Episode 43 - Olive Burgess - Surviving a teenage stroke
I wasn’t sure I could continue with my podcast after my daughter Olive fell critically ill in November. I have struggled to find the point of it for the last couple of months. But with perspective I’ve concluded that the podcast is important to me, a regenerative practice that makes me a better human through the process of making them. So I’m committing to trying to record each week now in year 3(!) and release two a month. To mark this transition is this very personal episode 43, a conversation with my 13 year old daughter Olive Burgess - which took place early January, a couple of weeks after she came home from nearly 7 weeks in Bristol Royal Children’s hospital after emergency brain surgery following a sudden seizure one night in November. In some ways this conversation represents a part of Olive’s and my own sense making and processing of what was a hugely traumatic and terrifying experience, it tries to document what happened that night and the following days and weeks and then focusses in on Olive’s reflections on the whole experience and coming to terms with how this and the cause of it is impacting her life. Ultimately it’s a story of a courageous, determined and very humble teenager dealing with an enormous physical and mental trauma, it’s a story of learning to live with uncertainty and the flipside of that, of trying to be here now, living in the present of everyday. It's a story of the extraordinary NHS humans who treated and cared for her. It also reveals the tremendous power in the love and support of community, family, friends - known and unknown - who emerge, reach out and self organise in times of crisis to hold us through the darkest of times.
I hope you take something from the listen. Peace and Out.
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“The fact that other people were trying to save my life, I can’t give up. I’ve been given a second chance, I can’t stop or not try. It makes you think how precious life is, and really any second, any moment, you can be put at risk, which I was. I was on the edge of living and dying. And I was so grateful to be given a chance again.” - Olive Burgess
Olive Burgess, daughter of host Dan Burgess is a thirteen year old dancer and surfer who loves to cook. However on the evening of 12th of November 2020 she suffered a sudden and major stroke. Listen to Olive speak with great clarity as she reflects upon her life threatening experience:
- Olive’s unexpected seizure, paralysis and emergency ambulance trip
- Five hour brain surgery at Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital
- Regaining consciousness and learning she had a stroke
- Experience of confusion, tiredness, yet no fear
- Deep connections made with nurses, patients and the rehab’ team
- Six weeks of scans, tests and ward rounds
- Unexpected difficulties of returning home with FOMO, frustration and sadness
- Craving her thirteen year old life prior to the stroke
- Living with an AVM condition
- Expressing all the emotions as a form of medicine
- Overwhelming support from family, friends and strangers across the world
- Limitations, fears and invisibility whilst in a wheelchair
- What got Olive through her experience? Percy Pigs and much more.
Special thanks to the NHS, family and friends, old and new, who showed support, love and community to the Burgess family
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Thanks for listening to The Spaceship Earth Podcast
Host: Dan Burgess @dansolo__
Edit: Charlie Shread
Shownotes: Vicki Turner
Music: Escape Goat by Soren Lorenson
Join us on Instagram: @thespaceship.earth
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Links
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/OliveBurgess
https://www.grandappeal.org.uk/
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