06 | Moments That Stand Out (July - October)

One occasion in July stands out clearly. We'd managed to get down to the beach in my wheelchair and stopped at a beachside cafe for food and drink. It was mid summer and busy. I carefully transferred from my wheelchair onto a picnic bench while my wife went to get the food. When she came back I took a small spoonful of granola, and the moment it touched my tongue, both my legs shot out straight. Because my feet were flat on the ground, I was fired violently backwards into the picnic bench behind me, my head smashing against it. I ended up stuck, elevated between the two benches, my whole body in spasm, until my wife and a member of the public helped lower me to the ground. After a few minutes I was helped back up into my wheelchair. It was deeply distressing, and I still wonder what everyone else on the beach must have made of it.

Around the same time, it was my son's last year of primary school, and his class camp coincided with a run of school leaving events my wife had helped organise. She went away for it, and my two older children looked after me while she was gone. I could move around the house, but only supported by furniture, and I kept testing myself to see whether I could go a few steps unsupported, hoping I might be building my mobility back. One time I tried to cross three or four steps from the kitchen island to the dining table. The moment I took an unsupported step, a startle reaction hit me. My daughter shouted out as she watched me fall backwards, slowly, like a tree, with no ability to save myself. The startle seemed to last just long enough that I lost the use of my arms to break the fall, and I went down hard onto a brick wall behind me.

In late August, I'd managed to bum-shuffle up the stairs and onto the top landing, where I paused to rest. While I was resting, my son and a friend of his I hadn't seen in a while came in and started up the stairs. His friend wanted to know how I was getting on, and as I was talking about the challenges we were facing, both my legs violently straightened, firing my head into part of the staircase. Within seconds there was a huge amount of blood on the floor and down my face. My wife called 999, but I actually felt okay, no dizziness, and after a few minutes the bleeding stopped. Despite the amount of blood, I managed to convince everyone I was fine.