When Manon Skyrme woke up in a hospital bed unable to walk, talk or eat, she had no memory of the horrendous incident that had put her there.
Doctors had to inform the mum-of-three that she had fallen out of a bedroom window at her Cardiff home and landed on the hard concrete below.
As a consequence, she had been in a coma for the past five weeks and had suffered .
"To this day I don't know how or why it happened," said the 49-year-old.
"I also lost all memory of anything that happened about five or six weeks before the fall."
Manon was taken to the (UHW) in Cardiff in April 2017 where she was put in intensive care.
"The only time I have ever been in hospital before was to have a baby - and when I first woke up [from the coma] I thought 'oh no, not another one'," she joked.
"I was tube fed and I'd fractured my pelvis too, so I was basically in bed not able to do anything."
After spending a further month in UHW after she had woken up, Manon was transferred to in Llandaff where her rehabilitation began.
The Rhiwbina resident, originally from Caernarfon, said a lot of the things we take for granted became completely alien to her.
"Not being able to do things in the way that I was used to doing them [before the fall] was very hard," she said.
"I was left trying to rebuild my life and learn things all over again. I had to relearn to walk and relearn how to remember things.
"I still have better memory of things way in the past than I do things that happened yesterday. It's still a matter or retuning and rewiring my brain."
While she was confined to her hospital bed, Manon became a lover of origami and would fold any paper she could get her hands on.
"My children came to see me every day, and my daughter said 'this paper here is going to waste in the house, you might as well have it'. So I started folding paper and it's become my obsession."
Through her new-found love of art, Manon was told about the Silver Sketcher art workshops at Insole Court, Llandaff , which are run by Beth Morris and funded by brain injury charity Silverlining.
She said the other members of the group have become like family to her.
"Art was never on my radar before I suffered the brain injury, but the group has opened up a whole new range of possibilities," added Manon, who has been forced to retire.
"I am proud of how far I have come, but I have accept that things will never be the same as they were before. Nevertheless, there is still a future."
A special exhibition is bring held at Hearth Gallery at University Hospital Llandough, running until 8pm on Thursday, November 28, which showcases the artwork of the Silver Sketchers.
To find out more about Cardiff and Vale University Health Board's Arts in Health exhibitions either look for @artsforhealthandwellbeing on Instagram, go to www.cardiffandvale.art , or email molly.lewis3@wales.nhs.uk
For more information on the Beth Morris Workshops email info@bethmorrisworkshops.co.uk or go to her Facebook page.
