DISKEN Timothy

Classification
S9, SB8, SM9 (IPC, 19 Jan 2021)

Type of Impairment
Cerebral Palsy (paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2016)

Origin of Impairment
Congenital (paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2016)

Impairment Details
He was born with cerebral palsy. The condition affects both sides of his body, more severely on his left side than his right side. (paralympic.org.au, 01 Sep 2016)

General
HEALTH CONDITION
He had a stroke at age one month, which caused an excessive accumulation of liquid in his brain. As he got older, he required a tube to be fitted to drain the fluid from his brain to his stomach, where it dissipates. In 2017, while he was in Canada preparing for the world championships that were due to take place in Mexico later that year, the tube broke and caused him to fall into a coma. He required emergency surgery but was back in the pool in two months and went on to win two gold medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, QLD, Australia. "Normally, if the system blocks, symptoms progress over three days. But because the tubing just broke, it was 12 hours from first signs of a small headache to emergency brain surgery. Where we were in Canada, we were right next to a world-renowned neurosurgical hospital, so I was incredibly lucky." (theguardian.com, 10 Apr 2018)

MUSIC MAN
He began playing the piano at age six, and he has since moved on to producing house music on his computer. "The first 12 months of my life I was stuck in hospital, and music was used as a way to relax me and calm me down. So from day dot, I was essentially using music as a tool. [The late Swedish DJ Avicii] was my favourite producer, and the reason I got into electronic music. He was an incredibly talented musician, everything he touched was musical art. That's what I use to get ready for a race. I have a playlist of about 160 Avicii songs that I sift through, depending what mood I am in. When I heard that he'd passed that was a tough period." (paralympic.org, 18 May 2018, 26 Feb 2019; theguardian.com, 10 Apr 2018)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
He has worked as a volunteer teaching aide at a school for children with an intellectual impairment in Canberra, ACT, Australia. (theguardian.com, 10 Apr 2018)