On and on and on...

Once I was at the Rehab centre, it all became a nightmare.  I slowly realised that I had no voice and no one was listening anyway! The nurses on the whole were great, although I didn't think so at the time. When grown people began to sing-song to you, you know that you are in trouble!


The first thing that completely threw me, was finding out that I was wearing diapers! Of course, no one tells you that you are wearing them or that they need to be changed every so often. They just come into your room and proceed to change them as if you are a baby. The diapers were changed a couple of times a day and in the night, when it was more scary, because you would be woken from a sound sleep and your lower clothes just taken off without you having any say at all, I could not talk to or fight these people off and here were people taking away my rights and privacy - I was devastated.


I remember sobbing because I didn't understand what was happening to me. Someone who was so independent and proud of it, was now little more that a big baby.


After a week or so, when I was starting to get my head around the idea of 'a stroke', (I still didn't know what a stroke was, let alone what they did to a person), the ways of Coorabel started to take on a routine. 


I had to use a wheelchair for almost a year, because I lost the ability to walk. Speech Therapy, Physiotherapy, working with the Occupational Therapist, Hydrotherapy and sleeping where main occupations and these endeavours took all day, every day, for months. Trying to eat was something of a hazardous occupation, as you lose the ability to chew and swallow, and the things that we all take for granted like swallowing, become Olympic medal feats!


I had gone from not being able to walk or talk, to being able to walk and talk a little and Amanda, my initial Speech Therapist was used to me being a mess  crying, angry and depressed - but, she was the first one who said to me 'everything - is up to you', and she was right.


A wonderful thing that happened to me, was meeting a boy in the 'gym', (a place of torture and misery that just kept on being there everyday, and still is!). His name was Darcy, and he was about 17. He lived in a wheelchair, couldn't walk, talk, sit or play, but each day he was an inspiration to not just me, but everyone who came up against the cold hard facts, that they were forever changed. He was unable to do anything much, but he had a fantastic and cheeky grin, that kept many of us in check and a great head of hair that his family, (knowing how important his hair was) dyed different colours every week or so! He taught me by his eyes and nods or shaking his head, that nobody but you would be helped by doing the things that the staff asked of you and the quicker you learnt that the quicker you would get to go home. He and Amanda were two of a kind.


My ex-husband was a person that I couldn't have done without during this long, hard road. Boy, did he prove me wrong when life had become so different for them all, he was there and took over the rearing of our two girls aged 16 and 12. He tried to fill the gap between them and me, so, that I didn't become that weird, strange, sick person that they had to visit and pretend that everything would be alright. To say that he was a rock would have been putting it mildly. 


I know that all of my sister's tried to spend as much time as they could with me to try to make things easier, and I thank them for it. They all have jobs and most of them have children, husbands and pets, but sometimes, I was a real bitch.



My eldest sister, Maria, had taken it upon herself to be the go-between with she and my sisters on one side and the medical staff, doctors etc on the other. Maria quickly learnt the way of speaking to and asking for, information from the medical staff and never giving up, when she wanted to get something done for me or work something out. She and her husband Milton took it upon themselves to be my lifeline and I will never forget the way they changed their lives to accommodate me.