go around to a good friend's house that was cooking organic food, pick it up and then bring it in and visit me at the same time. Good to see you. With a head injury, you can lose the... The ability to understand people's senses of humour or it can come` You can be quite inappropriate. My friends would make little jokes, and I had no idea what they were saying, and I felt sorry for them because they were saying these stuff that didn't mean anything. I realised that my brain wasn't processing the humour as it used to do, and that was all confusing for me. I still could understand physical humour, and my primary nurse realised this. One day we went to have a shower, and` cos I needed help with my shower. And he turned around, and I was standing there with goggles on, gumboots, a big apron. And I just burst out laughing, and she was doing it to make me happy and... When you are scared and anxious, that's the` That's an awful state to be in. And so having that light relief, actually... Or it just makes everything seem a little bit calmer. The whole` Everything just seems a little bit better. After being at Christchurch Hospital, I was transferred to the brain injury unit at Burwood Hospital. And I still wasn't building any new memories. The first couple of weeks after an injury, it really is just getting through the day-to-day basics. Once you start going into that next phase, like he did at Burwood, it becomes apparent how long your road is to getting back home and functioning. It becomes very real. We have a speech and language therapist, skilled rehab nurses, physio and the occupational therapists. We have neuropsychologists, and will be going through a whole remit of tests to try and see where the difficulties are. He found the noise extremely overwhelming. But, yeah, it felt like it was gonna be the right place for him. It felt like we were moving forward. After a few weeks, my external wounds were mostly healed. I was going to physio. And they were working on my right side, trying to get my hand working again. I was going to speech and language therapy. I wanted to start learning about brain injury. I heard that my behaviour could change and I could lose up to 90% of my friends. And this really scared me, because my friends were such an important part of my life. I wanted to keep old Shane. He worked on his rehab as if it was` he was training for a race. So if he was told to do something, he'd do it twice. Even though it, obviously, he was in a lot of pain at times, but he was just so determined to keep moving. He was fighting to prove himself again. And he probably didn't need to so much cos we were just happy to see him walking around and alive. With someone who's very driven before their injury, they're likely to have a lot of that personality still there. And so they will always push the boundaries, which is great. But those brain cells are working overtime to try and meet the demand, which is why they just get more wiped out in the process. He was trying to be this positive, outgoing, motivated person, but then as soon as someone leaves, he'd just fall apart because he was so tired. I knew that my dad was coming over from Australia in a couple of days' time, so I was really trying hard to get as good as I could. Shane worked so hard that he overcooked himself, and Dad arrived, and Shane was not in a good place. And he saw me in probably the worst state that I had been in a long time. When Dad left, he was so annoyed with himself and thought that he'd failed. This was upsetting for Dad, but it was so upsetting for me. Absolutely, reality hit, for him and for us as well. He was told that he probably won't be able to be compete in sport again, he probably wouldn't be able to study, he would probably not be able to work in a fulltime normal job again. I was in a pretty dark place, and things were really getting on top of me. It was really difficult to see him when he was down, because he wasn't that type of person. A very important person in my life, Ferris, my grandfather, came to the forefront. Ferris had spent four years in a prison of war camp in World War II. And we was always upbeat and positive about the situation, and I realised that I had to be strong and positive. I needed to cut all negative thoughts out of my body. I was not going to be a victim. I was not going to let the brain injury beat me. Many homes have ceiling insulation, but none underfloor. Insulation in ceilings and floors is the most effective thing you can do to keep the warmth in and the cold out. Check out the three essentials for a healthy home on our website. * It had been six weeks since I had been knocked of my bike and received a traumatic brain injury. I have no memory of those first six weeks. On June the 17th, I woke up and remembered that the day before a good mate had visited. Up until then, I'd had no memory of anyone visiting me. I'd forget straight away. It was the start of what I called 'the new world'. It was a defining time that on his timeline of his life he could see that he had the old world and the new world. Before it was just this big jumble in his head. I first met Shane about two years before the crash. I was really worried about him, but hadn't been able to see him. I'd got an email about Shane. They said that his fridge had broken down, which they were using for all the fruit` the juices and the things that his friends were taking in. So I jumped off my seat, ran and grabbed a fridge out of one of our manager's offices and took it into the hospital thinking this was my chance to see him. A couple of days after the new world, I was just walking down the corridor. In front of me, I saw this person walking with a little fridge. He was just white and frail and, yeah, little old man's pyjamas. Suddenly, I recognised the person, and it was Patsy. And it was` And I was so excited that I remembered my friend, but I could tell she was a bit concerned about the weight that I'd lost. It took my breathe away. I went back to his room with him, and he sat down, and he was trembling, and he just wanted to, sort of, hunker down, I think, and be wrapped up. I sort of wondered what the` what his world would be like from there. It was great to be getting my memory back, but I was still struggling with some things. Night-time was the most challenging time for me, because once my family and friends left, I felt very alone. My friend Heather would come in and give me massages and bought me a teddy bear to help me through the night. I remember the first night putting Blue beside me, and next minute I heard a nurse coming down the hallway, and I quickly stuffed Blue under the covers. But then I realised Blue couldn't breathe under the blankets, so I pulled Blue out of it and put him up by my shoulder, and I realised then that I don't care what other people think. Blue made me feel so much better. With the start of the new world, I had come to terms with that I had a brain injury and what I had to overcome. I needed to start setting some goals, so I started learning how to shower and shave myself. And the next goal was making my own bed. And once I could start walking in a reasonable manner, I wanted to go for walks in the gardens around the hospital. He made really good progress from that point. He was just so positive and determined, that he just kept going. I realised that my life was going to be different, and one thing I didn't want to do was end up on the sickness benefit for the rest of my life, so I set myself a goal to go back to teachers college. It was just like, 'I don't think so, Shane. Seriously?' I don't think that's gonna happen, but we'll go along with it. Yep, if that's gonna help you get by day-to-day, yep, we'll say that, yes, you'll get back to teachers college. I'm thinking, 'You're dreaming.' At that time, his speech was very slow and very full of pauses. He couldn't get through a sentence. I said, 'I know there's a chance I won't achieve it, but I need to set myself a goal.' Then I was able to tell my therapist and work towards learning how to speak properly, spell properly. At the time of my accident, I was in a relationship, and my partner lived out of town. She'd go and visit Shane as much as she could when she was in town, then` Yeah, it was really good that she could then go and stay in a self-care unit with him. The move was a very exciting time for me, because it was another step in my recovery. But I was working really hard on my rehab. It was really fatiguing me, and emotionally I was getting very drained. On one hand, she was providing all this amazing support for him. And on the other hand, he was struggling with how he was dealing with the emotions of their relationship. We were just not getting on the same. This was when our relationship started to, basically, finish. At this stage, I really needed to focus on something positive. I knew that I needed to get back on the bike. Heather came over to self-care units. We went out into the car park, and Heather was holding me, and I just pedalled down the car park to the end and then stopped. I couldn't pedal and turn at the same time. She held on to me as I turned around, and then off I went again in a straight line. I was so excited to be back on it, but also it was very scary in the same aspect cos I was on a bike when the accident happened. On the 28th of July, I was discharged from Burwood. I was leaving after 10 weeks unable to work, exercise, shop on my own. I felt very dependant on others, and that was very scary. I went to Bonnie's for a few weeks, but in the middle of August 2003, it was time to move home. Suddenly there were all these noises and activity. Just even birds making noise was just really loud for me, and then suddenly hearing cars going past. I'd forgotten my neighbourhood. I couldn't remember where to go, and I was so scared about leaving my property, because I'd forgotten everything. You know, I was looking out the windows and seeing, you know, my garden, you know, in a mess. My grandfather, Ferris, came round and, you know, 86-year-old grandad out in my garden, and all I could do to help him out was make him a coffee, and just doing that would wear me out. I was getting headaches from all the pressure from all this stimulus. I needed to make sure that I was giving myself time out, so every afternoon, I went for a one-hour sleep. One week after being discharged from hospital, I had to go back to get the results of a cancer check-up. I was so apprehensive because I was certain the cancer was back because of what I'd done to my body. When the doctor came in and` with a smile on his face and actually told me that my body was free of any cancer, and then he said this was the last check-up and I don't need to see you any more, and you've got as much chance as anyone else of getting cancer again. Was just so exciting. He was just so, like, he was like, 'Yes, I've beaten it. I've beaten that.' And so that almost gave him another boost of energy to, like, beat this brain injury. It made me feel like I could really go forward and keep healing at` you know, at a strong rate. * * Five months after getting knocked off my bike, I was still in intensive rehab for my brain injury. On the 1st of October 2003, the driver who hit me pleaded guilty to careless use causing injury. She was ordered to pay back 5000 reparation and had her licence suspended and had to do some community work. I felt really, really upset and, like, my life was worth only $5000. I was still living with the daily effects of a brain injury, and I knew that this was gonna probably be with me for the rest of my life. He rang me, and he was devastated, and it just didn't sound like the person I knew. And he said, 'That's all my life's worth. That's all I'm worth.' Patsy was just wonderful and helped me through this time. I started to feel like I was starting to get feelings towards Patsy. I really wanted to ask her out, but I didn't wanna change this... this relation` This awesome friendship that we had. I knew that I had to keep healing myself and looking forward. I was assigned a community team to help with my healing, and I just really, at this stage, really wanted more work done to help with getting back to teachers college. Shane was absolutely determined. Nothing was going to stop him. He wanted to go back to teachers college. There were a lot of people ` physio involved with his shoulder, speech language therapist involved. My role, really, was basically to, sort of, help him to... Yeah, just unravel some of the things that he was struggling with. You know, like the concentration, the memory. How to, maybe, make some sense of that. Shane worked really, really, really hard on his rehab. And we stayed in touch, and he made really dramatic improvements. It became clearer and clearer that he was of a mind to be back next year. Although we had his doubts because he certainly did have difficulties processing information, this was the essence of what was important to Shane shone, cos he would change when he talked about this. I knew that` I just really wanted to be a high school teacher and an inspirational teacher. At the beginning of 2004, I went back to teachers training college. We'd been asked to bring something that represents who we are as people. And people were turning up with books and pictures and things like that. And this guy rollerblades in. Doesn't seem like he can control the rollerblades either. Wasn't sure how my balance issues were gonna deal with them, but I put them on and then rollerbladed into the classroom. It all, sort of, spilled out that he'd had this brain injury and that he was on a journey. The rollerblades represent him moving forward and things like that. It was also something that he was having to relearn again. I think people loved it. This is a guy who's obviously got a lot of life experience. He's done a lot of amazing things. He's had a terrible accident, and he's just incredibly authentic. I think everybody appreciated the fact that Shane thought that he was ready to go back, but in reality, I don't think he really knew how hard it was gonna be. Students come here for five weeks, from February to, sort of, the end of March. And then go out on teaching practice again, and that's the big test, because it's a real environment. The students were just wonderful. They were just so understanding. It's also very draining. I remember him coming home and just talking about the noises within the classroom. The, you know, students talking in one area, somebody tapping their desk. You know, he would focus on that, and then lose focus on what he was talking about. He'd be teaching away, and then he'd see the students with a funny look on their face, and then he'd say, 'I just said that, didn't I?' And they go, 'Oh, yeah, you did.' So what Shane did was he told them the story. You know, my brain's not fully working. You're gonna have to help me out here. So if I repeat myself, just go like this, all right, and I'll realise, and then I'll move on. Failure wasn't an option. I... Yes, it was challenging and very tiring, but I could only see one way forward, and that was to... come out of this placement with glowing stars. With someone with an injury, they have to set structures and routines to manage what the brain is not managing effectively. He'd learned to focus on a range of strategies that would help. With his breathing, with his imagery, he would have, yeah, bullet points about things that would help him through his day. It really was a... A regimented, sort of, approach from Shane. We were all slightly in awe of how he would try and adopt anything that would allow him to pursue his passion. I can and visited Shane down at Dunston High. I was really pleasantly shocked and surprised that he was actually` He met all the requirements, you know. He did well. He had great rapport. He was teaching good stuff. Occasionally, he taught it twice. But that's OK. There was nothing to be worried about. It was positive. So, the last year had been such a massive learning curve for me. I was looked after so well by my nurses and other staff at Burwood Hospital that I wanted to repay them. We came up with an idea of having a charity dinner, and raising enough money to build a quiet room for patients and caregivers to get away from the stimulus of the hospital ward. We'd 450 tickets sold, and the night involved having some of New Zealand's top elite sportspeople speaking. We had a silent auction happening throughout the evening. It was just amazing the number of people that were there, the money that was raised. It was just absolutely incredible. I had written a letter to the lady that had run me over. I never sent the letter, but it was good to get the words down on paper. 'When I left you, I left behind my life as I knew it then. 'I was to start out on a new journey on a road that I never dreamed I would ever have to travel.' The room just went dead quiet. 'Doctors, nurses, family and friends have learned to never say 'can't' or 'it's too hard' to me.' It was really emotional seeing him up on stage because... he'd gone through so much to get there. 'I look back with no regrets, only forward for passion of leaving a positive mark on our world.' (SHUDDERS) It makes me feel a bit... He was up there getting his gold medal that night, because he'd trained hard, he'd raced hard and he'd achieved something really remarkable, but it wasn't like winning a race. It was just getting back to an ordinary life. I was looking out amongst so many people that had helped me. And I felt like I was a very lucky person to have those wonderful people that had supported me on this very challenging journey. And they were still supporting me. It was just` It was a beautiful time. I looked around, and he was sitting there because of the emotion. It was just so overwhelming. And he was just sobbing. And, yeah, something changed, I think. That was when I knew that he was pretty special. Not long after the charity dinner, Patsy and I started going out. It was just easy. And he was just so gentle and real. Back when I was quite sick, I was very scared that I'd never ever meet someone ever again. It was just so nice to be in love again and have those feelings, you know, going around your body, and it's just` It's a very wonderful and exciting time. I was the first family member to complete a tertiary education course, and I was very proud of that, but the next goal was to get a job, and I wanted to work at an alternative education programme, and coming here was the place where I really wanted to work. But it's for young people who have struggled in the mainstream system, so it provides a different kind of learning environment. That was a good fit, you know. He was someone who's had a terrible accident, who's come back and is kinda inspirational. You know, that gives them hope. When you saw the light turn on in their eyes, you knew that it was massive. He just came home that first day absolutely exhausted. He was wrecked. He was lying on the couch, could barely get up, and he just said, you know, 'I've made it.' I thought I was the luckiest person in the world to have the best job in the world. My dreams of being a teacher had been realised. I hadn't let my brain injury beat me. (PANTS) What are we waiting around for? I run with the running boys on Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Yes, it's a physical side that, A, I enjoy, but the energy that we all get from each other is just huge. I know that I need to make sure that I'm doing some sort of exercise if not every day, every other day, cos it's a vital part of my recovery. He said to me before, you know, that that's when I feel the most like the old Shane, and that's why it's so important to me. In 2005, I did my first triathlon. Shane was back, and I could see how proud my family was and my close friends, you know. It was a pretty emotional time for all of us, really. It's part of his make-up. It's part of who he is. It's part of how he measures himself. After doing the triathlon, I started entering new races. I entered in the six-day mountain bike race in Canada called the TransRockies. I entered in, probably, the world's hardest mountain bike race, which is called the Cape Epic in South Africa. Then I started doing more running events, and I entered in my first 100 K race. I'm not doing as many races as I did in the old world, but I still make sure I've got one or two competitive races that I do each year. Most people wouldn't know that he's got a brain injury. He still competes at a very high level. Even now. After the earthquakes, I went across to Linwood College to work in the food department as their hospitality teacher. Howdy, howdy. This is a very exciting time for me, because I was gonna be using my trade that I trained for. How much mayonnaise? It's yoghurt. Yoghurt. That's lucky you checked on me. Each time I started working in a new environment or going into a new environment, it'd take me quite a while to adjust to this. Preparation of lesson plans are very, very hard for me. Sitting in front of the computer for an hour is way harder than doing a 100 K running race. If he's preparing for a class, what he wanted to do was to have whatever that class involved in terms of content so clearly mapped out that he didn't have to think about it. Cos what he wanted most to do was to be present with the people` with the, you know, the kids that he was teaching. There's two things that make a very good teacher. One of them is providing energy and inspiration, and the other one is building effective relationships, and Shane is amazing at both of those. That's for good luck. Don't tell Mrs Hudson, OK? There's no physical signs of my injury any more, but the hidden illness is still there. I still have my afternoon sleeps every single day. Sometimes I'd like to have a... bandage wrapped around my head when I'm really fatigued because people don't see that side of me. The only person that really sees this is Patsy. On the 25th of February 2006, we got married amongst all our wonderful friends. I felt so proud, and, yeah, the emotions just, you know, were overwhelming. He's positive. He's energetic. He's never grumpy. He's always looking for the thing that he can love in somebody and not focusing on the negatives. I know that because of my brain injury that it does put added pressure on the relationship, but Patsy and I have worked out where her strengths are and where my strengths are, and I always try and do my best to look after myself. I don't know that the old Shane and the new Shane are fundamentally that different. If he hadn't had the brain injury, I'd like to think that he'd still be, you know` he'd still be positive, and he'd still be motivated, and he'd still be setting goals and reaching goals, so I don't know that, you know, Shane's changed that much. I just think that he just has to manage his life differently now than what he did before. What he's done is just quite remarkable, and it is motivating to be around him, to see what he's done, to see what he can do and to hear about what his next goal is. I will always be living with the effects of brain injury. It will always be with me. It's a matter of me managing the symptoms and the effects of the fatigue, but I couldn't ask for anything better in my life, and hopefully I'm inspiring other people that have had setbacks and have challenges ahead of them that they can go out there and give it their best shot. I am more than my brain injury. I am an athlete. I am a teacher. I am a survivor. I am Shane Thrower. Copyright Able 2018