As a young man, engineer Michael Ashcroft was plagued by excruciating headaches, along with neck pain and a rushing sound in his ear. Eventually scans were made revealing a tumour the size of a tangerine behind his left ear. It required twelve hours of complex surgery and left Michael with temporary deafness in one ear, a lopsided face, limited swallowing and barely any capacity for speech. Seeing his face reflected in a hospital window he was appalled and at the same time profoundly moved. Half his face was in daylight, the handsome young man who had entered the hospital a few days before. The other half, in shade, looked to him like a monster. In an instant he had an overwhelming desire to capture that image, and to do that he would become a painter – drawing comparisons to the industrial artistic genius of L.S. Lowry.

Michael talks to Dr Sian Williams about the challenges of recovery, and describes his determination to teach himself to paint.

Producer: Tom Alban

When Jess Martinez was just thirteen, she was sexually abused by her sister's much older boyfriend. No charges were brought at the time, but the impact it had on Jess's life was dramatic, causing lasting damage. Many years later, when Jess discovered her abuser had been jailed for another case of child abuse, she took the courageous decision to tell her own story, waiving her right to lifelong anonymity.

Producer; Tom Alban

When highly experienced caver George Linanne fell during an expedition in the massive Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system in Wales , he wondered whether he would ever reach the surface. With a leg broken in two places, and multiple injuries to his jaw, collar-bone, chest and internal organs, he was in excruciating pain. Some 300 cavers from across the UK took part in what became one of the longest cave rescues in UK history. George tells Dr Sian Williams about his accident, his incredible escape and why he is back caving - the sport he loves - as well as becoming a cave rescuer himself.

Producer: Tom Alban

Jacqui Furneaux had enjoyed a happy marriage, bringing up two daughters and working as a nurse. Sadly, the marriage broke down, and feeling guilty, Jacqui decided to get out of people’s way and go travelling. As a woman in her late 40s , the back-packing life was a novelty. But while visiting the golden city of Jaisalmer in north-western India - and preparing to take a camel tour into the nearby desert - she met a Dutch biker. It was a chance encounter, sparked by their mutual interest in motorbikes . It led to Jacqui abandoning the camel plans and joining her new companion on a short tour of the frontier desert of northern India.

With stops and starts and a few glitches on the way, Jacqui tells Dr Sian Williams how that sliding door moment turned out to be life-changing, leading to seven years on the open road and a journey of rediscovery and adventure.

Producer: Tom Alban

It was a summer evening in 2014, when four men barged into Paul Kohler’s family home and began a savage assault on him. They believed erroneously that he had a large amount of money hidden there. The speed of the police response meant that Paul was saved from almost certain death, and the four men were later arrested, charged and imprisoned. Although he felt vindicated by the sentencing, Paul’s worldview was changed forever when he and his family were invited to visit one of the attackers in prison, as part of a Restorative Justice scheme.

In 1975, Richard Dailey was the victim of a freak wave that swept him overboard from the vessel he was working on in the North Sea. His daughter Angie was just five years old - and the news of his death was one of her first memories. Although they were compensated financially, the impact of that loss was difficult to understand and over the years it caused tension between Angie and her mother. Angie inherited a treasured box of old letters and photographs from her father, but felt unable to open it.

Angie wrote in to Life Changing to tell Dr Sian Williams how a decision to mark his life, on the 50th anniversary of his death, helped her finally know her father and understand her part in his life.

Producer: Tom Alban

Like so many who serve, Falklands veteran Geoff Stear took trauma away with him - in his case a very particular reaction to the smell of meat. It was so powerful and debilitating that it made his life almost impossible, leading him to injure himself and endanger others as he tried to get away from the perceived danger. On several occasions it left him hospitalised – once with a broken neck - with no recollection of how he had got there. His life hit rock-bottom, until a chance meeting with a stranger changed everything.

Producer: Tom Alban

In her early twenties Carol Cairns, the daughter of a priest in Ireland, had a passionate affair with a young bohemian poet called Benedict Ryan. In the Dublin of the 1960s, their improbable partnership burned bright but briefly. Somehow the gap in their backgrounds was too great. Not long after, life took her in a completely different direction. Shortly after her 70th birthday, while thinking of names for a grandson to be, she remembered Benedict. Where was he now? After a failed marriage, she used Skype to see if the flame still burned.

Carol tells Dr Sian Williams about the emotional moment they reunited, after almost half a century.

Producer; Tom Alban

Phillip Browne was born into a large and loving Windrush generation family in Birmingham. Church and singing were an important part of his upbringing, and when he struggled at school it was singing that gave him an escape and a status. But just as he was beginning to show signs of real potential, a devastating ear infection robbed him of his hearing completely in one ear - and Phillip was told by a doctor that a singing career was out of the question. Phillip's struggle in the aftermath of his illness and his need to find a job resulted in him becoming a London bus driver. He knew the security of employment was a relief to his father who had spent a lifetime working on the railways, but it seemed to be leading him further and further away from his dream. Until a chance meeting with an old college friend turned his life in an extraordinary new direction.

Phillip tells Dr Sian Williams about that Life Changing moment - and his incredible journey to the bright lights of the West End stage.

Producer: Tom Alban

Robin Elsey Webb is a young and already very successful yachtsman with a dream of tackling the famous Vendee Globe, the single-handed round the world yacht race. But his plans were shattered during a trip to Antigua, when he was violently attacked and suffered severe head injuries. With his life hanging in the balance, it fell to his partner Liz to make swift and bold decisions about his treatment. Robin's job was to try and stay alive.

Robin and Liz join Dr Sian Williams to piece together their own very different experiences of that terrifying ordeal, which changed so many things for both of them.

Producer: Tom Alban