I am married to Stuart and along with Aidan, we have a beautiful daughter Emily. We also have our fur baby, a gorgeous, crazy Frenchie called Maui. I have worked for the NHS as a newborn hearing screener for 16 years, it is a rewarding and at times challenging role, which I enjoy very much.

In May 2018 our world was turned upside down when Aidan was critically injured. We were told he had suffered a traumatic brain injury and needed emergency life saving surgery. Aidan was left paralysed all down his left side and he needed intense physio therapy. After a lengthy stay in hospital Aidan was discharged. This is when our recovery journey had only just begun.

We soon realised we had a long road ahead of us and at times we found this was a very lonely journey. A brain injury is an invisible disability and many people forgot that he still wasn’t fine at all. “He looks fine” is all people would say.

It wasn’t a journey we wanted to be on, but having the help and support of our amazing family and friends, made it a little easier at times.

While in hospital, we met a dear friend Maxine (Matthew’s mum), we exchanged numbers after our boys were discharged and we kept in touch. This was to be the best thing we ever did because Maxine was also the mother of a traumatic brain injury survivor and totally understood me.

We soon found that trying to access good support and help was hard to find, so after one of our many chats we came to the decision that we could be that help that others needed. We don’t want anyone to feel alone in their journey and so the After Matters support group was established.