Constance Hall has opened up about her relationship with husband, Denim Cook, sharing that following his motorbike accident in 2020, their relationship has shifted.
"He just completely checked out of life after the accident," she said in a video posted to her social media pages on Tuesday.
"I think when he woke up from the accident, I was very excited. And there was this sort of false [hope]," she continued.
"I spoke to the doctors, and they [said] Dennis doesn't have motivation anymore. The frontal lobe damage has taken any of that away that he might have had before."
Watch: Constance Hall's 2019 TED Talk. Post continues below.
In August 2020, Denim was riding with a friend when he came off his motorcycle and was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries.
The accident left him with a broken back in four places, seven broken ribs, a broken shoulder and foot, two punctured lungs, and two brain injuries. Mercifully, his spinal cord was undamaged.
Once in hospital, Denim was put in a coma. At first, doctors gave the family a "fairly okay" prognosis, given the circumstances.
"They said, 'There's two brain injuries, he's broken his back in four places but the spine looks intact, you're definitely not going to be going home for a couple of weeks - put it that way,'" Constance previously told Mamamia's No Filter.
But the following day, a doctor gave Constance a harsh reality check.
"He looked at me and goes 'I'm sorry, I think you might have the wrong idea about your husband's accident. You're very naïve to think you're going to see him or speak to him again. He's had a very serious accident, he's got two brain injuries. A metal plate, Constance, is drilled into his head. We don't do that for a mild injury,'" Constance recalled.
"I was like, 'What do you mean?' He was like, 'The chances of you ever speaking to your husband again are very mild. If he wakes up, chances are he'll be severely brain damaged.'"
In the end, Denim recovered rapidly, though he now lives with a traumatic brain injury and adynamia, one of the most common side effects following a TBI.
For more from Constance's chat with Mia Freedman, listen to No Filter. Post continues after audio.
It means lack of motivation initiation, where a person may show decreased or lost drive, and have difficulty planning and carrying out activities.
"His psychiatrist said really recently, and it was really clever, 'He loves you. He loves his family. He needs to work for you rather than just getting you and all the things you do and provide... and that's not gonna happen unless he's removed from the family home,'" Constance shared in her recent video.
"So we were looking at assisted care facilities for a few nights away... and I was just feeling really bad for him. He was just sort of wasting away to a shell of a man."
She explained that while living together, she was becoming impatient and "not nice" to him.
"I'm not a mean person. [And I was thinking] what the f**k am I becoming?"
So, Denim went to stay with his best friend in Esperance, which is a 10-hour drive away from Constance's home in Margaret River.
"I spoke to him the next day, and there was just this light in his face... like he was just his old self again. He was clear. He was awake and alive and around lovely people," Constance explained.
Soon after, Constance went to visit her husband.
"I started looking at him with empathy and compassion and desire again, instead of irritation and overwhelm," she shared.
"Relationships are the first thing to go when life gets f**ked and if these people hadn’t stepped in and helped me, we would have been screwed," she added.
"So anyway, he's still in Esperance, obviously. But he'll come back when we figure out something better. And in the meantime, no one ever said it was going to be easy."
Constance and Denim married in January 2018 in Cowaramup, north of the Margaret River.
The couple shares seven children: Billie-Violet, Arlo Love, and twins Rumi and Snow from Constance's previous marriage, sons Zeyke and Sunny from Denim's previous marriage, and their toddler son, Raja.
Feature Image: Instagram / @mrsconstancehall.
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