"There's no place like home"- Dorothy

Now learning to drive a car was another huge thing for me. After the initial medical and physical checks to see if I was capable then, a driving test exam. A shock, as I had a Gold license with no convictions so why do I have to go through all this again, be on a learners permit???? .... So I had to learn to get out of the wheelchair into the car, getting my legs in and my butt in the right position, adjust my pants so that I didn't get pressure sores from the seams. (The staff seemed to be on you all day about it).. Fold up the chair after taking all the bits off I had to and then hook it onto the hoist and the hoist did the rest and it was folded onto the roof. "Hand Controls" that's a beauty! One hand on the wheel and the other does the stop and go and indicators..... It felt like it was never ending all this new equipment to learn to use what I had always done so well before...more tests of capability.
Well I was enjoying the driving lessons and then the teachers went on holidays for a few weeks and I couldn't get another lesson for weeks and I was going home soon to Coffs. No worries, I will continue up there. I will have to buy another car anyway as my car, a Daihatsu Mira, is a manual and I will need an automatic to attach the hand controls. I will miss that car as I had not long bought it for work. The girls had been driving it to come down to see me as it was really good on petrol. In the meantime I will check out the "Nippi's (Google it to see what they are) that I had heard about from a friend who knew someone who had one. I get the guy who has them in Sydney to bring one to the rehab centre to give a demo. Great, amazing! That's it! No worries, I will get one of those. I had not long had my motorcycle license when I had my accident...at least I still had that. Just have to get the money, $12,000 hm mm. I will have to sell my motorbike and my car that might be enough for a second hand one maybe......
Back into the swing of things as it was getting close to going home. I just had all the renovations of my home to go through with the O/T's. Get my bed/mattress ordered and commode chair for back in Coffs Harbour. Seating clinics and wheelchair fitting and ordering. Learn about all the leg bags, catheters and medications etc. that I will have to order and I still had to get my bowels working properly as I was still having trouble with that routine not working as best as they could because of the food they served there. The lack of leg and hip exercise and the constipating medications. (I was still having the occasional accident). I hated the bathroom routine. There was only 2 toilets and 2 showers and 4 women. Another lady in a single room. So it was first in best dressed and it took hours. Not to mention so little heating and it was so bloody cold. The water was luke warm so we didn't burn ourselves and we wouldn't know...... Then to wheel on your commode past the men's bathroom and then the dining room to get back to your own room. So confronting and embarrassing. But we will pretend we don't care won't we?
In the meantime more gym work which was good, but I never got to stand upright and I only got to have a swim once.I was still seeing the therapist once a week and social worker to try and work out how I will manage when I got home and was by myself. A whole new situation for me, my children, my parents and sister in Coffs.
In hindsight I think that I was still avoiding being passionate about functioning better in the wheelchair because I still didn't accept that this was permanent. I was treating my stay at rehab as a hospital, (because of all the hospital equipment,doctors and nurses), so I was going to get better...fixed... normal again. Other people there were walking again and getting movement. It was just a matter of time that I would. Why weren't the physios helping me to stand and get on the parallel bars?
I was getting visitors every week, which was great. People that I hadn't seen in years. It was really great to think that all these friends really cared about me and were so encouraging. One friend, (my ex husband's ex and their daughter Roxi) came and spent a few days taking me out, and dying my hair and generally pampering me. It was truly helpful, Sue did some chakra balancing on me and it was great to have that spiritual connection again. Another friend also came and we were talking about how my legs felt. It was so important as they had felt as though they were still in the same position as they were when I fell and had not straightened out, and were not in the sitting down position but twisted on the side. Kerry had me visualise them on the ground and the agonising pain that had been in them since the accident, went. Such a huge relief, but then I got a huge pain in my heart, it felt like I was going to have a heart attack and I got such a huge lump in my throat, I could hardly breath, but I knew that my heart really was broken. Rick had broken my heart by giving up on me and was not supporting me in any way and I was grieving my broken back, broken legs, broken job, broken children, broken family and friends. I had broken my parents lives......I broke my relationship and my future...I was so scared. I tried not to think about it, tried to avoid it all by pretending that I was ok with it all.
It was too huge to deal with. What have I done??? .... I knew the grief was so big that if I let it out in this place they would commit me. I couldn't in my room because these girls had to deal with their accidents too. They too were fragile and super sensitive. I didn't want to dump it on them either. If I did, I would make it real and then I'd have to accept it. I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to be a paraplegic. We were all putting on a brave face.... I could tell the therapist about how I felt but I could also tell that she wouldn't deal with me letting out all the anger and frustration that I felt, so I held it all in. I told the girls not to come down anymore as I would be home soon and they needed to get back to their lives. I will do some workshops when I got home.........
I had made some great friendships with some of the other clients and it became a social place too with all of their families being so supportive.We would all have dinner together and have our evening medications and laxatives together. We complained about the shitty food and talked about our bladder and bowels. I told jokes and tried to be funny and keep everyone laughing. I wanted to take it all away from them too as they were such lovely people. They shouldn't be going through all this either. Especially the really young ones
They appeared to be adjusting to their lives so I figured I would try too. I started having computer lessons (to pick up my skills) to help get back to work when I got home. Now I wonder if I would be able to get my job back??
Rick would ring me nearly every evening to tell me about his day, his life and his new love. Everyday I wanted him not to ring because we talked about how the accident had changed everything. He talked about how hard it was for him. I missed the life that I had there and I wanted to get back and take my life out of his house and move on. To me it wasn't finished until I had all of me and my things out of his house, but I had to go back there and get it all and see that frigging ladder....the ladder that I dreamt about night after night.
Mum and dad came and stayed with me for a night in the family unit they had there to get used to me and my condition.That was very confronting as I had to tell them what to do to assist me and not let them do too much for me. How do you tell your mum not to mother you??.....They didn't look me in theface..they didn't want to see their girl in a wheelchair.
They had moved into a place elsewhere and were waiting on a housing commission place as dad was over 80 now. All a bit hard to hear as I was usually there to help them move and now it was up to my sister Linda to do on her own. (They weren't supposed to move again as I had bought my villa for them to be settled in for the rest of their lives) Another challenge for us all. Them to move again and me to feel useless as I couldn't help or make it easier. I felt so guilty. All this was my fault.
Decisions to make about the bathroom renovations in my home. I needed to be home to help somehow. All will be great when I get home. I had to be transferred to the Coffs Hospital rehab first as the renovations weren't finished and I needed to stay there until they were. Only a few weeks there they said......The social worker books the flight from Sydney to Coffs. Thank God for the social workers
Seeing all the grandchildren and being home in Coffs will make things so much easier because "there's no place like home"

"who's gonna cook my dinner?'

I am taken to Moorong Rehab. in Ryde by Community transport Jenni comes with me..I am apprehensive as I am not sure what's it's going to be like but I was told that all would be good when I get there as it will be totally different than the hospital and I will learn heaps about being in a wheelchair and how to manage it and myself as I am now. I am taken into a ward with 2 other ladies, one young girl in a wheelchair, who was with her father, and the other, about my age, was in a bed. I was here to learn about my disability, but also get to adjust to being in a room with these two ladies and the place it's self.
We were the only women in the place. The rest were mostly young men,mainly quadriplegics. We all had to go to the gym everyday and the occupational therapist, social worker and psychologists to adjust to our condition and organise our lives and homes to go home too. Oh I needed to go home to my children so much. I missed them so much. I felt such a burden on them as they were leaving their homes and children to be with me. Alot of my friends and family came to visit. My mum and dad I hadn't seen since the accident. That was very hard for them to see me in a wheelchair. It was hard for me to see them seeing me. Rick came but he was angry that he couldn't come in until after 11 am. That was the time the staff finished helping all the patients with their bathroom needs.No-one was allowed in before then. It was hard to understand why he was there as he just wanted things to be the same as they were.He was angry at me all the time. He wanted to know why I couldn't live back with him and still look after him as I did before."Who's going to cook my dinner?" " You can still.......can't you? He wasn't seeing me with a condition that had restrictions physically, emotionally and sexually. He wanted me to sell my villa and fix his house up so that I could still live there. I told him I needed to be near town so that I had easy access to the doctors and facilities that I would need.He didn't want to fix his house when I lived there before my accident.He was happy the way it was. I told him that maybe he needed to find someone new who he could still go bike riding with. Someone that would cook his dinner,... etc.....Five weeks after my accident..he was taking out a girl he met on the net from Woopi...he rang me everyday to tell me about their dates. I wanted to stay friends as I still had strong feelings for him. My life had changed dramatically. His didn't have to. He didn't want to make adjustments to accommodate me, he wanted me to make adjustments to accommodate him. All my belongings were at his house, so there was still heaps to do when I got home to live independently, to start again. My parents lived in my villa and they had to move out while it was renovated to suit my condition. I thought it would help emotionally to just let go of him and let him move on. It did.. I didn't have to deal with his rejection of my condition his anger at my family for being angry at him...it was all too much for me....all this for falling off a bloody ladder.
I got to know the girls in the ward and they were nice and also we all had dinner together in the dining room so got to know all the guys as well. The food was a little better but not much. The girls took turns in coming down from Coffs to stay with me, so Suzie came next and then Alison. They would push me up to Ryde shopping mall and we would get some nice food and I bought clothes to wear as I needed different types of clothes and shoes now. My shoes had to be 2 sizes bigger because of the swelling and I couldn't wear underwear because of the seams. No back pockets in your pants because of pressure areas. Everyday I had to check my skin to make sure I wasn't getting pressure sores from my wheelchair cushion or the bed on my butt and feet. It was a whole new way of living with myself now. My legs had to be on pillows of a night and I had to connect myself to a night bag to drain my bladder. The staff would come in 2 or 3 times a night to empty it it of course waking you up. I learnt to shower myself and empty my urine bag. Learnt more about Spinal chord injuries by going to the lectures that they held there. I had to have wheelchair lessons so that I could manage once out there on my own. Totally frightening.... I wanted to go home to my children and grandchildren, they miss me too..... oh not yet! we have to make sure you can do everything first and you have all the right equipment....maybe learn to drive a car with hand controls......