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Please help Paul on his Road to Recovery

  • Home time

      9 September 2016

    Hi everyone,

    I'm very pleased to let you know that Paul was finally discharged back home a couple weeks ago. He is still making progress every day, and helped so much by the support he has from his family and friends.

    Here is an update from Kendall from a few weeks ago (sorry for the delay!):

    Dad has been settling into his first week back at home.

    He has been getting to know his new fabulous therapy team and they have got a really great plan for him over the next 6 months to help him get back into everyday life. They will be working closely with him to help him adjust to his brain injury and learn how to cope with the new challenges he will be facing.

    Dad may seem absolutely fine from the outside but his biggest hurdle at the moment is his lack of insight about his brain injury and how it is going to affect him, he hasn't yet acknowledged that he has more steps to achieve, and to accept he won't be able to go straight back into his everyday life pre-injury ie- coaching, work and playing sports.

    To help you understand him more-

    Dads injury is to his frontal lobe of his brain. This affects his problem solving skills, cognitive functions, attention and short term memory. Dad has difficulty recognising social cues in social situations and difficulty knowing when it's appropriate to ask some questions.

    He also loses track of conversations when distracted and needs support with redirection.

    His therapy team will work hard with these areas of adjustment and along with the support of you guys he is and will do really well!

    Give a little donations-

    A small amount if your generous donations have been helping Jay and I travel to Auckland every weekend to support dad, learn and adjust with him during hospital and rehab. This has been invaluable and such a massive weight off our shoulders. Now that he's home with a complete therapy team we won't have to travel as often. Therefore we still have a large chunk of your donations that we will save for later down the track to help with any area of Dads therapy that is not funded by ACC that we think he will need. We will play this by ear.

    Thanks again on behalf of dad and us for everyone's amazing support. We can't thank you enough ??

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  • One step closer to home

      24 July 2016

    Paul is continuing to make some wonderful gains and last weekend had his first full weekend leave away from the rehab unit. Jay was able to come up for the weekend and Paul managed to get down to watch papatoetoe play Saturday and then came down to watch his girls the Clendon cats play on Sunday.

    It was very special to have Paulie on the sidelines again, hopefully the first of many more to come! To see him come so far from being unconscious in ICU to getting back on his feet, learning to speak again and then now slowly getting his life and mind back together is very inspiring and we are very proud of him. He still Has some further work to do and more time left in rehab until the next challenge of going home, but we believe in him.

    Keep up the hard work coach carter!!

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  • Settling into rehab and getting out and about

      29 June 2016

    It has been 2 1/2 months since Paul's accident and he's made such incredible progress. I went to visit him recently and he has moved forward in leaps and bounds since I saw him last at Auckland hospital. He still has a lot of work to do but I could see a glimmer of the old Paulie there and his sense of humour coming through. Things are heading in the right direction and we are all cheering you on Paulie, right to the end!

    This is an update from Kendall yesterday, I have also added some photos to the gallery of some visits Paul has had:

    Dads memory is slowly coming back, he's pretty good with his long term memory, although he still gets a few things jumbled. His short term is needing a bit more work but it's definately improving. He has been getting 8-9 out of 12 in his daily memory tests which is amazing!

    We have finally been able to get dad out and about with his friends in short bursts for lunch and drives. Thank you so much for all his mates that have been to visit, and support him it means the worlds to us. Dad still has lots of work to do but I am sure he will keep achieving his goals from week to week.

    The give a little donations- Even though we haven't touched much of it yet, it has certainly helped with some of the initial travel and will be invaluable later down the track when dad is out of rehab. The page has helped dad get a better understanding of what's happened to him and all the support he's getting. Jay and I frequently get him to read the page which seems to help his confusion."

    Thanks again everyone xx

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  • Making Progress

      24 May 2016

    Hi Everyone. Huge thanks again to those that have donated to Paul's page. I am continuously blown away by the generosity shown by Paul's friends and family, and even people who have never even met him! It just shows what kind of person he is to elicit such an amazing response.

    I'm glad to be able to let you know that Paul has been making some good progress lately, especially in terms of mobility. He was eventually stable enough to be transferred out to the brain injury rehabilitation centre, ABI Rehabilitation in Ranui, West Auckland last week which his family are very happy about. Kendall has said that even in the first week he has been there he has made some great gains. They are really looking forwards to seeing his progress over the next few weeks, so we will keep you posted as to how things go!

    Also we are planning to organise a U-Jam fundraiser for Paul later in June in Papatoetoe. I will post more information about this once the details are confirmed.

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  • Thanks and Update re progress

      27 April 2016

    First of all I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has donated so far to Paul. He is very lucky to have such amazing and generous friends and family. His children Kendall and Jay also want to say thank you and let everyone know how humbled they are by the support for their dad so far. They will give regular updates on what the money will be spent on to help Paul.

    This is an update from Kendall today about Paul/Paulie/Margie/Coach Carter's progress so far:

    "Dad has made incredible progress over the last 2 weeks. He has gone from being completely unresponsive with Doctors telling us to be prepared for our Dad not to pull through to a few days later he was able to have his breathing tube taken out and slowly started to wake up. He is now talking a wee bit, but still very confused and doesn't always make sense but this will come with time. He doesn't always know who we are all of the time and is now having to learn all the basics again but he sings and hums along to old songs and the nurses have had him sitting up on a lazy boy chair for a short time some days (when he lets them!). He doesn't like to sit still and trys to get up to walk away so I have no doubt that he will be running around kicking a ball in no time. We are hoping to see him off to Rehab next week in West Auckland and look forward to seeing all of the progress he will make while being there. We are so lucky to still have our Dad with us and will be with him all the way along with his friends and family."

    Thanks again everyone and keep sharing! Xxx

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