Shapes Of Grief

Eight years ago, Gretta Manners had a full time career in teaching and was a busy (and exhausted) mother of three young children; Hazel, 4, Maria, 2 and Tadhg, 6 months. She began to feel unwell and eventually went to the Emergency Dept. of her local hospital to find out what was wrong with her. It would be almost a year before Gretta got home again. What followed was months in hospital due to a rapid onset brain injury of unknown cause. Gretta lost her ability to talk, to walk, to determine the difference between her conscious and sleeping mind. She was plagued with a ‘ticker tape’ of nightmares and felt like she had ‘gone mad’. An encounter with a trial drug, along with a dedicated consultant (Prof. Tubridy), meant that Gretta’s deteriorating condition was thankfully stopped in its tracks and she would be able to start to slowly rebuild the broken brain connections, needing to learn to walk and talk all over again. The dedication of her family who didn’t leave her side during all of those institutionalised