Access by Various artists

Chelle, I really can't imagine what you are experiencing. Full on. Glad to hear ACC are doing their job well, at least.

Thanks, Sacha. Yeah, it does help a lot.

Wow, what a mountain to climb but I sense you're getting to the other side having now written it down - perhaps you are able to think of it as a past chapter. All the best in your continued recovery, Chelle.

Thank you. Still very much "in it" I'm afraid. I'm through the worst of it but still struggling and in pain. I'll get there eventually.

What writing, Chelle. Thanks for sharing your pain & your life. x

All of my best wishes for that recovery and thank you for a wonderful telling of a horrendous episode. A retelling can be a kind of emotional cauterization, a bookend to a chain of thoughts.

I fully get the whole thing of not accepting help, even though you probably regretted it in hindsight. Sometimes there is only so much help you can accept, sometimes taking command of your own emotional recovery is compelling. You seem to have the wisdom to have seen when the threshold of not-coping had been crossed enough that getting help was the better course. It's important to realize that we can't take that kind of resilience for granted.

Thanks, Ben.

No, I have absolutely no regrets about not accepting more help at the time. I didn't need it until I got sick. Then that extra pressure on my time and energy got too much, which is when I asked for help. Getting extra help with housework has meant I can use my energy and time to look after myself properly.

I want to make clear too, that help is in the form of housework. I'll seek psychological help if I need it but at this stage I don't. I wasn't sure if that was clear, going by your comment.

We shouldn't have to take help we don't need at the time it's offered in anticipation of a future acute event. Systems need to be more responsive and flexible to changing needs.

I wasn’t sure if that was clear, going by your comment.

I got that the housework assistance was something that made a difference at the right time, although it could have just been unwanted and unwelcome at other times.

But yes, it wasn't clear to from the time frames whether the PTSD treatment you had was before or after the fall. I'm now guessing that was from a different trauma? I can only imagine the "intense feeling of dread and terror" you're dealing with. My guess is that it's not the kind of thing that gets easier?

Peter has had a few tumbles out of his wheelchair over the past 46 years... but it was the last one, a few months ago, that seems to have rattled him a bit. A combination of a new back on his chair (slightly, and almost imperceptibly more upright than before) and a too quick a turn after getting off the hoist in the Bus and it was all over. Sideways roll with his forehead hitting the crack in the concrete a fraction of a second after he extended his arm to break his fall. There is clearly a god assigned to such as Peter, as instead of broken bones and a head injury he came off lightly with a stunning black eye and lost facial skin. Even the 3cm diameter chunk he excised from his temple healed without much incident. It takes at least two, preferably three ABs to get himself back in his chair.

However...he got a fright. I got a fright. The offspring who happened to be home and was unable to assist when Peter's cry for help went out got a fright.

We've all had to learn to trust him again. Confidence lost, or even simply bruised, takes a while to recover.

Kia kaha, Chelle.

PS...a young lad with SB of my acquaintance was showing off to his schoolmates just how flexible his hip joints were not being fettered by any muscle tone. Threw one leg behind his head and snapped his neck of femur. They did operate.

PPS....Peter says to tell you that he broke his hip years and years ago and didn't know until routine X rays back in 1998. Despite being a tetraplegic he gets quite severe 'pain' in that joint. However...the Green Fairies make a balm...of which we have availed ourselves...and pain is controlled without the nasty drugs.

Thanks Chelle. As someone who accompanies a wheelchair user around the place quite a lot, I have a real horror of those little nasties in the footpath or curb cut which can suddenly trap a wheel. But your story shows just how complex and unique each person is. Every body is different and every person problem solves in their own way. There is no one size fits all in disability. It makes me even more grumpy about the recent tweet by the minister who finds disability and disabled people boring.