Rising Stars, The Blog!

A Big Decision

         What do you think? When have you had to turn a potential "worst experience" into something positive?          


When I was nineteen, I was made redundant because I was working for a small firm and I was told that my job no longer existed. This wasn't the case at all; I had been diagnosed with Epilepsy about a month previously and was aware that my fellow staff thought I was stupid. What none of us knew was that I wasn't stupid or lazy, the other thing I had overheard them saying about me, it turned out I had a serious problem.

Within six months of being made redundant, my short-term memory had deteriorated to an almost non-existent state. I was told that I needed brain surgery and this took place six weeks after the diagnosis of an AVM.

It was much later when I had recovered physically from the surgery itself that I felt I wanted to start looking for work. This, of course, wasn't going to be straightforward because my memory was still recovering, but overall was much better. The suggestion was to go away to a rehabilitation centre, I would come home only every other weekend. I decided this was the best way to get myself back to work. The centre had an office where people could learn how to work in an office, including, at the time a telephony station that linked the whole site. There was a garden where we worked in greenhouses; I was there for thirteen weeks in total. When I left, I had said to someone running the facility that I wanted to teach myself book-keeping, she said to me that she didn't believe I would ever be able to do that; she said that my memory wouldn't get any better.

I was aggravated by this I hate being told what I am and am not capable of doing. So, my first port of call after leaving the centre was to go to college, I learnt more office skills including shorthand and typing. I was still bugged by what this woman had said to me and I was determined to find a way of teaching myself the skill I really wanted to learn.

I found a home-study course and I completed two out of three of the courses with The Association of Bookkeepers. I'd decided I didn't want to learn the third course; I wasn't interested in this part of the course. Because of this, I got a temporary job as a wages clerk in a local firm that lasted a year. I would have loved to have stayed there but it was only for a year. Within that year, I caught a man trying to alter his pay cheques, attempting to steal from the company; also I travelled North in the UK to visit the Headquarters of the company.

I have to say that from a very difficult situation came a time when I realised that my memory would recover. It took many years for it to recover completely but it was probably better than it was before the operation. I would have died within ten years if I hadn't had the operation, yet I got married and had two children who are both grown now, one of whom is married herself.

It was a difficult time for me but by saying yes to an operation my life changed for the better.