[juujian]

I may not a great advice giver in this context, because my only qualification is that I write a fair bit of code and I'm in a university. But two things stand out to me.

1. Your value in life does not depend on any academic or other accomplishments. There are many people I respect that are not what you would call accomplished. Your brain damage may have changed you, but if I knew you in real life, I would not respect you less -- I would likely respect you more, because you sound like a fighter. That being said, choose your battles and try to find the path of least resistance.

2. Regarding universities, a lot of professors are happy to make accommodations. Communication is everything. You have shown spirit, and people rightfully respect that, because it's not all about how much code or papers or whatever other metric you can bash out. It's all about real life issues you are motivated to work on, and you will notice that when you get to a stage where writing letters is more important than grades. I don't know if that is already the case to some degree for Oxbridge for undergrads. The only advise I can give you regarding that is reach out, and reach out early. Your case is fairly unique, and if you can find an office or some other advocate for you inside universities, it could benefit you a lot for to reach your goals.