In this episode of The Business of Thinking, Richard Reid is joined by speech language pathologist Vanessa Abraham for a conversation that is deeply moving, professionally insightful and profoundly human.
Vanessa’s story begins in a place of expertise. For around fifteen years, she worked as a speech pathologist, helping people with communication, swallowing, cognition, voice, social skills and more. She understood the profession from the clinician’s side. Then, in 2019, her life changed dramatically.
Within the space of a week, Vanessa went from being healthy, active and fully independent to becoming critically ill with a neurological disorder. After what first felt like a severe flu, her condition deteriorated rapidly. She was rushed to intensive care, placed on a ventilator and became progressively paralysed. MRIs and bloodwork were inconclusive, and for a time, no one could explain what was happening. Eventually, she found herself in ICU, unable to speak, unable to eat safely, and able to communicate only with her eyes.
For someone whose professional life had centred on helping others communicate, the irony was devastating.
Vanessa describes the emotional experience with striking honesty. She was fully conscious and acutely aware of what was happening around her. The fear was overwhelming. She worried she might die. She worried she might never hold her child again. She worried that even if she survived, she would not return as the mother, professional or person she once was.
That fear did not end when the immediate medical crisis passed. In many ways, it intensified.
Like many survivors of serious illness, Vanessa found that going home was not the simple happy ending people imagine. In hospital, she was surrounded by staff, specialists and routines. At home, the contrast was brutal. Just weeks earlier, she had been thriving in the same house, driving, working, exercising and caring for her daughter. Now she could not shower independently, get to the toilet without help, or return to the life she knew.
It is here that Vanessa introduces a crucial concept: post-intensive care syndrome, or PICS. She explains that ICU survivors may experience depression, anxiety, PTSD, cognitive difficulties and a profound sense of grief after discharge. Although she had worked in speech pathology for years, she admits she never fully understood the scale of this psychological burden until she lived it herself.
That insight has transformed her practice.
Vanessa now approaches her patients with a much broader understanding of trauma. She no longer sees recovery only in terms of physical or functional gains. She looks first at mental and emotional state. Is this person motivated? Are they depressed? Are they living in fear? Are they grieving who they used to be? She understands now that healing cannot be separated from the nervous system, the mind, or the lived human experience of loss.
That shift in perspective is one of the most powerful parts of the episode. Vanessa speaks candidly about her own dark period after discharge, including suicidal thoughts and the collapse of hope. Yet it was also from that depth that a new sense of purpose began to emerge.
She describes becoming relentless in her search for healing. She researched constantly, read extensively, listened to podcasts, asked questions without embarrassment and explored treatments and methods far beyond what she had previously known. She was no longer concerned about looking foolish. She was desperate to reclaim her life, her voice and her role as a mother.
That willingness to ask questions became one of the most important lessons of her recovery.
Vanessa’s story is not one of quick fixes or simple inspiration. Her recovery has taken years. She returned to work gradually, helped in part by the fact that the COVID period allowed her to re-enter professionally from home. Even now, she still lives with residual effects. Some are physical, some are emotional, and many are invisible to others. But in 2025, she experienced a major turning point through the publication of her book, Speechless, and the opportunity to use her experience to educate others.
That, she says, has given her purpose.
There is something here for anyone in business, leadership or life more broadly. Vanessa’s experience reminds us that trauma is often invisible, that people are carrying far more than we can see, and that empathy is not the same as true understanding. It also reminds us that growth often begins when pride ends — when we ask the questions, seek the knowledge, and admit we do not yet know what we need to know.
Her final message is simple and powerful: keep asking questions, keep reading, and do not give up.
It is not only good advice for recovery. It is good advice for life.
