I had just turned 55. I was fit and healthy and happily married. My two fantastic kids were both at university, we’d paid off the mortgage on our house and sold our previous house (with money in the bank to spare), and I’d left my job at eBay and set up my own consultancy.
Just 4 days after my 55th birthday, I’d booked a demo on a new mountain bike called the Yeti SB150. I’d been riding mountain bikes for close to 10 years and rode an average of 75–100 kilometers (km) a week, so I was competent but, if I’m honest, nothing special.
I planned to go out for a steady ride to get a feel for the bike before I rode with my friends the next day. To be safe, I put on my full body armor and a full-face helmet before heading out to session my favorite trail.
On the fifth run, I clipped a tree, and my life changed forever.
I remember lying on the ground, thinking, “What? I’ve never crashed on this trail. I love this trail!”
Then, not realizing what had happened, I tried to get up and couldn’t feel my legs. I will never forget that feeling of absolute horror. I knew instantly what I’d done.
It took 6 hours for the ambulance crew to find me in the woods and get me to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where they established how bad the spinal injury was — an unstable fracture at the seventh thoracic vertebra (T7).
I was then transferred to St George’s Hospital in London for emergency surgery to stabilize my spine.
I spent a week in intensive care, which was grim — especially as I was the only person in there not on a ventilator. After another 2 weeks in recovery, I was transferred to Stanmore, a specialist spinal rehab center, where I spent a further 3.5 months learning to live with my injury.
To be honest, I was a bit like a rabbit in the headlights at St George’s. Stanmore is where I really had to face the reality of my injury.
The reality was, as I call them, the three horsemen of the apocalypse: paralyzed from the chest down (meaning that I was unable to walk), no sexual function, and doubly incontinent. Just one of those would be bad, but to have all three is frankly horrendous.
But it is what it is, and you just need to accept what’s happened and get on with it. I also realized early on how incredibly hard it is on your family and friends, so I tried to role model the person I’d like them to see. After all, the better you deal with it, the easier it will be for them. Easy to say, but not always easy to do.
To say that the learning curve at Stanmore was steep would be an understatement. Where do I start?
I had to learn to both live in and operate a wheelchair, learning skills such as going over curbs and back wheel balancing, which is pretty scary; self-catheterizing 24 hours a day (I’ll never get used to the 4 a.m. one); managing my own bowels by digital stimulation (I’m not explaining that one here!); and learning to transfer from my wheelchair to my bed or sofa, etc. (initially, I was hoisted).
I also had intensive physio 5 days a week to help keep my body healthy and build my upper body strength.
What I also learned was to be grateful for the things I had rather than be angry about what I’d lost.
There were 25–30 patients at Stanmore, including quite a few with more severe quadriplegic or tetraplegic injuries and some with difficult personal circumstances. I was in awe of the courage they showed.
I can’t imagine what life must be like without the use of your arms, hands, or both or without being surrounded by a loving family and friends. Divorce is not uncommon after a spinal injury.
Stanmore wasn’t without its challenges. For one thing, I really struggled with the transfers. I initially thought it was a strength issue, but I realized — with the help of my psychologist — that my crash had destroyed my self-confidence when it came to taking any physical risks (you use a small wooden board to shuffle from your wheelchair to your bed, and you can fall off).
I got there in the end, mainly due to the help and support of the amazing National Health Service (NHS) medical team around me, to whom I’m eternally grateful.
But after 3.5 months of intensive physio, poor quality sleep, and low budget hospital food, I was done. I needed to get out — ready or not. Luckily I was… just.
But that wasn’t without a few last minute panics, as I needed my new wheelchair and shower chair to be delivered and my care package agreed and in place. Luckily, they were… again, just.
Source: Medical News Today
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