"speech therapy assessment after head injury"

At the end of March this year my horse fell with me on a road near home and even though I was wearing a protective hat I ended up, amongst others, with 4 head fractures and two brain bleeds.

I was in hospital for 4 weeks and even though I apparently communicated to some degree I am unable to remember anything about the first two weeks out of the 4.

I woke up with my tongue having a strange feeling on the right side and the right side of my lip feeling a bit weak and having tingling, presumably from the right sided head fracture that I sustained in the fall. Also people reported that when I became tired I started to slur my speech, something that I did not notice when it happened but generally I went to bed early when I felt tired in the evenings.

I was discharged back home with residual problems of dizziness and slightly impaired balance from this but I managed to look after my animals right from the start and together with my husband take my dog for walks almost daily.

I was booked in with a physiotherapist a few times who treated my dizziness and after about 4 weeks a speech therapist and her student came for an assessment, I think because my slurred speech was mentioned.

It took two weeks from the point the appointment was made for her to come and I think I had improved more during that time. She did not make a formal assessment but had a long chat with me during which she also had a look at my lateral tongue movement which was a bit slow. Thankfully she found me completely clear and intelligible and didn't think that I had any language problems, so apart from an offer to get in touch if  I have problems and the advice that speaking is the best exercise for my speech muscles, nothing else is needed as far as she is concerned. She was very professional.