00:00I don't know if you've seen the photograph of her in her ICU bed with all the tubes and dials and machines attached to her.
00:06And you look at that picture and you say, is this somebody who's going to write a book?
00:11And you say, no, absolutely no way, that's not going to happen.
00:15But it did. And it can. And other people can do it.
00:19At 25, Nicola Hodges was hospitalised after a change in her epilepsy medication.
00:23This caused life-threatening complications and left her in a coma with just a 20% chance of survival.
00:30Just six months later, a seizure led to a fall that caused multiple brain haemorrhages and permanent brain damage.
00:36But the now 38-year-old has recently secured a five-series book deal.
00:41She told me about how this near-death experience ignited her journey.
00:45I remember feeling very warm. I remember feeling very calm.
00:49And I remember just feeling everything's okay. Just relax, chill kind of thing.
00:54It was just a feeling rather than an experience.
00:58And it was that sort of feeling that made me sort of start to believe that there was more to life after death,
01:09which was where this sort of premise for spirit born was born.
01:14When writing the book, Nicola told me that she found it difficult to stare at a computer screen for a long period of time,
01:19as it would give her migraines, tremors, and the fear of a seizure.
01:22Because of this, she wrote everything down in these books, which she then later typed up and edited herself.
01:29Due to the brain damage, she often forgot her words when writing.
01:32But instead of looking it up online or asking her family, she would challenge herself to remember.
01:37Of course, that little voice in my head said,
01:41No, you are setting the bar too high. You cannot do this. You are brain damaged.
01:46What makes you think in a million years that, you know, you don't have a degree?
01:52You're not qualified to do this? You don't have any experience?
01:56So I just tried my best to just put that voice in a little box and just tell it to shush,
02:03if you're not being helpful, just shush, and started writing.
02:08To go on the journey of picking herself up off the floor and saying,
02:16I'm going to do this, to actually get around to doing it, is just massive, absolutely huge.
02:22And the whole family is just over the moon about it.
02:25So it's a paranormal thriller series. Five books in total. I've written three already.
02:33While she writes the next two books, she uses social media to help inspire others
02:38facing similar battles with disability and mental health,
02:41by encouraging them not to give up on their dreams.
02:44Kristen Hawthorne for ChemTV in Etching Hill.
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