Hey peeps!

Have anyone heard of Mr Takalah Tan? I meet him during the suntec road show this weekend while working for Singapore poolz. He is one of the exhibitor there too. He came to our booth and support us by signing up an account for us and after much chatting he did remind us how precious life is and we should learn to appreciate it greatly.

Then he told Karenn and I about his life story. He "die" once after the tragic accident in 1994. He was on his bike and when the accident happen his helmet flew off resulting him to crash on his face. He lost his memory, broke his leg, sunken his face and had to go through a whole series of operation to recover his look. Regardless of this accident, he didn't give up his life but instead used 5 years to learn writing and language all over again. He is now a professor and a great motivational speaker for many others. He is one great guy I should say and I almost cried when he told me about his story. I manage to track back some news about him and I certainly believe its worth to read so I'm sharing here. Do take some time to read thru and I'm sure you all would be motivated by him. Do learn to treasure and appreciate everything in life everyone (:

Takalah was a fit athlete. He read a great deal and has noticed that many of the successful people in the world attained their distinguished status through endurance and continuous hard work.

Takalah Tan participating in a 100 Kilometer Triathlon

Takalah Tan was born an asthmatic. When young, he often experiences breathing difficulty. Looking on the bright side, this weakness has kept Takalah lean.
He chose not to just live with it. In his quest to becoming fit, Takalah reads profusely and actively involve self in physical exercises. Whilst in College, he joined its swim team and cross country race team.

He personally participated in endurance sports events such as the marathon as well as triathlon.

Expedition leader to the summit of Mount Kinabalu, East Malaysia.

Being a nature lover with lots of endurance capability, Takalah actively participates in a diverse range of outdoor activities. He scuba dives, do rock climbing and jungle trekking.

Takalah’s immense love for thrill sees him participate in parachuting as well as bungee jumping.

He is a camping and hiking enthusiast. He enjoys challenging sports. He likes to be ‘on the edge’. These short moments of thrill may satiate him temporally but sure thrilling and exciting but they sure brings much worries to his close ones who are concerned for his safety.

An Officer & A Gentleman

Takalah Tan was recruited to serve his National Service in the Commando Battalion. He worked hard and excelled in the Commando Camp’s Basic Military Training. He was thereafter selected for the Section Leader Course.

Excellent performance saw Takalah Tan short-listed to undergo Officer Cadet Training at the Officer Cadet School in Singapore Arms Forces Training Institute.

After completing his National Service duration of two and a half years, Takalah proceeded to do Mechanical Engineering Degree at National University of Singapore. It is indisputable at that time for one to state that pursuit for thrill is a integral part of Takalah’s life. The quest for thrill seems not to evade Takalah till 24th May 1994. Takalah encountered a calamity and was plunged into the deepest pit of tragedy.

Takalah Tan clinched a job in a coveted company; where out of seven thousand applicants, only Takalah and another were chosen. As part of the employment terms, he was to be issued a car for mobility purposes. Sadly, just a week before Takalah was to start his career in this coveted Multi-National-Company, he met with a tragic motorbike accident.

He never thought riding motorbike is that dangerous but the uncalled-for happened. Takalah Tan now knows the truth but it is too late.

Just sent to hospital by an ambulance. In fear of spinal injury, Takalah Tan’s neck was supported by the above orange frame.

Just sent to hospital by a Civil Defence Ambulance. In fear that neck movements may aggravate possible prevailing spinal injury, Takalah Tan’s neck was fixated by the attachment of an orange circumferential frame on it.

The accident broke his right leg, dislocated his left shoulder, blinded his left eye, tore away his left-nose, broke his skull (liquid around his brain leaked dry) and had blood clots in his brain which resulted in brain injury.

His tragedy prompted his dad to postpone his heart-bypass operation. Just two weeks before Takalah discharged from NUH, his dad was struck by a fatal cardiac seizure. Upon regaining his consciousness, conscience prick the brain injured Takalah to feel accountable for his dad’s death.

Having been the primary cause for such a great sense of hopeless despair in his family, Takalah had little to fend himself with when the family members harshly scolded him for not following their instructions prescribed during the process of his recovery. The strict treatment and negative feedbacks aplenty from loved ones and peers indeed saddened and disturbed Takalah.

To make matters worse, Takalah was thrown into solitude. Due to his brain injury, Takalah could not remember his associative relationship with the many who visits him to care for him. The infliction of permanent amnesia on Takalah has greatly widened the rift between Takalah and peers.

Takalah Tan’s memory recall and retention handicap has resulted in his loss of close relationships with many friends. His good chemistry with close-ones has been badly corrupted by Post Traumatic Brain Injury handicaps.

Takalah required multiple reconstruction surgeries: “Talk about ‘The Ugly Look!’ What about me? Where do I stand?” Takalah Tan queries…

The accident smashed Takalah Tan’s face. His face becomes sunken. As the ‘fatty’ cushion behind each eye has been greatly depleted by the cranial - maxilla facial fracture, his two eyeballs have descended into their respective sockets. This has given Takalah the ‘sunken-eye’ look. His teeth set-up has been badly damaged and misaligned.

- He required a neural-pressure-relieve attachment on his skull
- He underwent major dental-realignment
- His shortened right-shin underwent elongation of 1.5 inches
- His crania-facial deformity was corrected in 7 surgeries
- Part of his left-ear was transplanted onto his torn-off left-nostril
- The misalignment of his eyeballs were to a certain extent corrected, via the detachment and reorientation of his eye sockets
- His left blocked-Eustachian tube have to be relieved and more!

Should conflicts do arise, Takalah will often avoid escalating the prevailing disagreement by not responding in a defensive manner. To help allow the turbulence to subside, he often strategically adopts sensible detachment measures. This delay tactic gives the conflict initiator ample time to reconcile within self the matter of concern.

During an occasion when all three of his family members bombarded him with heated words of impatient anguish, Takalah took a look at each of his family member, opened the front gate, and proceeded for a late night stroll. All this happened without him uttering a single word. Takalah strolled around his serene neighbourhood to both calm his own mind and dissipate his inner resentment.

This moment of break-in-contact gave ample time for his family members to do personally do a ‘third-party’ reappraisal of personal enactment. This has helped them reconcile in self the harm of their earlier thoughtless acts. From that night on, Takalah’s family have become more able to appreciate his unique psycho-social disposition and thus accommodate better for his unique disposition.

This above measure has helped provide for Takalah Tan and his family members a much-needed breathing space. It enabled Takalah and his family to look back on the unhappy moments more objectively. This strategy has helped many groups with entities of different standpoint to successfully resolve and reconcile pertinent conflicting issues.

Due to his brain injury and loss of memory, his mindset had become shallow. Takalah mingled better with young children. He was then a child in mind but an adult in body. Takalah’s Post Traumatic Brain Injury body-mind disposition greatly resembles a mismatch in the eyes of the general community.

Due to their level of maturity, Takalah finds himself unable to interact appropriately interact with his friends. This had in many instances made Takalah the odd one out. Takalah frequently receive demoralizing comments that he was always speaking of the same old topic (brain injury) and that it irks them to boredom.

Ostracism imposition on Takalah Tan was rampant. Lack of appropriate regard from relative and peers imposed upon him a challenging yet lonely post-head injury recovery trail. Such negative feedbacks stirred up in Takalah the notion, that his continued presence will be a demerit to the status quo of his family.

Wrought within Takalah then was the painful glimpse that he can only impose a permanent burden, rather than be a contributing member of his family. The negative prevailing environment that enshrouds Takalah and his post-trauma deficits has undoubtedly triggered in innocent him, thoughts of taking his own life.

Fortunately, Takalah Tan had a strong survival will to overcome his brain injury. He disciplined himself to do the following:

i. Perform stretching exercises
ii. Do counter muscle exercises
iii. Take walks (600m – 2km)
iv. Ascend and descend staircase (12 storeys – 2 x 12 storeys)
v. Walked 1km to swimming pool to do hydrodynamic resistance exercises
vi. Once better, though with right leg still shorter than left by 11/2”, he jogged. Takalah started his first post-accident run by tiring out at 600m. Consistent training thereafter helped him in a few month’s time complete 2.4km in 12min. Considering the multitude of constraints Takalah faces, this is indeed admirable.

One day a small poster caught his eye. Displayed was a picture of a lighted beacon in troubled waters. Takalah envisioned himself to resemble the ‘beacon’, one bestowed with the duty to clarify the vision of the community and to light up the supposedly bleak trail threaded by the those living with brain injury.

This vision has gotten him involved in many instances where he related “The Trilogy of Takalah Tan” in brain injury workshops, public forums, school assemblies and ad-hoc events.

After helping his relatives set up a standard administration stratagem for providing courier despatch services, Takalah Tan decided to fulfil his bestowed role to enlighten many. On noticing an advertisment for recruitment of teachers with working experiences, he applied for the Post-Graduate Diploma in Education. Despite the stringent criteria and his brain injury status, he gained acceptance for the course.

Takalah Tan, Before, Then and Now.

After having walked through the treacherous road of recovery, Takalah Tan learnt that Brain Injury Survivors live an “Out Of This World” form of life.

Family members, friends, or colleagues cannot adequately understand and sympathize with their dilemma, predicament and imposed deficiencies. Without strong determination and the will to fight on, Brain Injury people can make themselves feel that they live a lonely and meaningless life with a bleak future forthcoming.

Takalah Tan is indeed an inspirational person. He volunteers as a speaker at Brain Injury public forums. He is the elected President of Brain Injury Society of Singapore. He has left his previous vocation as a school teacher to further his studies in brain injury related disciplines at the Health science faculty of La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Takalah Tan with his mom

Despite being challenged by the infliction of permanent amnesia, Takalah Tan is now doing a Master of Public Health with respect to Brain Injury. Life is not exactly a rose for him.

His family is stretched financially just to support his school fees. But he is happy and believes in his calling. He has also found helpful friends in Australia.

Takalah is currently setting up a website to help the brain injured people at www.braininjurymatters.com

Imagine how much effort he have put in to gain back everything and even doing better now than ever? He been through what I believe the toughest things that none of us have been thru and he can made it this far so why can't the rest? If you never gonna try you would never know that you can do it and maybe even better! Think of him and think about yourself, believe that you can made it great one day just like Takalah (:

I was pretty amaze that He can speak fluent Chinese, Hokkien, Cantonese and even Japanese! And all this He learn all this from scratch after the accident lor!