The routine was always the same. Ian Kelly woke up every morning, had breakfast and walked over to The Square in Tallaght. He would stop at the cinema, go inside, buy Coke and popcorn, and then sit down to see a movie.
“After the movie, I went home and ate my lunch,” he told the Irish independent.
“Then I went back to the cinema, watched the same movie again, went back and had my dinner and watched the same movie again. I watched the same movie three times a day and didn’t remember it. The next morning I got up and did the same thing again. Every day.”
Mr Kelly, now 47, speaks about the short-term memory loss he suffered more than 10 years ago after losing control of his type 1 diabetes and suffering an acquired brain injury.
“I drank too much alcohol,” he says. “Basically, it almost killed me.”
His story begins in South Africa, where he spent much of his childhood. There, at the age of 16, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a chronic condition that affects more than 5 percent of the Irish population.
His mother was a nurse and he immediately saw the impact his diagnosis had on his family. “It affected the people around me more than I did at first,” he said. “They were all more concerned about my health than I was.”
Mr Kelly and his family returned to Ireland at the age of 21 and settled again in Dublin. He started working as a cook at the Shelbourne Hotel and studied civil engineering. Unfortunately, his mother died when he was just 24, leaving him as the guardian of his youngest sister, who was only seven.
The pressures of working, studying part-time, and being a full-time guardian became too much for Mr. Kelly. His older brother soon jumped in to take care of her sister.
“That was a relief,” he said. “But it also meant that I was now living alone in a three bedroom house with no one to talk to.
“I worked hard for the next seven years and, with the support of my employer, completed my degree in civil engineering. It was a tough time and I was lonely. I drank too much and didn’t take care of myself. “
He also did not take his insulin injections as directed and his health took a back seat as a result.
“My life collapsed when I was only 33,” he said.
Mr. Kelly was admitted to Tallaght Hospital with ketoacidosis (a serious illness caused by the buildup of ketones in the blood due to insufficient insulin), had to be resuscitated and then was in a coma.
The resulting brain injury had a huge impact on his life and meant he had to relearn how to do basic daily chores like cooking and driving buses.
The road to recovery was long and after three months at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, he returned to Tallaght Hospital due to a lack of available sheltered accommodation. He spent 18 months there before moving to a retirement home. He was only 35.
“All I had was a bed and a locker for me for five years (in the nursing home),” he said. “I lived with people who were much older than me and I had no independence or privacy. I was 35 but I had no choice, I just had to live with it. I was on a ward with four other people. “
In 2014, Acquired Brain Injury Ireland (ABII) began working with Mr Kelly, helping him move into specialized residential rehabilitation services. For him, the role that ABII played in getting his life back cannot be underestimated.
“The time I spent at Acquired Brain Injury Ireland’s home has changed my life. The staff were brilliant and the support I received was out of this world. The team worked with me on a rehabilitation plan. I was involved in my goals every step of the way. I felt respected. “
The final obstacle to living independently was learning to control your diabetes.
“Given my memory problems, I would inject myself and instantly forget that I injected myself,” he said.
“That was an important focus of my rehabilitation, because too much insulin is very dangerous for me. I’ve worked hard to develop skills and strategies to overcome this barrier. I was introduced to using the Freestyle Libre System, which I still use today, to manage my diabetes on my own. “
Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring System enables people with diabetes to monitor their blood sugar levels anywhere, anytime, by wearing a sensor on the back of their upper arm. This eliminates the need for routine finger prick tests.
Ian recently celebrated two years in his own home. He visited his brother in France, which would have been unimaginable before.
“I am very happy now,” he said.
