The Accident

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At the time my accident happened I was 26 years old and I was employed as a Manager in the Hornsby (Sydney) K-Mart Auto section and had just completed a very long working day. On that day we had a stocktake which accounts for an extra long day plus I had the worry of making sure whether the staff were doing a correct job or not. On my way home I went to the Club to have a meal and only ONE beer but, unbeknown to me it was to be my last decent meal for a while without the assistance of a straw or a nurse spoon feeding it to me, or having it in liquid fed in the form of a drip. After I had my meal I left the Club and had only travelled a kilometre/mile approx when my life changed forever. All I remember were head lights coming for me on my side of the road. I recall saying to myself that if I go to the right I have the railway lines there and on the left are football fields (which seemed to be the better option) and that's all I remember - but during my ‘free trip’ I managed to roll several times and snap a telephone pole off at the base (which later had to be paid for but my father must have paid for that because I didn't). Fortunately for me a policeman lived in the last house on the street and he called for an ambulance then came and he found me crawling around on the road. Once the ambulance had arrived they quickly got me off to the hospital where they started working on me. Thankfully, someone at the scene of the accident - either the policeman or the ambulance crew - had the quick thinking to give me a make-shift tracheotomy which kept me alive and breathing (my throat was full of dirt and grass) until the full medical team at the hospital were able to stabilise me. Had it not been for that quick thinking and intervention (I have been told it was done with a pen as that was all that was available) undoubtedly my life would have ended during that journey in the ambulance.

Two weeks passed which I knew nothing about as I was in a coma. My parents were in Hawaii at the time of my accident so my brothers and sisters were with me taking turns staying at my bedside until my parents returned. When my parents arrived they came straight to the ward and my mother took one look at me then turned around and walked out as my head had swollen so much my eyes weren't even showing and she didn't even want to look at me and see me with a head the size of a soccer ball. The doctors had been talking to my father telling him what condition I was in and what damage I sustained in the accident; that being I was unconscious (for how long they didn't know) and that I suffered Head Injuries. They weren't sure without further tests what the final analysis would be as I was to go to Royal North Shore Hospital for EEG's (electroencephalogram) and other tests that I knew nothing about.

After I woke I found 

1. My speech was slurred. 

2. The right hand side of my body seemed to be inoperative or in a state of not wanting to respond or function at all. 

3. Apparently the 6th nerve in my left eye was damaged and therefore I was told to wear an eye patch on my eye and then alternate it each day. After I came out of my coma (a fortnight) all the problems that had been inflicted on me were still not making me realize just how bad I really was and what repercussions it would have on me later on in life. I suffered from:

1. Head Injuries.

2. Seizures.

3. Unable to walk.

4. Short term memory loss.

5. Brain stem injury.

6. Double vision.

7. Speech Deficiencies.

The decision by the doctors was for me was to stay at the hospital for a few more weeks so they could observe me plus do more tests, then move on to a Rehabilitation Centre where I was to undergo an intensive physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy program. I must have given the staff at the Rehabilitation Centre a bit of a shock at first because the first thing I did was have one of my grandmal fits  www.epilepsy.org.au/grand-mal and they certainly sat up and took notice of me after that incident even if I hadn't created much interest up until that point. Right from the word go I was put into a routine of Physio first thing in the morning and then after morning tea was Occupational therapy till lunch (that's what they called it but it didn't look much like lunch to me). For the afternoon session I had more physiotherapy followed by an hour of speech therapy which would finish a very long and tiring day for my frail body.

During my morning session (two hours ) the Physio was concentrating mainly on building up the upper body as in strength/co-ordination and balance. At that time I was so weak I even had trouble moving the wheelchair let alone pulling 5-6 pounds of weight on a pulley. She said that if I couldn't lift up to 6kg (13 lbs) I would have trouble pulling myself into a walking frame with help so that was my target to aim for. The afternoon session (two hours & two in the afternoon) was mainly spent on my back doing a lot of leg exercises to try and increase the strength in my legs especially my right leg. I also used that time to do other exercises to regain my balance eg; picking objects off the floor which involved leaning forward & backward & from side to side. I would also sit in my chair with the foot plates off and have weights strapped to my ankles and I'd move my legs forward and back to get them used to the walking angle but also strengthen them at the same time. Doing all this both in the morning and afternoon would prepare me for the walk in the frame so it was all up to me. After quite a few months of using the frame and being assisted by other Physio's I did finally take a few steps by myself.

Occupational Therapy (two hours) to me was good in a lot of ways but I thought that your everyday living was all it really was eg; showers/getting changed/feeding yourself and so on but it led to many tasks I really hadn't thought of. My first few days were virtually spent on what I couldn't do and after that they had a much clearer picture of what areas to concentrate on in order to help me. In the time I spent there I went through tasks such as jigsaw puzzles, placing blocks in the order that they had them, reading of short stories and then telling the person what they were about, I would have to type a small paragraph to show the person how good or bad my composition, spelling & punctuation were (in my case, not so good) you would learn the basics of the typewriter - that's if you had trouble actually writing, but you also had to indulge in a lot of manual writing which made you feel as if you were back in Primary School. They would ask you to do things like have your lunch at therapy so they could determine what utensils were needed, if you needed hand grips for holding utensils, straws, different shaped plates to avoid food from coming off your plate etc. I was also given a Wechsler Test by a Neuro-psychologist bought in to do tests on my brain patterns. It was a very mentally draining test which lasted quite some time and when I finished I just felt like sleeping. After my Occupational Therapy was over for the day my only other appointment was Speech Therapy. 

Speech Therapy was last on my schedule for the day and certainly the easiest for me - that's for sure (one hour). The first few sessions were set aside to try and get to know what areas I was strongest or weakest in therefore giving the Therapist a better idea of what areas to concentrate on, just like with the Occupational and Physio Therapy.  Time was spent inhaling and then counting on one breath how far I could count which wasn't very far. As time went on I was given a Tri-Flo gauge and this was a way of testing my ability to inhale air and then exhale as much as possible at once. Other times I had to read from a book with for eg 5 words but two or three of the words had two or three syllables which made it a bit harder to get out with one breath. Over a period of time I was able to get from 3-4 words on one breath to 6-7. I also had a homemade gauge in the shape of a U, into which I blew in one end and moved the water up to a certain spot. The Speech Therapist marked the spot and I would have to hold it at a predetermined mark for a certain time. This was similar to the Tri-Flo Metre but just with water. All these activities were aimed at increasing my ability to control my breathing which is, of course, essential when trying to speak - so any improvement at all was going to be a big help to me when trying to converse.

I continued in this routine way of life and daily therapy for several months until I was told I was no longer able to continue in that particular Rehabilitation Unit and I was transferred to another Centre. Unfortunately, all the progress I had made to date (which was considerable even to the point of being able to walk in the frame) was suddenly stalled due to insufficient staffing hours at the new Centre which meant that none of the patients were able to receive the correct level of daily therapy and many of us plateaued in terms of the significant progress we had made to this point. This was the most difficult time, especially for my parents, who had seen that I had the potential to keep on improving and yet due to the lack of Government funding, my progress ceased. From that point on I really haven't moved forward in significant ways - just small improvements here and there in daily living situations that I do repetitively and therefore automatically get better at but for the most part, my progress stalled and my ability to walk, in the frame, ceased due to lack of staff assistance and regular practice.  Therefore, I lost any ability to walk and have had to rely on the wheelchair as my permanent means of mobility all these years since 1981.