Overcoming adversity: Scott Painter's journey from patient to practitioner

When she finished putting the needles in him, I could see that he turned white and he was going to fall off the bench. I grabbed hold of him. I put him on the ground and then everything went wrong. He stopped breathing and then they called us into the office and told us the worst news.

My name is Scott Painter. I'm Gary. I'm Scott's father. And I'm Jan, Scott's mum. Scotty came home from school on the Monday afternoon, got on the tractor and after he got off, he had a sore neck. After a couple of days, I went to the GP. So, he automatically just assumed that I've strained a muscle. So, he gave me some anti-inflammatory cream and some tablets. But when I got home after the appointment, the pain was getting worse and worse and worse. So, my mum had said, "Okay, I'm going to book you an appointment. And you can go to acupuncturist. When they put acupuncture needles in, it draws all the blood to the area. So, it takes all the good blood there and all the bad stuff away. That's what speeds up your healing process. But because the brain tumour was there, and we didn't know there was a brain tumour, it weakened all the surrounding capillaries and arteries in my my brain. So, all the blood went to that weakened area and just exploded. But as your skull is only so big, the pressure that was building up from the blood started shutting down parts of my brain. And that's why I went into a coma. Everything, wasn't it? Everything went wrong. Just everything went wrong. Turns out that after the MRI was taken, they found a brain tumour on the brain stem. And then that night, I don't know why, I said to the nurse, called the nurse over and I said, "Can you have a look at Scotty?" She picked up his arm and it was just like all jelly. They hit the buzzer. Code blue. Code blue. And then they all came in and then they took Gary and I out of the ward and then we heard him say he's not breathing. They said he had to go to theatre. Yeah. They took him down for a 4 and 1/2 hour operation. One lung collapsed. Two lungs collapsed. Urine infection. Golden staph. Three strokes. Well, it's seemed like a nightmare. Yeah. Like it really didn't happen. I can remember sitting there and he's on life support and pinching myself, is this really happening? You know, am I dreaming this? We were really happy that they got the tumour and everything. It was a size of a 50 cent piece. And you had the three strokes because of where the tumour was. So your brain stem controls all like your autonomic functions like your ability to breathe and your heart rate and your your blood pressure as well. So you can imagine like those little things that we just take for granted getting taken away. After I got out of my coma, I went through a little bit of rehab. So the ability to sit up and once I could sit up, I was put into a wheelchair and I was in a wheelchair for 3 to 4 months. And from there on, I learned how to stand for about 20 seconds. And then after that my balance, yeah, just having to learn how to do everything. So it's pretty much after my injury, like going from childhood again. So as you were born, everything that we learn in those stages of growing up, I had to learn again. One day just waking up being reliant on absolutely everything. It was scary. You feel alone, you feel scared, you don't know what's happening. Thank god that I had a really good support network. During my recovery process, my mother and my family, but mainly my mum was my biggest advocate because with the strokes that my voice box didn't work, so therefore I couldn't talk. When he was in hospital, if anyone said anything to him, he'd go. The rude finger. So, and to this day, he's still going to break down his finger. My mum was my voice. She used to advocate all the time for my best wellbeing. She did everything for me. It was all hard. Yeah. We used to go over to the hospital and everything. I'd hang on to his hand. Yeah. We nearly lost him four times. And then it took him 7 years to come good. So after being in hospital for just nearly a year, I wanted to use my brain 'cause I couldn't use my body 'cause my brain injury happened at when I was 17 years old. So year 11, I didn't finish my high school certificate. So therefore, I was under the age of 21, couldn't get into university 'cause I didn't finish my HSC. So we searched the internet back then and found Southern Cross University offered a PSP program. So preparing for success, which would allow me to get into university because I wasn't a mature age student and I didn't complete my HSC. I didn't have that little bit of paper to get me into all the other universities. But Southern Cross allowed me to get in through this preparing for success program. It just it shaped me to be to get ready for uni and then he finished that and started uni and yeah and he just loved it, man. But he he worked hard. He worked hard, you know, like always studied. And so learning all those skills was what pushed me into wanting to study my bachelor's of exercise science and nutrition followed by my masters after that. Scott Daley Painter.

And then all of a sudden he just decided bang that was it and he just worked his butt off on that. Oh yeah. I couldn't write and I could only just talk but I couldn't talk loud. So couldn't ask questions or stuff with the lectures and that. So he gave me a dictaphone. So the lecturer would start the dictaphone for me and record I would take that home, download the lecture and put it onto an iPod and during my rehab. So while I was doing my rehab, learning how to walk again and talking and everything, I was listening to lectures. I was studying at the same time as doing my rehab. That's all he did, wasn't it Gary? Was exercise and uni. After a brain injury, your perspective on life changes a lot. We take so many things for granted. But it's not until these things are taken away that we realise just how important they are. Like the ability for us to get up in the morning. We see that as a a chore that we got to get up, it's cold, we've got to go to work. Someone with a brain injury sees things on like the other side of the coin. They would love to get out of bed by themselves. They would love to have a job. So they see the good in everything where there's a lot of people out there in the world that don't see the good in everything. His determination, whatever he wanted to do, he did it and he did it good. I had a lot of health professionals tell me that like you will never be able to walk again, eat again. I was told a lot of things I'll never be able to do again because my injury was the same as someone else's injury. They just saw me as them. I just like to prove those people wrong. So that's what made me push through everything and every single day try as hard as I could. So being told I would never be able to eat, talk, walk, uh what that did to me was I just tend to prove people wrong. And yeah, it's just can't can't keep me down. And that's why I work now in neurological rehab to give back to the people that are going through the same journey as what I once did. Oh, they just love him. And he love he loves it. He said to me, he said, "Mum, I've never ever woken up and thought, 'Oh, I've got to go to work.'" He just loves it. He's a hard worker. He gets results. Blokes come in in wheelchairs and everything. He's got him up and, you know, 100%. He got one guy up to walk for his wedding. Yeah. Yep. Up the aisle. And it's funny, he's telling me one day that he was doing exercise with someone and this guy had had a stroke. Anyway, um and Scott said, "Oh, we'll do this da da da," you know, and he couldn't do it. This guy couldn't do it. And then Scott said, "Oh, we'll try it this way." This guy said, "I've had a stroke." And Scott said, "Well, I've had three." Yeah. He um realised what it's like to be on the other side. And I think that's why he works so hard with his recovery and also with with his patients now. But having that dual perspective of being a patient and now being a practitioner. So knowing what clients are going through, you don't know exactly what they're going through because everyone's different. But having that bit of knowledge about what they're more than likely going through, it makes me like a rare practitioner. And that's why I work now in neurological rehab to give back to the people that are going through the same journey as what I once did. Yeah, I love it. But he's really happy now. He's got a nice home and he's got the best job, you know, loves his job and he's got a lovely wife now. Yeah. Yeah. And a little bub. If it wasn't through Southern Cross University and that prepare me to be who I am today, I wouldn't be doing what I love. My name is Scott Painter. I'm the head clinical exercise physiologist at Headway ABI Australia on the Gold Coast. I run what's called the WIN Centre which is a neurological rehabilitation centre. I've been working here for the past 8 years. I studied my bachelors degree in exercise science and nutrition followed by my masters degree in clinical exercise physiology at Southern Cross University.