Today I will try to get things in sequence so that you don't find my blog so tiresome!Back where I had myself just learning to climb out of the wheelchair and stay standing for a second or two to where I am now bears no resemblance to where I have been. Learning that I had a brain injury seems so simple - but I had to wrap my head around the most simple things and tell myself that yes, 'I HAD A BRAIN INJURY'.
That is where I left myself, because it has had such a huge impact on my life and the lives of everyone that I knew or had anything to do with. I still have to tell myself over and over again, that I have had a brain injury.
I was saying that I was very slowly learning to walk again. A step at a time and that is what is was. They had this 'soft belt' around my middle and it had hand holding loops on it and I had one person on my left and another person on my right and they would walk forward and so would I, sort of! I would move a step to the left and then FAIL! A step to the left and then a FAIL, but not as much as the last time and on and on we would go, until eventually, I could sort of take a step and not fall on my face, so not FAIL!!!!
This went on for several weeks and I had to tell myself that I was an infant, and now I was learning all the things that I had known before (even though I knew that I could walk - why couldn't I??), like speaking, eating and thinking!! But the things that I had to learn were like baby steps. I never realised how much a human being takes for granted, until now, like WALKING!!!
From learning to take a step to taking a couple of steps seems so easy.....but it isn't, I can tell you that! Apart from the two or three steps that I was taking each day, I also had to go to the gym again for more torture! Claire or Philip or Chiara (it was usually Chiara) would get me hopping, stumbling and crying (again!) while I was trying to walk around the little tiny witches hats or stepping over the tiny little bean bags or the little cut off pieces of swimming noodle and watching myself in the mirror (thinking who is that miserable, whinging, wretch!) - and still not really realising that it was myself. The mirror of course, is to let you see how far you have come, but for me, it was how much further do I have to go!! I was a nasty, horrid person and I blush now at how angry I was!
I was walking (in a kind of way) swinging my 'bad leg' forward and following through with my good leg (step and drag, a step and drag, it was going to be several years before I began to noticeably stop stepping and dragging my right foot. I still drag it or let it go when I am tired) and it became the norm.
I am pleased to say, that I actually cried less and less and became a little more positive in my outlook, mainly because I was starting to stop thinking of myself at last and began to think (little by little!) of the people around me, like Gemma. A beautiful teenaged girl, who was at the same private girls school that my daughters went to in Sydney.
One day, she had a strange sensation in her hands and feet and by the afternoon was rushed to hospital with a nerve condition and was in a coma a few hours later! She remained in ICU for a couple of months and was then sent to RRCS to rehabilitate. What she went through doesn't bear thinking about, especially for her family and notably her mother Anne. Gemma went on to go back to school and was one of the 5 top students in the school exams and was one of the top 10% for the HSC!!! I truly admire both of these women and I want them to know that they were the people who I moulded myself on and I think of them often, with gratitude and love.
To all of the staff who work at the RRCS, I want to take the opportunity to tell you all how much you mean to me and everyone else. I am sure for every one of the patients that you have put back together, from being the 'broken people' to the 'slightly quirky, misaligned people', they want to tell you all that YOU are Champions.
