A personal story: Elizabeth Ambrose

The Queensland Brain Injury Collaborative (QBIC) speaks to Elizabeth Ambrose about her experience with acquired brain injury.

A precocious child who read college-level literature for fun and had dreams of being a paediatric neurologist, Elizabeth Ambrose suffered seizures from the age of five, sometimes losing consciousness. By age 10 she had seemingly outgrown them, and on her neurologist’s recommendation stopped her medication. For two years she was fine.

Then, at age 12, her life changed.

Waiting to be picked up after a dance class, Elizabeth now thinks she must have had a seizure, causing her to walk off a flight of metal stairs (she has no memory of what happened, and nobody saw it unfold). She was rushed to a nearby intensive care unit in a coma with a traumatic brain injury severe enough for a priest to visit and read her last rites. But her condition improved, and after a month in hospital she was discharged. Just two days later, she had a massive tonic-clonic seizure – something she had never experienced prior to her injury – and was back in hospital. Today, she still takes medications to prevent these seizures.

A meaningful purpose

Elizabeth has recovered well and sees herself as more fortunate than others. Still, she admits to struggles with some cognitive tasks like pattern recognition and number manipulation, and she remembers opening a textbook in high school and – for the first time in her life – not being able to make any sense of it. While these changes don’t define who Elizabeth is, there is no question they’ve shaped the trajectory of her life. 

Now trained as a special education teacher, she works as an educational interpreter for deaf and hard of hearing children. She also volunteers at the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, giving yoga classes to inpatients who seek physical activity, socialisation, and inspiration through their interactions with someone who has travelled their journey. 

Elizabeth is also undertaking a Masters in Public Health. Working with Dr Kim-Huong Nguyen at The University of Queensland, she is planning a scoping review focused on long-term outcomes of adolescents who experience a brain injury. “Sometimes I’m speaking to a doctor or specialist – a paediatric neurologist maybe – and I think ‘That was meant to be me’. But equally I can feel like things worked out for the best. Whether it’s through research, advocacy, social support or some other way, I feel a revived sense of purpose talking to and helping people living with brain injury.”