A JAPANESE TV crew is in Spalding this week to film the story of car-crash victim Michelle Philpots, who has lived for 13 years with no memory.
Since she first hit the headlines two years ago, Michelle has spoken to TV audiences in Germany, Brazil, the UK on ITV’s Daybreak and across America when she and husband Ian were invited to New York to take part in a network chat show.
The JUK crew, based in London, will find her looking forward to celebrating her 50th birthday this August feeling happier and more positive than ever before – and it’s down to a soppy Rottweiler dog called Rosie.
Michelle, who lives in Hawthorn Bank, said: “Though I always try to put on a happy face my condition means I can’t get a job and I became depressed stuck at home all day with Ian out at work.
“The specialist I went to see advised me to get a dog, and I haven’t looked back since Rosie came into my life. I found her at a rescue centre where she chose me. Though she’s only three, she’d been badly mistreated.
“She’s adorable. She gets me out of the house three times a day for a good walk, which in turn prompted me to join a gym and I’m off there three times a week. I follow a series of stick-men drawings so I don’t have to keep asking the staff what to do next!”
Two serious car crashes followed by brain surgery caused Michelle to suffer a blank-out which means while she can recall memories that were laid down before she was 37, she has lost what happened since.
While she’s developed coping strategies like writing countless notes to herself to get by, she found the voluntary job she loved with Lincolnshire Association of People with Disabilities too stressful.