'We moved to France to start a new life. Instead, my husband lost a third of his skull and is now brain damaged': Mother-of-four's battle to rebuild her family life after tragedy

In 2011, when her husband Alex suffered a massive brain injury playing rugby, Tamsyn Wood’s life changed for ever. She tells Karen Kay about her battle to look after Alex at home, and to reunite their family

Tamsyn and Alex with their children, from left, Monty, Esmie, Mitzi and Lola (behind)

In 2006, when her third baby Mitzi was just six weeks old, Tamsyn Wood packed three suitcases and a cot, and moved from England to live the life she and her husband Alex dreamed of in rural France.
They bundled Mitzi, their three-year-old son Monty and one-year-old Lola into the back of the car and drove to Les Landes, on the southwest coast, where Alex had spent his childhood holidays.
Neither of them spoke French, but with impetuous optimism, they embraced the challenge of setting
up home, while Alex launched a business selling surfboards online and working as a personal trainer.
It was an impulsive decision, like many others that the couple had taken in their lives: 13 years ago, when Alex, then 21, had asked Tamsyn, a 22-year-old psychology graduate, out for a drink, she never returned home. Four days later, she accepted his proposal of marriage, and within 18 months they were celebrating the birth of their first child.
‘From the word go, we had a shared vision of how our life could be,’ recalls Tamsyn. ‘He rescued me from years of struggling with eating disorders; he was my protector, my provider, my companion. He picked me up at the end of the day and wrapped his big strong arms around me. We believed we could do anything, and soon after Mitzi was born, Alex said to me, “If we don’t move now, we never will.”’

 ‘I am grieving for the man I married, but I love the man he is now’

The couple decided to give their young family the seaside lifestyle they dreamed of. Every day was a mix of simple pleasures and the hand-to-mouth existence of trying to be self-sufficient.
Tamsyn began training to teach English, and started blogging about her life under the guise of Anecdotes of a Manic Mum. ‘We grew our own vegetables and were surrounded by dogs, cats and chickens, living the good life.
We wanted the children to be free to roam outdoors. By the time Esmie came along a couple of years after moving to France, we were blissfully settled.’
But the jolly pandemonium was shattered one bright autumn evening in a cruel accident that was
to test Tamsyn’s cheerful, can-do demeanour to the limit.

Alex and Tamsyn with Monty on their wedding day in Whitby, 2004

On 4 October 2011, Alex – who’d once played rugby for Saracens – grabbed his bicycle and headed off to the local rugby club to train with his French friends. That night, after the children were tucked up in bed, Alex came home and needed help getting into bed. ‘He was clutching his skull, saying, “My head, my head,”’ recalls Tamsyn. ‘He appeared to be confused and started vomiting.’
After a sleepless night for both of them, Tamsyn called a local doctor to the house. He diagnosed a chest infection, advising her to ensure Alex stayed in bed for a day or two, and to give him plenty of fluids.
‘It didn’t feel right,’ says Tamsyn, her eyes filling with tears. ‘But you don’t challenge doctors
in France; it’s simply not done to doubt their judgment. But by Thursday morning, I felt I had to follow my instincts and get Alex to hospital.’
As Tamsyn explained her husband’s symptoms to the medical staff, his own recollection of events began to surface. Alex described how he’d been knocked on the head by someone’s knee in a rugby scrum. He’d thought it painful, but managed to cycle home.
An MRI scan revealed a blood clot, and Alex was admitted to a neurological ward for monitoring. Tamsyn was told that the clot would either be absorbed or it would grow and they would operate.
After five long days, Alex began to deteriorate in the middle of the night and the duty doctor requested an immediate scan.
He called the neurologist at home, who said it would wait until morning. ‘I kept going to the nursing station, pleading with them to do something,’ Tamsyn recalls. ‘But they were adamant that the neurologist had made his decision.’
At 6am on 13 October, Alex suffered a major epileptic fit and a brain haemorrhage. ‘Everyone came rushing into the room, and I was pushed out,’ says Tamsyn. ‘He was whisked away for emergency surgery, where they removed almost a third of his skull.

Alex in 2007 - he ran an online surfboard business

The haemorrhage made his brain swell, crushing the brain stem, causing him to go blind.’
After the operation, Alex was transferred to intensive care, but the following day he suffered a Duret haemorrhage (a bleed in the upper brainstem), and Tamsyn was told to expect the worst. ‘Normally the outcome is fatal, and the doctors said there was no way he was going to make it.
I was told to prepare the children for losing their daddy. They weren’t allowed into the hospital to see him, but I reassured them he was in good hands.
‘Later that day, my sister-in-law drove me down to the beach and I ran into the sea fully clothed. I had Alex’s wedding ring in my hands, and I stood in the sea, pleading with God to save him.’
Alex endured another lengthy procedure in the operating theatre that night, and his doctors were amazed by his recovery over the ensuing weeks.
But he had suffered enormous injuries, and had been in a deep coma. ‘I was determined to keep praying, to believe he would be OK,’ says Tamsyn, with the optimism and faith that have kept her strong over the past 18 months. ‘The smallest things were like miracles. I updated my Facebook status one day to say he’d wiggled a toe. That tiny improvement brought me such joy.’
By February 2012, Tamsyn’s sister Ali, in England, had raised enough money to have Alex airlifted to hospital in the UK, so they could be near her extended family in Oxfordshire.
Towards the end of last year, Alex was moved to the brain injuries unit in a care home, but Tamsyn is determined to find a way to look after him at home, surrounded by the people he loves.
‘The children need their daddy, and I need him too. I am grieving for the man I married, but I still love the man he is now and want to be with him.’

Alex with Monty and Lola in 2005

Alex will never recover his sight, his left arm is withered and he needs a wheelchair. He also requires constant care and ongoing therapies and rehabilitation. He suffered brain damage that leaves him unable to form short-term memories. ‘He has recognition memory, rather than recall,’ explains Tamsyn.
‘He recognises the children’s names, but can’t always tell you how many children he has. When they are there, he knows who they are. The children have seen so much in their young lives. It is like a bereavement for us all, and we’ve had to get to know the new Alex. I compensate for what they have lost by thinking of what they will gain: they will be strong, tolerant, compassionate human beings as a result of this.’
Tamsyn has helped the children to keep scrapbooks detailing their thoughts and feelings. They stick in textured things, such as pasta and feathers, so Alex can touch and feel them. Monty has taken events the hardest, as the eldest child, ‘who knew his daddy how he once was.
Occasionally he gets very angry and frustrated. I think perhaps Esmie just accepts our situation for what it is, because she doesn’t know any different, and that makes me sad, too.’
There is now a hospital bed in the living room of Tamsyn’s council accommodation, so that Alex can come home for overnight stays, with the help of a carer. ‘The children love it when their daddy is home.

Alex partying in France, 2010

They climb all over him, and tell him stories, and sing him songs. Esmie sits in his lap and uses her face paints on him. I just want us to be as much of a normal family as we can be.
He has a big serene grin on his face and I can see he is stronger with us. He begs me not to send him back to the home; brilliant as they are there, he wants to be with us. I know he feels safe when he hears familiar voices.’
The family lost their income when Alex was injured, and are now dependent on benefits and the support of family and friends. Tamsyn is remarkably devoid of self-pity and conducts her turbulent life with strength and good humour, bundling the children off to school, then making the two-hour round trip to spend time with Alex in the care home, before settling down for homework, tea, bath and bedtime.
After lights out, she spends her evenings dealing with the bureaucracy of a life on benefits, and trying to find a way to persuade the local authority to move her husband back home.
Tamsyn keeps a gratitude journal, giving thanks each day for five things that make her happy. ‘It reminds me of the small blessings: I’ll make a cup of tea, and am grateful for the fact I have clean water and food in my fridge. I don’t want to think about what I don’t have. I can’t afford to go on holidays, but walks in the countryside with my kids are free.’
She also continues to write her blog; it’s an outlet for her frustrations, her determination to reunite her family. Readers have engaged with her ongoing, heartfelt, candid tribute to the man she so dearly loves, and she has garnered emotional support from all corners of the earth.
‘I have private letters to Alex, which I read out loud to him, then I put others on my blog, which are personal but a little less intimate. It can be quite cathartic.
I have moments when I think I can’t go on, but the children and Alex need me, and they are all worth being strong for. I imagine him standing there reassuring me, saying, “Keep going, you have it in you.” He would have faith in me to do what I need to do for the family and would be my biggest cheerleader. That gives me strength now.’
Earlier this year, Tamsyn and her friends organised a fundraising ball at the local football club. ‘My friends supported Alex so that we could dance together to Stevie Wonder, which was played at our wedding. It was incredible and very emotional, and made me even more determined to have him home permanently.
We raised over £12,000, which has been paying for me to be able to have Alex in the house, with a carer, at weekends, but the money is running out. It’s not a sprint, this is a marathon, and every step of the journey is worth it. I will get him home. It is where he belongs.’ 
Tamsyn is raising money through the Making Waves for Alex campaign, to continue his rehabilitation,
and fund the conversion of their house so that he can live at home with her and the children, with
the help of a carer: makingwavesforalex.co.uk

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