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Rhiannon Buckley is an East Midlands-based creative. Trained as an actor over 20 years ago, she has since worked professionally in theatre, education and healthcare both nationally and internationally. She is a big believer in stories of all kinds and has a passion for poetry, hip-hop, film and dog walks.
In 2010 she survived a catastrophic brain injury which took her to the brink of death. A Mind Blown is her honest memoir of this journey and is her first book.
You can connect with Rhiannon through Instagram @rhiannonbuckleyauthor, by following her Facebook page Rhiannon Buckley Author or by visiting her website here.
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In a single second, everything can change. At 28, the author is thrown into a waking nightmare when an aneurysm at the centre of her brain ruptures. Initially dismissed as a migraine by the doctors, she lives ten "ordinary" days with an undiagnosed haemorrhage, her body slowly disconnecting from the world as her brain disconnects from her body. When help finally arrives she is so far gone that the hospital advises her to say goodbye. She can feel she is fading away – but what she doesn’t know is that the real work is just beginning.
Join the author on a rare and surprisingly witty adventure of survival, alongside her dying brain as it attempts to outsmart a shape-shifting bear, orders a Buddhist monk and tries to reattach to a life it once knew.
This is the remarkable story of one woman’s fight against acute neurological deterioration and her unexpected journey to find herself on the other side.
You can read more about A Mind Blown on the author's website here. Below, you can read a short extract from the memoir.
Steps transforming into steps are moments trapped in time. I have no concept of how far we have to go or what’ll happen once we get inside but I know this is it. It's not a feeling, or a sensation, or even a thought but something more basic stripped back and bare. I cannot keep going. Each time I return from the darkness I have less strength and so this is it.
"Here, lean back, there's a chair behind you."
I try to pull myself away from Alex's body but I can’t hold myself up. My head scrapes across his chest and falls forward. I hear a voice and know that we must be inside the A&E department. Salt stings the back of my throat. Every second I’m upright is a second lived in flames. With Alex's arm curled around my waist, he tries again to lower me into the chair but we don’t get very far before he has to straighten up again. I’m desperate to lie down. Adding equal weight to Alex's increased efforts is my growing awareness of the futility of this situation. For the first time since we left the house, I speak.
"Leave me here."
And with that, I loosen my arm and let go. My legs collapse underneath me. Alex, not able to hold my weight, is bent at the middle. Half falling and half being placed, I connect with the floor and roll forwards until my cheek’s soaking up the cool coming from its surface. Alex’s feet slowly back out of my view and I’m left feeling my skin pressed into Lino and wonder how many injured footsteps came before mine.
