| Personal Stories | | | | 1. Life as an Incomplete (Lesion) | | | It's either "You're not disabled" or "Weren't you so lucky". As a person with an incomplete Lesion or one of the walking wounded to leave the hospital you're very much an oddity. Yes I am an enigma - I have a Spinal Cord Injury which left me with no movement in both legs below the knees, but my body has somehow compensated and I walk with a limp. I can walk but not run. Walking for longer than 15 minutes is difficult and often painful. Long distances would be easier in a chair, but I won't use one as I would feel a fraud or an impostor. I can drive, but only with hand controls, so according to insurance companies I am a real crip.
When I park in a disabled parking space, I get disapproving glances from the public, I am an impostor again. When I meet a person in a chair, they say I am not really disabled," You're lucky you can walk", I know I am lucky. Many years ago when I hobbled out of the hospital on crutches with an Everest Jennings in tow I felt guilty for leaving my friends behind in chairs. I felt they envied me and I think in a strange way I envied them. I too felt the strain of returning home to a place that was no longer home. It was hostile and full of ghosts.
The scars of my injury are largely hidden. I have bladder problems, but don't need to use a catheter, I have feeling below my waist but it's patchy and absent in places. I can have sex but not feel it, I don't have spasm, instead I have bony wasted legs, I constantly get back and nerve pain but I am not really disabled. I do not go to pubs unless I know I can get a seat - without the visible signs of disability no one will get up to offer me their seat. Even when I do go, within a couple of hours I drift from the conversation because of the pain in my back. Yet I am not really disabled.
I remember using the chair and the difficulties around access. I remember being patronized by old women but I also remember that people make allowances, they don't push their way past you on the street. In a crowd people make space for you. Now I am expected to have the balance to push my way through or stay upright when someone pushes past me.
I had a Road Traffic Accident and spent 10 months in hospital, I went in paralysed from the waist down and left not a paraplegic but some sort of hybrid an "incomplete something" I spent a further 5 years at home trying to figure out what I could do with my life.
Though an incomplete my life was changed from what it was before, Yes I could walk but not well enough for employers or to re-enter my old world. The NRB said your disabled now, and will be lucky to get a job. I spent years being asked "what are you doing now" and replying "oh different things".
I lost something in Dun Laoghaire, my previous life, my innocence, a body that totally worked, possibilities {Dreams of being a sports star etc. I didn't play sports but I could have if I wanted to. My accident stole any such possibilities. I also lost my identity, according to the able-bodied I am not one of them and according to the disabled I am not one of them either. I often feel a very strong bond with others with SCI, but I don't have the badge of a chair and without the "secret handshake" they probably don't feel I belong to their gang.
I have not met any other walking wounded, I have more in common with the world of chairs than to the world of the able-bodied.
I recently got a prescription for new splints, which I should wear but don't always. Dr Murray wrote this man has significant paralysis of the lower limbs. If I got this made into a laminated ID card, I could show it to those who say" your not really disabled. Though it looks like I can belong to both worlds I don't think I do. My emotions, experiences place me in the disabled world, but standing upright, even unsteadily, places me in the other world.
Even writing this I can picture going what the*?? Is he complaining about, he can walk? I am not complaining, I am just trying to inform others that being incomplete also means suffering a loss, and pain. Maybe it's time to grieve that loss and recognize that though you left friends behind who did not leave the same as you. Both complete Lesions and incomplete Lesions did not leave the same as before. They both left different to the way they came in. Both were scarred, though some scars are easier to see. My body also reminds me everyday that it suffered, it demands that I acknowledge its difference.
We have shared experience and have more in common that is visible. Our bodies and experiences share a unique bond that comes from having a Spinal Injury.
The Spinal Injuries Action Association is there for all who share this experience {pain, bond call it what you like} be they complete or incomplete. After all it's called The Spinal Injuries Action Association there is no mention of wheelchairs or severity of Lesion. We also must be included.
Signed: An Incomplete Lesion
| | Top of Page | | | | 2. Getting on with Life's Great Challenge |
JOHNNY WATERSON talks to Mark Governey about the rugby accident that left him paralysed and the former full back's battle to rebuild his life.
SMALL THINGS take over. As he's going to bed, he makes sure the bag is positioned correctly so that it doesn't pull away from his stomach and cause trauma or infection. A blocked catheter is another concern. The bladder could dangerously swell. There is no sensation, so he wouldn't know.
You learn to be alert with a C4 neck injury. Life changes, and Mark Governey tries to adjust. He has to. For instance, he has discovered that you can do almost anything on the computer without having to touch it. Recently, while sending an email to an uncle in Sri Lanka, telling him about the Lansdowne match against Terenure in the All Ireland League, he came across something else.
I was saying 'Blah, blah, blah' to the computer and said 'Full stop'. Then I said to myself 'Now, what the f**k will I say next'. Up on the screen comes 'Now what the f**k will I say next'. You learn all the time.
Mark doesn't remember what happened when he was playing full back for Lansdowne against Belvedere just over a year ago, but others who witnessed the accident will not forget. I believe that their full back came in blind. I didn't see him until the last moment and went into the tackle. I took the full force of him and was thrown back into one of my own players, he says. Seldom does such an innocent act have such catastrophic consequences. Such tackles happen every week in rugby and the players get up and walk away. It is part of the game, the enjoyment, the thrill. Being hit and hitting. Leaving a pitch tired and fulfilled.
Mark didn't get up. When he came round the next day his family had assembled around his bed in the intensive care unit of the Mater Hospital. "I don't remember getting up that morning. I don't remember anything of the day. I'd stopped breathing, but luckily there was a nurse on the sideline. She kept doing CPR on me …I think she kept it up for half an hour. How do you thank someone like that enough ? She just kept going and going. Evelyn Quinn … she kept me alive.
"Even though my lips and my face had turned blue she kept at it until the ambulance arrived. The Lansdowne under -20s had a match on the pitch beside us and she was kind of their team medic and she just happened to be there. I think now at any match up in Kilgobbin there is an ambulance." He was on a ventilator for six months, and spent a year in the National Rehabilitation Centre in Dublin. Now Mark faces a new world paralysed from the waist down. In the face of it he is ferociously stoic, and his determined acceptance of that one defining moment in his life is humbling.
"Even to this day no one has told me that I will never walk again. I thought at the beginning that I was going out to the rehabilitation hospital to be fixed and eventually I'd walk. As months went past I began to realise that I was complete - my spinal cord was completely severed. "You just learn yourself. It's a realisation. No one has said you won't walk again. It is something you come to terms with. There has been no improvement at all since the day I arrived here."
Mark is not alone in rugby. On average there are one or two such injuries every year in Ireland, most of them young men. Last year Donal O'Flynn and Danny Noonan suffered similar damage. None was adequately insured, something which will have significant consequences for their quality of life. Other than those professionals who can afford enormous premiums, most players in Ireland are under-insured in the event of a devastating spine injury.
"There is a basic compulsory insurance scheme for everyone who plays the game," says IRFU chief executive Philip Browne. "The standard club scheme costs £882 per team. But we would also encourage clubs very strongly to top it up. We'd be unhappy about the level of topping up in clubs."
The basic insurance scheme through Royal and Sun Alliance covers players to a maximum of £500,000. That figure comes into play only in the case of an injury, which results in permanent and total disability. The IRFU's Compulsory Personal Accident Scheme for 1999-2000 grimly lists the price of eyes, limbs and the loss of life itself. Death-£400,000; loss of two limbs and or the loss of both eyes or one limb and one eye-£400,000; loss of one limb or the loss of one eye-£200,000; permanent total disability-£500,000. But £500,000 is not close enough money to comfortably care for a relatively young family member for the rest of his or her life. The Governeys had never considered that £500,000 would go such a small way.
As the injured jockey, Shane Broderick, and many others have discovered, figures of between
£2 million and £3 million are offered as more realistic costs for the permanently disabled.
"When I look at Mark's needs for the rest of his life, £500,000 is totally inadequate to cover it all ," says his mother, Elizabeth.
There are currently 20 former rugby players on the data base of the Spinal Injuries Association, which is based in the National Rehabilitation Centre in Dublin. All spinal injuries in the Republic eventually arrive there. The insurance cover explicitly states that there is no legal obligation on the IRFU to provide cover, but that the premiums charged relate directly to the number of claims. The IRFU , in turn , charge the clubs on the basis of the number of teams per club. The onus, the insurers say, rests with the players.
How many players know that? | | | | Top of Page | | | | 3. Dry Your Eyes, Wash Your Face and Smile.. | | | It was a mild peaceful summers evening and we all had enjoyed a family barbecue, the children had gone off to play, leaving us to tidy up, nothing new there! We finished the bottle of wine between us and settled down in the knowledge that everything was alright with the world. Or so we thought until the peace of the evening was shattered by our youngest daughter yelling to us to come help Alan, "He's fallen and he can't move anything!"
At that precise moment I knew nothing, absolutely nothing was ever going to be the same in our lives again. Alan had been climbing a tree when the branch he was on broke and he fell about 20 feet. I stayed out on the road while my husband went into him, my reason/excuse was that they could shout out instructions and I would obey, "Ambulance, blanket!" I did what I was told and remembered to remain calm and give exact instructions over the phone. I didn't want to remain calm, I wanted to yell down the phone and tell the guy on the other end to get his ass out here now, this instant, this is my son we're talking about here, the pride and joy of my life who I cannot live without! But I studied myself and remained very calm. At the same time I knew deep within that something very bad has happened to Alan and this time I couldn't fix it, a band-aid wouldn't heal it or a spoon of medicine wouldn't cure him, it was much, much deeper than anything I had experienced before. I had no intention of going in to him, I figured if I saw him lying there unable to move among the growth of the forest floor, the picture would never leave my head and this would hamper me from thinking positive thoughts for him and therefore he would never get better, it was my way of dealing with it at that point in time.
The ambulance arrived in super quick time, and Alan was taken from the forest on a stretcher wearing a collar, the ambulance men thought initially that it might be broken ribs, if only! I can remember sitting in the back of the ambulance with my back pressed firmly against the wall, and thinking as I looked at my son with my husband down on his knees beside him comforting him, exactly how awful this situation was, and I didn't want to be a part if it, I wanted to be a million miles away, I wanted it all to be a very bad dream and I wanted to waken up now! But reality is harsh and bites like a bitch and you must keep going, you have to keep going, you can't let your child down, you can't let your husband down, you have children at home this minute crying and wondering what's happening and I couldn't let them down either. So I decided right there and then I was going to be as positive as I could, I was going to pull out all the stops on this one, I was going to be an Irish version of super woman. I was the glue that held the family together, I was the one they cane running to in their hour of need no matter how small, I was the one they relied on and I sure as hell wasn't going to fall at the last fence. And it was at that exact moment my life changed.
In the A & E Alan's clothes were cut off and he was put on various drips, doctors and nursing staff milled round him, family and relations arrived from nowhere, parish priests were rang to ask them to remember Alan in their morning mass and everything just snowballed. It was strange not to be in charge, we felt helpless and we had no choice but to stand by and let the people who knew what they were doing get on with it. I kept the cut off clothes for some time after, but realised at one point that that was connected with the past and I wanted to deal with only the future, I threw them in the bin.
The following morning Alan was air lifted to the Mater Hospital where he was put through all the routine procedures and stayed there for a week. It turned out that Alan had broken his C5 and 6 and had squeezed his spinal cord until it almost touched, we were told he was a very lucky boy. Our eldest daughter came up to see him around the third day and she was great with him, but he asked her not to make him laugh because the traction made it sore, this proved difficult! But she spent the whole day with him, feeding him, brushing his hair, washing his face and reading Red Dwarf. It was a good day, good for Alan, good for our daughter, good for us, until it was time to go home and she broke down in floods of tears on the steps outside the hospital. Even though we told her what to expect, she wasn't truly prepared for what she saw and it hurt her deeply. But she had been so brave, she had spent the whole day with him and didn't show even a tiny crack of weakness.
After a week he was moved by ambulance to the Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire. I travelled with him and can remember looking at all the lovely wee boats bobbing on the water beneath a clear blue sky, and thinking we shouldn't be here, I should be at home cooking or something and Alan should be on his bike, enjoying himself like all the other 14 year olds. Then eventually the hospital came into sight and I can honestly say it scared the life out of me, it looked like a workhouse and I hoped the people on the inside didn't have the same cold grey exterior as the outside, it reminded me of a T.V. series from years ago alled 'Colditz'. This was going to be my son's home for God knows how long, and this was the place that would dominate our lives, our thoughts and our conversations for years to come. The staff took charge of him and I wandered around the grey smelly building and amazed at the amount of people there. Surely there can't be this amount of spinal injuries in the country, it's only a tiny place by geographical standards, this can't be right. But it was, and I wasn't the only parent there. You could pick them out at 40 paces, the worn out worried look that came to visit all our faces. It's so bloody unfair and you want to run out to the car park and yell at the sky and people driving by and kick walls and just fall to your knees and cry and cry and cry! And cry you do, like you have never cried before. Sometimes in the hospital I would get so overwhelmed by it all that I'd go into the bathroom, bury my face in my hands and cry till I had no tears left, then I'd dry my eyes, wash my face and come out smiling.
Prayer helped us through a lot I have to say, I have got to be the most unreligous person I know, but I threw myself upon the mercy of the son of Mary who went through a rough time himself, and I could understand Mary's pain and empathised with her as one mother to another. My son hated religion and all that went with it from the moment he realised that he couldn't move even as much as a finger, he cried bitter tears, mostly of regret and apology for all the trouble he was causing to us and the rest of the family and to the hospitals. He never meant to fall, he never meant all this to happen, he wished everything was as it used to be, he wanted to go home. And it's hard for a parent to tell their child that he can't be nursed at home that he has to stay here until the doctors feel it's time for him to go, and your heart feels like it's going to explode from pure sadness, and you look at your son lying there in a rota-rest and think none of us should be here, no one should have to go through what he's going through, what all the other hundreds of patients before him went through and what all the other hundreds of patients after him will go through. And you beg God almighty to stop this awfulness, but it's not Gods job, it's our job. We can't be with our children 24/7, we can't wrap them up in cotton wool, all we can do is advise them, feed them, love them and trust them, after that we are helpless.
Life, I was to discover, went on regardless, and I wasn't going to be left behind or stuck in a warp, so we faced up to a very uncertain future and braced ourselves for what life was going to throw at us next. My husband had to get back to his work, so I travelled alone to the hospital daily and he would arrive later on in the day and he could spend some time with Alan and we'd go home together. I used to catch a bus from Ardee to Connolly, then a dart to Dun Laoghaire, then a bus to Bakers Corner and walk the short distance from there to the hospital.
It amazed me how some people made their way to see their loved ones from places as far away as Donegal, Cork or Galway, if you had a car at your disposal you were elected, but if you had to go through the whole rigmarole of busses and trains, and a lot of people did, well the sheer logistics of the thing was enormous and exhausting, not to mention the expense. Not everyone got a visitor every evening, which is a bummer but it's just physically not possible, so they hang out with others in similar circumstances and converse across the room or watch T.V.
Meanwhile at home, a sort of routine develops, gone was the regular pattern of our days prior to our sons accident, and everyone try's to induce some sort of normality back into their daily routine. We tried not to talk obsessively about Alan to our other three children, of course they were interested as to how he was getting on and the progress he was making and we kept them up to speed with all that. Also, it's good to talk and discuss these things, it gives one a chance to open up, to ask questions, to get their head round it all. You try very hard to juggle all your children equally, the last thing you want to do is ignore them or give them the feeling that they are being left out of the whole thing, or that they feel they aren't important any more, that their brother has taken centre stage and they must stay in the shadows, it's a very strange time. You become more aware of their needs and how emotionally effected they too have been with the whole affair, so you hug them and love them and most importantly tell them how much you love them and how much you miss them when you're away all day from them, because by the time we got home from the hospital every night nine times out of ten they were in bed. Sometimes they would stay up to hear how Alan was and ask different questions, so keeping a connection going is very important. Alan's brother and sisters visited every weekend and that was always nice, sometimes Alan would be in a great mood other times he was very depressed, or sometimes he would be very sick, and you have to handle every mood and emotion the best way you can and go with the direction it takes you, it builds you up for the time when they are finally sent home. In some cases marriages can be put under tremendous strain, little arguments can flair up over the slightest wee thing, and quite frankly now is not the time to start a marital upset. Keeping one's mouth shut can be a very good idea. Thankfully I didn't have a problem there, if anything we grew closer and more united as a couple.
The trial run weekends from the McAuley ward can be frightening. Initially I was fussing around Alan, almost afraid to speak in case I'd say something to offend or hurt him. Carefully constructing sentences so as they were 'disabled friendly' it was like climbing a mountain. But then I started listening to how my other children were dealing with him, they handled it so easily, they said things that I would never have contemplated and got away with it, so I sat back and observed and learned from them, my, how the tables had turned. It was a joy to watch them and it strengthened the bond between them that still prevails to this day, seven years on. I had pussyfooted around him and shielded him but it was time to stop treating him 'special' he had to pick up from where he had left off. The fact that his spinal cord wasn't totally damaged but left him an incomplete quadriplegic nonetheless, meant that two years after being discharged from hospital, he began to walk with the aid of crutches and a splint on his right leg. This doesn't mean that he didn't go through the whole experience associated with being a quadriplegic, he most certainly did, but fate decided that Alan should walk again and that's exactly what Alan did. It was a long painful procedure but we had time with some mishaps along the way, but he got there, he was one of the lucky ones and has the grace to acknowledge and appreciate that.
At the very beginning Alan was taken over by a team of professionals, we were thrown into a world which we had no experience of, we compared ourselves to being put into a wee boat and pushed out into sea in a fog, with no oars, no life jackets and no maps, it was sink or swim. Thankfully we decided to swim and our determination and positive attitude paid off in the long run, but there were times when we couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel, we knew it was there somewhere, it was just a matter of keep going and you'll find it. And find it we did, it was a small faint light way in the distance, and it gave us all the hope we needed.
Now Alan is a member of the Gaelic Warriors Wheelchair Rugby Team (www. Gaelicwarriors.com) and lives for the sport, "Anything else is for pussies" apparently, but it has taken him to places he would never have been, and it has given us the privilege to meet fantastic people who are so busy getting on with their lives that they sometimes forget they are disabled. Sport of one type or another, no matter how mundane it may seem, is out there and available, it enables you to mix with others in similar circumstances and it helps to keep you fit.
Naturally there are times when I wish everything was like it used to be, but it's not and it never will be again, then I think about all the good that has come out of it and all the things Alan has achieved, and regardless whether he is disabled or not I would not have denied him the success he has had. If anything, in a weird sort of way, his fall from that tree in the late summer of '97 changed his and our life for the better in more ways than one. | | | | Top of Page | | | | 4. Mind Over Matter | | | My name is Paddy Slattery, I‘m 25 years old and have remained a quadriplegic since way back in 96’ when I survived a road traffic accident whilst hitch hiking my way home from a painting and decorating job… I use the term “way back‘” because it seems forever ago. In fact it was, a whole complete lifetime ago and I guess my story is quite like many others who are living with a spinal cord injury.
Your life changes to say the least, and to some extent I look back now and honestly feel that my “new” life only began on that fateful day of destiny. Well, actually not only my life changed, but the lives of my family also. But it’s when I say to others “It changed for the better” that people begin to think I’m a few picots short of a fence! Perhaps I am, but since we don’t have a medical opinion on my psychological well-being we’ll have to call it “Eternal optimism” And one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned since being wheelchair bound is that forever more nothing will be taken for granted. How much now would I give for a stroll down a sandy beech barefooted! Not many people could imagine being eternally optimistic about facing life head on with a severe physical dependency. I myself never thought I could, but with time being the greatest healer you eventually come to terms with your situation and accept, adapt and adjust your life around your “disability” and mentally prepare yourself for whatever life throws at you. And boy has my life thrown with accuracy!
There’s no better place in our country to acquire this ability than the National Rehabilitation Centre in Dublin. Anyone that’s suffered from spinal injury, including the immediate family can relate to my experiences in this place. First the doctor tells you in the most unapologetic fashion that you’re never going to walk again, and before you’ve had time to digest this information you’re told you will spend a year in Rehab! In all honesty I thought I’d be home and healed in time to play a football match which was two weeks down the line. To say I was gob-smacked would be an insult. Actually since my injury was so severe and I was completely immobile I developed a crucial bed sore in the Mater Hospital prior to entering Rehab which consequently required me to lay on the flat of my back for a solid three months on a “Roto-Rest” bed. But these months I would spend on a hospital ward were priceless none-the-less.
I made great friends who were all going through the exact situation, so we could compare notes and truly relate and console each other when times were tough.. The nursing staff and attendants there were amazing to say the least. At no time were you shown sympathy or given time to wallow in your own self-pity, but instead you’re encouraged and inspired to pick up the pieces of your life from day one, and head back out into the big bad world. Since most of the patience there were leaving in wheelchairs we would notice that the world had just got an awful lot bigger and badder!
The first thing that becomes apparent is that no longer are you looked upon as an equal in society but instead seen as inferior or useless. That’s a great shock to the ego when all you’ve know before your accident was a life of independence and social activity. Well to be fair, the times are changing gradually where people are opening up their minds and taking notice of our presence and capabilities but the key to this acceptance has got to be credited to special awareness programs such as this great Magazine for example, that promote such cases and publicise disability across the country. No longer should the word “disability” be a point of reference for people like myself… I like to see it as being “Physically challenged” actually, because I don’t honestly feel that there’s anything I CAN’T do!
After-all, much of the sensations and achievements in life are psychological. A mere figment of our imaginations you might say. When I think about it, the doors of opportunity haven’t closed to me, in fact it’s quite the opposite with more doors opening for me than you could imagine. Let me just give you a little progress report shall I?…
Ok, before my accident I was your average teenager, left school early, working a six day a week apprenticeship and struggling to survive on an a measly £70 a week, 20 which had to be handed up to my mother for food and rent, another 20 went towards travel expenses to a driver that was going in my direction anyways! (such a pal) and the rest had to feed my addiction to pool tables, football club expenses, “Fizzy” drinks and designer clothes. (Marks and Spencer) The only thing in life I had to look forward to was a sleep-on of a Sunday morning! Joy! *sarcasm*. NOW, after my accident and physical rehabilitation I’ve attended courses for Media Studies and Film School. Made a short-film in the process… I’ve been studying and practicing song writing and script writing and have since been working in and out of a recording studio composing songs which have had frequent spins on local radio stations and once aired on 2FM. (My 3minutes and 50 seconds of fame) I’ve done countless interviews on radio promoting disability and on occasions get invited to schools around the midlands to lecture kids about the importance of disability awareness and social prejudice. All these I’m currently advancing in, along with writing poetry, plays and now I’m in the process of writing a “Self-Awareness” book. Sure the possibilities are endless! My social life is awesome too, because my friends and brothers are great and any place I need assistance to go to they‘re at hand. I’ve also been travelling to America lately, where my girlfriend Courtney lives and we plan to build a home together and settle down here in Ireland.
THESE are just some of the reasons I can hold my head up high and sincerely say that my life has changed for the better and I wake up every morning and thank my lucky stars!
But just like the National Rehab must be credited for strengthening our resilience and determination with the necessary tools required to succeed in life with a spinal cord injury, so too must I be grateful for the intervention of the C.I.L. here in Offaly. (Centre of Independent Living) Which is a priceless establishment with offices through-out the country and world! They provide me with a “PA” or Personal assistant, and myself being appointed as “Leader” together we make all things impossible,…once again POSSIBLE! I’m not too sure how many people with disability are even aware of its existence but our Centre here in Tullamore is funded by the Health Board and FAS, and with their financial support Carers like PJ Dearing, a semi-retired man becomes my appointed PA/friend, and now makes a weeks wage while working a 5 day a week job tending to my physical needs while relieving the responsibility and strain from my family.
There’s no greater sense of burden when you feel you must rely on your loved ones for constant care and attention. But it’s our god given right to participate in education, work and society in general, because we too have to earn an honest living and this makes it all possible! Life certainly doesn’t end when you’re faced with adversity like I have! Of course you could lie down and die… But for many, the life-altering decision to accomplish and excel no matter what obstacle is put in front of you takes courage and will and one thing I‘ve learned in my lifetime of physical disability is that the only thing that truly disables a person is the boundaries and limits they set themselves inside their minds! Especially in this day and age when technology has advanced so much which makes it easier for people with disability to rejoin the workforce. Streets towns and cities are becoming more wheelchair friendly today due to the increase in disability awareness. And if you’re fortunate enough like I am to have personal assistance then you’re left with absolutely no excuse to carry on in society as an EQUAL. I could harp on about peoples rights all night, but at the end of the day, the level of which you are to succeed in today’s world is determined by your willingness to “stand up” and be counted. Make your voice heard, because in this life you only get what you give. I know it’s a cliché that you’ve heard time and time again, but anything is possible! It’s just a matter of setting your mind to it!
| | Top of Page | | | | 5. Grace Gaughan's Story | | | On 28 August 1980, Grace Gaughan was pedalling along the road to Swinford, 15 miles from home in Foxford, Co Mayo, at the end of a 10 day cycling holiday round Donegal with her twin sister and another friend. It was mid afternoon on a Friday, and Grace was looking forward to her Mother's tea. A car overtaking in heavy traffic caused a collision which threw Grace off her bike. The other girls were not involved in the accident, as they had already cycled over the brow of the hill. In her self-deprecating manner, Grace says that she was lagging behind because of shorter legs and a
little bike!
Grace was taken to Castlebar General Hospital where she was found to have fractured her spine at L1. The following day she was flown by helicopter to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire. Her Mother was too upset to see her for a few days following the accident. Her twin sister was very angry and upset that Grace had been so badly injured, and felt guilty.
Grace was in the Rehab for 11 months, mainly because she had suffered an incomplete break, and she had intensive physiotherapy and occupational therapy. This resulted in her being able to stand, using crutches and with a full caliper on one leg, by the time she returned home to Mayo. She even managed to walk upstairs once home. However, she didn't have the facilities to continue therapies, and eventually had to use a wheelchair full-time. Her family was a great support to her throughout her stay at the NRH and also once she returned home.
Before the accident, Grace had been at college for a year, following her Leaving Cert, studying Home Management. She regarded the aftermath of the accident as the closing of one door and the opening of another. The transition was very painful.
Grace kept busy. By late summer 1981 she was doing a typing course in the local Tech. During the winter evenings Grace did a computer course. Following that, she did a 6 month ANCO (now FAS) course learning how to teach craftwork. Accommodation was provided on site, in a small ex-railway station in Drumshambo, Co Leitrim. Having finished the course, Grace taught craftmaking at the Disabled Drivers' Association in Ballindine, Co Mayo.
While in the NRH, Grace had become very friendly with the girl in the next bed, who is almost the same age as her, and who had been a passenger in a car accident. They kept in touch, and shared a flat when Grace came to Dublin in 1985 to work as a receptionost with the Irish Wheelchair Association in Clontarf. After that she did an ANCO course on Introduction to Business.
During her rehabilitation, Grace had learned archery, and found that she had an aptitude for it. There were no archery clubs near her home in Mayo, so she had no opportunity to continue shooting from 1981 when she returned home, until 1985 when she moved to Dublin. She went to the IWA to pursue other sports, including track and field road races, before getting back to archery. During that time she had a lot of fun socialising, including a trip to Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the UK, to support the Irish archery team.
By 1986 Grace was competing in the Irish National archery competitions. By 1988 she had been chosen as an Irish representative to compete in the Seoul Olympics later that year. Unfortunately she got a pressure sore while away in Germany competing in a club competition in archery, with mainly able-bodied people. The sore was bad, and she was unable to compete again until 1990, when she resumed club competitions. In Dublin, Grace had bought her own apartment. By late 1990 she had met Keith, who is able-bodied, in the same archery club, and they were going out together. Keith and Grace were married in 1992 after the Paralympics in Barcelona.
Grace was one of the top lady archers in Ireland during the mid and late 1990s. She competed at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. Between Olympics she represented Ireland internationally in both able-bodied and disabled competitions.
During the summer of 2000, Grace competed in Skye. Then she was chosen to represent Ireland in the Sydney Olympics, when she found she was expecting a much longed-for baby. She decided she was not going to risk traveling all the way to Australia while pregnant. She continued to shoot, but took a break when her daughter Roanna was born on 14 March 2001. Keith and Grace's second child, a son Ivan, was born on 18 August 2004.
Keith still competes internationally in archery. Grace works full time at home, and has a very busy life with two small children.
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