Posted on December 31, 2025

I live in Norfolk, a beautiful corner of the United Kingdom where the land opens wide and the sky has room to breathe. Norfolk is a county known for the Broads, for its long coastline and quiet beaches, and for those great open skies that teach a man to look up and measure his days by light and weather. It is a place that does not rush you, a place that asks you to stand still and listen.

Despite the weight I carried from military service and the long shadow of PTSD, and despite a relatively new diagnosis of fibromyalgia, life was good. I lived simply and happily with my wife and our three children. We were rooted in routine, laughter, and the small honest moments that make a family whole. I believed I knew the shape of my life, and I was content to walk its line.

In October 2023, without warning, I collapsed at home. One moment I was steady on familiar ground, the next I was gone. I was rushed to hospital, where doctors diagnosed Functional Neurological Disorder, linking it to my PTSD. During testing they also found a brain aneurysm. I was told it was stable and required no intervention. Those words sounded final, like a gate closed and bolted.

I remained in hospital until March 2024, when I was transferred to a neurological rehabilitation centre.

While there, receiving intensive treatment for FND, the supposedly stable aneurysm ruptured on 3 April 2024. It gave way without mercy. I fell into a coma for four weeks, fighting for my life in ways I cannot remember. Doctors warned my wife they did not believe I would survive. She stood watch while the days stretched long and quiet, like cattle drifting across a distant ridge.

Against the odds, I lived.

In September 2024, eleven months after collapsing at home, I was finally discharged. I returned to a life changed beyond recognition. My body no longer followed orders. My future no longer came with maps. I soon learned that surviving was only the first stretch of a much longer trail.

My fight for care had only just begun.

Every referral to outpatient services ended the same way. I was told I was too complex. Nothing more could be done. This became the rhythm of 2025. After exhausting every avenue with the NHS, I was handed over to adult social services. The care package they offered was better suited to the twilight years than to a father of three in his fifties, a man still trying to find his place and purpose in a world now navigated on wheels.

In desperation, I turned to my Member of Parliament, who proved to be of little practical use.

There were days when the noise in my head grew loud, when dark thoughts circled like birds waiting for a fall, telling me to lay down and be done with it. If it had not been for the steady, unwavering support of the Royal British Legion, I might well have listened. They stood beside me without fuss or fanfare, like a fence line holding firm in bad weather.

Because of them, I stayed.

I did not give in. Instead, I found a way forward. I managed to recruit a personal assistant to help with my care and with the hard graft of day to day living. That moment felt like a Christmas miracle. It carried me to the end of 2025 with something I had not felt in a long time.

Hope.

Hope, I have learned, is not loud. It does not shout or promise easy roads. It shows up quietly and asks if you are willing to try again tomorrow.

As the new year approaches, I am setting my sights on rebuilding my life, not just in body, but in purpose. Part of that work will be growing and expanding the Dusty Wentworth brand. This is not about noise or vanity. It is about voice, reach, and honest conversation.

In the year ahead, I plan to launch new projects, including a YouTube channel, @DustyWentworthTalks, which will be one of several ways I intend to speak plainly about masculinity, injury, recovery, and the realities too often ignored.

Alongside this, I remain focused on growing the blog.

Since establishing it in May 2025, the blog has seen consistent month on month growth of seven per cent and is now read across all seven continents. That tells me there are people out there listening, people who recognise parts of their own story in these words.

I intend to build on that momentum, steadily and honestly, to reach many more people. Not by rushing. Not by chasing trends. But by staying true to the trail I am on and the truths I have earned the hard way.

If this has resonated with you, please share it and follow my blog and social media as I continue on my recovery journey.