Thomas Ferreira won’t let adversity get him down… especially with home on the horizon
|||A staff member enters Thomas Ferreira’s room. “Thomas the journalists from The Star are here to see you.” A loud yelp carries down the corridor. “Oh s***!”
“Thomas you don’t need to worry about what you are wearing, you look fine,” the staff member reassures him.
But Thomas puts on a bright green T-shirt.
He is still gelling his hair when we enter. He smiles a huge smile.
“I’m so excited you are here,” he says, instantly welcoming strangers into his rehab room.
This social awareness from the 19-year-old brain-damage victim is a very good sign, explains Ida Geldenhuys, the unit’s therapy manager.
Two months ago when Thomas arrived at the Riverfield Lodge Rehabilitation Centre he couldn’t eat or speak. His functionality was zero. Now he is starting to notice social norms. He is remembering to brush his teeth and is getting his appetite back.
Thomas’s room is plain. But on one wall bright photos, memories of his life before the accident, are printed on A4 pieces of paper. Thomas staring out over a green valley before abseiling. Granny and Grandpa sitting on plastic chairs. Thomas and his girlfriend smiling in various poses.
All prepared for him by his mother, Priscilla.
Thomas smiles widely when he says his mom has visited every day over the last four months. She is coming today at 5pm, he tells us.
He phones throughout the day to ask again what time she is coming, sometimes from as early as 5am.
On November 2 last year, Thomas was riding his motorbike to his girlfriend’s house when he was hit by a blue-light vehicle carrying Gauteng Local Government and Housing MEC Humphrey Mmemezi.
Witnesses allege that the car jumped a red light. At the time, Premier Nomvula Mokonyane publicly promised to cover the medical bills of the teenager, but so far the family has not seen any money.
“We want the premier to keep her promise,” says Priscilla Ferreira. “(The accident) did change our life.”
Thomas had been going to various companies over the school holidays.
He hadn’t made a final decision, but it’s likely he would have begun an apprenticeship at an engineering design company that was impressed with him when he went there.
Now despite his enormous improvement, better than the predicted diagnosis, Thomas still needs constant supervision. He can’t follow conversations. He is easily distracted and his short-term memory is bad.
Thomas’s doctor Krzysztof Mon pauses before replying to a question of whether Thomas would ever return to school.
“It’s not fair to Thomas to put expectations on his prognosis,” he says. “He has done so well, we wouldn’t want to damage him now.”
Only after two years, when recovery from a brain injury is believed to halt, will Thomas’s final prognosis be known.
“One shouldn’t be so proud of the brain,” says Mon.
He fishes around in his desk, retrieving an oval highlighter.
“This is the size of what we are; when this is gone, there is no person,” he says, referring to the frontal lobe of the brain which controls personality.
Mon has limited Thomas’s visitors to close friends and family. He is very cautious of outsiders putting their expectations on to Thomas and says the stigma around brain injuries often leads to victims being rejected.
“People don’t know what to expect so they feel it’s better to keep apart.”
Sufferers become lonely and their behaviour more odd as they are excluded from social situations.
Mon’s academic stance on Thomas stands in contrast to his parents’ emotional one.
But he shows a guarded affection when he tries to teach Thomas to read “optimal social integration” off a poster.
The phrase is the basis of what the rehab centre aims for with their patients.
Life at rehab is ultimately an artificial one; a protected environment for recovery.
For Thomas to improve further and begin relearning the behaviour expected from him by society, he must go home. “He will need to learn in a natural environment and adjust his behaviour,” says Mon.
Because of his parents’ keen involvement and Thomas’s social nature, Mon believes he has a good chance for reintegration.
But he warns that Thomas’s discharge, scheduled for just under two weeks’ time, will bring about a harsh reality.
This past weekend Thomas spent his first night at home since the accident, the house in which the family has been living since before he was born.
Thomas was always an active child, shooting his first kudu at age 12.
When he was home he grabbed his abseiling ropes, telling his family he was off to abseil.
His parents had to explain to him that he couldn’t go abseiling just yet; nowadays he needs to be watched constantly.
The Ferreiras are positive but understand the gravity of the situation.
“Initially we were very angry, but he has improved better than expected,” says his father, Paul. “Now it is going to be a long road.”
“He has changed a lot. (Brain injury victims) definitely have a personality change,” says his mom.
Before Thomas could sleep through any racket, now he needs perfect silence to sleep.
He can’t watch television because the bright light gives him a headache. He can’t spend long periods in the sun. He needs to sleep a lot.
Although Thomas has maintained his upbeat, cheerful personality, his psychologist Sophia Combrink says that as he begins to improve, he will have more moments of sadness or anxiety as he realises he can’t do things, or is confused in new situations.
But an increase in emotions is also a good sign.
“At first he was flat – he was the same all the time. Now he is experiencing different things,” says Combrink.
If we had visited Thomas two months ago, we would not have recognised the patient now. He was then barely conscious, hardly recognisable compared to the loveable, enthusiastic young man he is today.
“If you saw Thomas again in a month, I’d like to think you also wouldn’t recognise him, he will have improved that much,” says Mon with a smile.
The Ferreira family thanks everyone who has contributed to the Thomas Ferreira Trust Fund and all the groups that have given their support. - The Star