Second Chances
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why it’s so important to make the most of every singly day – I mean, we all know we must do this and be grateful for everything that comes our way, and we all know that it’s how we deal with things that’s more important than the things themselves and all that good stuff…but how many of us actually wake up every single morning, just happy to be here?
As we approach the first anniversary of the loss of a friend who was taken far too young, it made me think of other people who got second chances – including myself.
The first is my brother. Eleven years ago he came off his motorbike on an isolated road in the North Island of New Zealand where he has lived for the last 25 years. Someone was watching over him that day as miraculously he was found almost immediately – but he was in a pretty bad state and although he doesn’t remember this, I remember being told that he had “died” several times before finally the (amazing) team who were working on him decided it was the last chance to resuscitate him. He held on, my mother flew out immediately, my father followed the next day, and mum stayed for months while what was left of my brothers bashed up body started to heal. The damage was so bad he was left paralysed, and he could have spent the rest of his life being angry at everyone and everything, from his wheelchair, mourning the loss of the active life he could no longer lead.
That’s not my brother though. When told he would never walk again, he pretty much said “bugger that” and whilst battling the darkness that comes after a trauma like that, he allowed his body to heal, and then built his upper body strength up to the point where although he mostly uses a wheelchair, there are times when he can stand, and cross a room using sticks and still be 6’4” again! This in itself is an achievement, but he didn’t stop there. He discovered Wakas (outrigger canoes) and joined a Waka racing team. In 2019 he became the para-Waka racing world champion after competing in Raratonga – he continues to compete and has now turned this into a growing business. He couldn’t turn back the clock but he has certainly turned his situation on its head
The second is one of our oldest and best friends (he has given me permission to tell this story) who broke his back banging out of a jet during a training flight a couple of years ago. Dave is godfather to our eldest daughter and on that day, when I saw what state he was in, I knew how close we had come to losing him altogether. It was another example of someone who was lucky to have survived and given the injuries he sustained, lucky that he can walk. His accident was so traumatic that again, he could have spent the rest of his life being controlled by it, and looking inwards. This is not my friend though either. Instead, he changed his career, started his own ridiculously successful business and has spent lockdown completely relishing the time he can spend doing homeschool PE with his children – but he doesn’t stop there either. He runs and swims and cycles eye watering distances because he refused to allow what had happened to him, to define him.
Finally, there’s me. Seven years ago, I was physically the fittest I have probably ever been. I played tennis and ran every day, and life was good. Until one day when I fell over playing tennis. We all laughed because I am a bit clumsy at times, but after a few weeks someone pointed out to me that this had happened several times. I began to notice other things. I was more tired than usual, I ached, my arms were not even strong enough to wash my hair some days, and my fingers were numb. There is a whole story in here of its own, but the short(ish) version is that 6 months later, I had lost my medical, I struggled to walk, fell over often and could no longer pull myself up off the floor, had lost all feeling in my legs and hands, and was confusing medics everywhere! I was referred through the military to a Navy Consultant who agreed to see me and worked out pretty quickly what was going on, diagnosed my condition and petitioned the drugs board of the hospital to treat me – a week on a drip of immunoglobulin which was brought forward suddenly after a phone consultation which worried him….
The treatment had to be preceded by a Lumbar Puncture (worse than childbirth and scarier because this can paralyse you) and then 5 days of clear liquid being dripped into me. On day 4 it was like a fog lifted, and it was only during my long recovery that I discovered how close I had come to my heart and lungs being paralysed in the same way as my upper limbs had been. Had I been anywhere else, I would not have survived as by the time the routine initial appointment came through, I would have been dead.
From the minute the fog lifted, and every day since, I realised that I had a second chance at life. I couldn’t change what had happened any more than my brother or my friend, but I could change what I did with it – and I have never taken a single day for granted since then (which is not to say I haven’t made mistakes! I have absolutely – more of that to come!)
The point of these three stories is to encourage anyone who is looking at where they are now compared with where they were last year, and feeling the weight of the changes we have gone through, perhaps slightly incredulous that we are still locked down ten months on from the lockdown we thought would give us back our freedom, and worrying that it’s just so bad it can never be good again.
Sometimes you only see the good things when you look back, and you only realise the second chances you have been given when you are through the other side of the storm. For the year that I was becoming ill, being treated, and recovering, I didn’t realise quite how sick and weak I had become until I was out the other side – and this was rammed home to me the first time I went swimming again. Used to swimming 1000 metres regularly, I didn’t really believe the (fully qualified medical professional specialist in his field) consultant neurologist when he told me that my fitness levels were back to being like those of a newborn baby – ie nothing. I thought I would be able to get back in the water and swim normally, maybe just more slowly. I couldn’t even manage a single length. And it was the first time I cried. I didn’t think about what was happening to me while I was going through it. I just did what I needed to get through every day. I lost my entire identity during this time (thats for another blog post) but it was only afterwards that I could look back and see how far I had come, and be grateful that I survived to tell the tale!
Storms pass. This one is passing too, and rays of sunlight are just starting to show on the water that is calming. We might not know what lies ahead but we can choose to deal with it in ways that allow us to be grateful for what we have, rather than focussing on what we have lost.
