by Cook, R
In the meantime, Sarah was finishing her registered nursing degree and also working in the hospital at Clermont. We often made time to play tennis or swim together, which meant we were very fit and healthy. We had some great times together but they were short and sweet. The only quality weekend time we spent together that year was a last-minute fishing trip not far from Dysart. We took some dodgy directions from a mate that led us up a dirt road into a swampy area. We didn’t get much fishing done as we spent the day digging our HiLux out of a bog instead. We were covered in mud, under attack from sandflies and completely out of drinking water, yet still managed to have a laugh. It didn’t seem to matter where we were or what we were doing, Sarah was always easy to be around. She was also very supportive of my career, regardless of whether I was riding well or getting bucked off. It was a thankless job. I realise now there was a great deal more that I could have done for her in that first year of marriage. There was also another stress developing between us. Despite fertility tests that showed everything was normal, we couldn’t fall pregnant. As fun as it may have been in the beginning, it became a frustrating effort after about six months of trying. I should have skipped some bull rides to instead spend the weekend at home, particularly towards the end of the year given how well I was doing in the overall standings. But I was chasing a dream and, although I was among the best riders and leading the Australian Rookie Title at the time, I didn’t want to relax for fear of letting it slip through my grasp. Finishing the year in the top ten riders in Australia, I was selected to ride in the State of Origin bull ride, Queensland versus New South Wales. It was a great event competing against my southern mates while also accruing points and having a shot at the overall prize money. I ended up winning the Australian Rookie Title in 2004 and it tasted sweet. It also provided a scholarship to travel to the United States to ride internationally. The idea to ride among the best in the world was extremely tempting, but something was stopping me from accepting the offer. I was entering another phase in my life, reflecting on the person I was becoming and the direction my life was taking. My priorities were confused and I was discovering there was a lot more to being a husband than I’d realised. I had to take the right road to ensure I succeeded at being the best person I could be. Sarah deserved better than what I was offering her, and for as long as I was heavily involved in rodeo she would compete for my attention. It was a difficult decision, but I pulled out of professional bull riding, handed in my resignation at the mine in March 2005 and, together with Sarah, prepared to move home to Suplejack.
Once word got around of my decision to leave the mining life and settle down, I received a couple of job offers, including one from Dad’s mate John Burnett to manage a cattle property for him. He offered great pay and conditions, but again I couldn’t accept it. I was flattered by the proposition, but my decision to return home wasn’t about money. If I was worried about money I would never have left the mines. The decision was about helping my parents build their business while also providing a great place to raise my own family. I didn’t want to bust my back for someone else when I could invest my effort for the benefit of Mum and Dad. No one in my family was ever asked or expected to work at home, but they were more than welcome to should they make the decision to do so. It would be a good move for Sarah and me to get our long-term plans back on track. My mates Talby and Tony helped me do up a little Mitsubishi truck in Clermont, building a bull bar and giving it a decent paint job, before we loaded it up with furniture and two horses. Sarah and I then hit the road once more to the Territory, driving the truck and a HiLux ute in convoy. Perhaps it was the relaxed lifestyle or something in the air, but moving home proved to be a blessing. Within a matter of weeks, Sarah fell pregnant at Suplejack with our first child. While my dream of professional bull riding had ended, I soon realised there was so much more to life than rodeo; a new dream was just beginning.
12
BED AND BEYOND
My eyes fluttered open again to take in my latest resting place. Strangely, there was no smell. It was the first sense I realised was missing. Something was in my mouth to bite on, but it had no taste. The room was bright and my vision was blurred. I could hear only barely audible chatter, broken by a constant beeping alarm that came and went every few seconds. This place had a familiar sense of heartache to it, but I did not belong there. It was a foreign world; not heaven or the pearly gates; this place was more like hell.
What’s happening? I asked myself as I closed my eyes.
Darkness once again filled my head and I drifted away to find a place where I was safe, somewhere far away where I didn’t have to be scared. I could remember the helicopter crash and having lain in the scrub all day, waiting to be taken to the hospital to be fixed up. The wheels had fallen off and I was in an environment filled with panic, chaos and anxiety. Perhaps it would take the doctors a few days to sort me out but I’d be back at work in no time. I knew where I was and why I was there, but as though I was a gecko on the wall, I started to see things that shouldn’t have been happening to me. I was trapped in a world that could not be controlled. With no body movement, my mind took over and took me to places that both scared me and inspired me. Luckily, someone had left a little red light on to give me some comfort. Through the dark of the night it became my only saviour. The days drifted into nights and the nights soon became days as I lost touch with reality. What followed next was surely an act of God. It was a place where anything was possible; a place where it was so easy to get lost in, making it very hard for me to find my way home.
The Aboriginal men, wearing only jeans without shoes and shirts, would go to work removing the white ceiling panels directly above me. Defying gravity and working upside down, they would crawl back and forth, pulling the panels out and then replacing them with new ones. There were possibly thirty big square panels in the roof, but this was the third or fourth time the men had done the job, so it didn’t make sense why they kept coming back. I tried pointing the workers out to the shadowy figures talking around me, but no one would listen. My arm wouldn’t move to point and the thing in my mouth and throat prevented me from speaking. I soon realised the mysterious figures were doctors and nurses who were talking about me but never to me.
Why won’t they acknowledge me? I wondered.
I could only make out the words ‘tracheotomy’ and ‘pacemaker’ – what they meant, I didn’t know. Maybe if they put it in layman’s terms I’d understand, but I was merely a silent observer, not part of the conversation. I would have to work it out for myself. There was a breathing machine next to me, which explained the pipe stuffed in my mouth. Only the machine felt like it was choking me, squeezing the last breath out of me as my tongue tried to fight it. I tried to cough and splutter, but I was as lifeless as death itself. My body was bloating beyond recognition, from what I could see of it. I looked like I’d been grazing in a good top paddock for too long. My hands, feet and stomach were all swelling but there was nothing I could do as the blood vessels expanded under my skin. I couldn’t move any part of my body other than my tongue and eyes, which darted back and forth, back and forth, trying to capture the next strange character who appeared above me. The nurses and orderlies came back, rolled me on my right side and then back to the other side. Finally, they would return me to my back and to the comfort of the little red lamp, glowing on the roof. Desperately I tried to get the attention of one of the nurses to tell her I couldn’t breathe. Again my struggle with sanity was torturing.
‘Click, click, click,’ was all the sound I could generate from my mouth, as though encouraging a horse to canter.
The nurse glared at me and reached over to grab my left hand, wrapping my fingers around the side rail on the bed. She then placed a hot cup of coffee on my hand, before balancing a biscuit on top.
‘You will learn to say my name,’ she warned. ‘Otherwise I will stick this biscuit where the sun doesn’t shine.’
I desperately tried to speak or make some kind of noise,
but no sound came from my vocal cords. It was dead air. Instead I continued clicking with my tongue, wishing she understood Morse code. To my horror, the nurse grabbed the biscuit, moved my leg and shoved it in my backside. There was more to come. Again, once the coffee went cold she repeated the procedure, balancing another biscuit.
‘Now, if you want my attention, say my name,’ the nurse told me.
I continued to struggle breathing and choking, while the nurse watched me. There was no way I could say her name, and I knew what was coming. Thinking there was another way out of this hell, I closed my eyes and tried to escape into darkness.
When I woke up, the Aboriginal men had disappeared from the ceiling, to be replaced by wild animals. Goannas and snakes were being chased by pigs and dingoes across the ceiling, like a scene out of a wildlife documentary. It was some sort of demonstration of the animal food chain and hierarchy. A scrub bull even appeared and started goring the pig before the dingo pulled it down and began eating it. Once one animal had died another appeared, all on the ceiling, all directly above me. While my red light was still burning, keeping me safe, I was disturbingly comfortable when I saw Sarah and Mum standing next to me.
‘Look at the animals on the ceiling,’ I tried to whisper, wanting to point them out.
Mum stretched back in a chair beside me, but she couldn’t see them.
‘No, she needs to lay out flat down on the floor,’ I told Sarah.
Much like the nurses and doctors, they spoke to me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The animals continued to run wild and I was the only one who cared about the extraordinary scene before me. I continuously asked myself questions: have I gone completely mad? Does anyone care? Why won’t they take me seriously?
‘Biscuit Nurse’ appeared again, walking over to the machine that was helping me to breathe. I desperately wanted her to pull the tube out of my throat, but I couldn’t believe my eyes and had to watch helplessly as she poured wheat seed into the pump.
‘Please,’ I begged Sarah, ‘Get that nurse out of here. She’s trying to kill me!’
Finally I was acknowledged, as Sarah turned and asked the nurse to leave, but I was amazed to see the wrong nurse leaving the room. She had sent a good nurse out, leaving the evil ‘Biscuit Nurse’. It was all too much for me, and I passed out again.
I was learning quickly that the computer screen hanging above me was connected to my body. It was monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure, but the only way to keep those readings at a safe measure was for me to sing. If I stopped singing or tried to sleep, the alarms would sound and I would begin to die. It was like the next instalment of the movie Saw, with people suffering dire consequences if they didn’t submit to unreasonable requests. I belted out every song I could think of, including those of Chris LeDoux and Johnny Cash, but I was quickly growing tired. Lilly stood outside the window on a ledge shouting at me and encouraging me to keep going.
Doesn’t she realise how tough it is to sing with this pipe in my mouth? I wondered, as I continued my performance.
This can’t be true, I thought. The demons in my head have tricked me, but I can’t give up now. There is too much at stake!
This wasn’t a karaoke bar on Friday night, this was serious – a straightforward example of life or death. I wasn’t strong enough and darkness began to envelope me as the warning sirens sounded around me. The familiar, shadowy group of doctors and nurses re-emerged to stand at my bedside.
‘There’s a prize for the person who can guess the correct time of death,’ one of the doctors said excitedly.
Each member of the group then started using their smart phones to log their guesses.
‘Rob’s going to die at six o’clock tonight,’ one of them stated.
Again, there was nothing I could do; I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak. I watched passively as the chatter continued as though I was already dead. No one was there to save me. My family and others came and went, looking at me, but no one came to drag me out of this hell. My unconscious state of mind had lost any grip on reality and I had no chance of regaining control.
Waking this time, I found myself standing on a hill, with a majestic view overlooking a jungle, river and beaches. It was peaceful and warm and reminded me of the times when my wife and children would cuddle up on the bed with me at home.
A brightly lit but blurred figure sat in front of me on a rock, instructing me to take part in my greatest challenge yet. I wasn’t sure if the figure was God or who it was. But it was someone who knew me better than I knew myself; someone who knew of my faults and flaws but was willing to forgive me.
‘Rob,’ the person said, ‘you need to complete these tasks I ask of you but you must not surrender to temptation along the way.’
The only way I was to be forgiven for ill-considered decisions in my previous life was to take part in a series of challenges. Similar to the television show It’s a Knockout, I would have to tackle various courses that had me running, swimming and fighting with myself to win. Although there were no other competitors, there were plenty of stages and levels to complete, like those in a computer game. Each stage was based on a particular event in my life where I’d made a regrettable decision. By taking part in this battle against myself, I was forced to relive each moment of bad choice until I made the right decision and took the correct path.
The first stages were about temptation and guilt, reminding me of the time as a child I stole a tube of zinc cream from a store or when I pinched money from my mother’s coin collection. As I climbed the rocks and ran along the beach, the course played on my weakness of being tempted. Money, beer and women were placed along the way to lure me away from succeeding. If I stopped to flirt with the girls or take some of the money, I would be returned to the start of the stage. It was a physically and mentally gruelling task. The later stages had me taking responsibility for my actions in the past, whether it was allowing my thirteen-year-old brother to drink beer in the absence of our parents or lying to friends and family for whatever reason. One by one I managed to pass each challenge, face my demons and move on to the next. I was tempted many times and had to start over many times as a consequence. In the last level, I was forced to climb back to the top of a mountain, through pouring rain and across a raging river. Crocodiles were circling me as I desperately tried to make my way across and onto the muddy bank on the other side. It was too hard for me to begin with; I kept getting caught up on the memories of bad decisions, so I drowned several times and had to start over. Eventually, I was able to swim across the massive river and started climbing the hill before me. Covered in mud from head to toe, I slowly began to forgive myself – but for what, I’m not sure. Eventually I made it to the top of the mountain and stood at a rock in the middle of a beautiful green field. I immediately felt the mud lift from my skin and with it the feeling of regret and failure. Just at that moment, the sun began to shine, and there in the red light appeared Sarah, my saviour. It was such a frustrating and emotional journey, having been tested and pushed to the limit, but I’d finally found peace within myself. This was my fresh start in life, a chance to be completely honest with myself and, more importantly, my wife. There was much to tell that I had kept to myself for years. All my dark secrets, no matter how big or small, I confessed to Sarah.
My eyes blinked open, like they had so many times before, but this time my vision was sharp and clear, along with my hearing. I realised I was back in the hospital bed and I knew I couldn’t breathe, move or feel anything. Sarah sat in front of me lip reading everything I was saying, absorbing my deepest secrets.
Oh fuck, I thought.
It was a big deal for me, having locked away my whole life, to be suddenly bringing everything into the open to the one person I didn’t want to hurt. The confessions, some small and others bigger, were of incidents I had always kept to myself, and the thought of spilling my guts so openly was a very foreign concept. Initially it was a horrifying experience, until I finally u
nderstood why it was important for me to come clean.
‘How could you be so shallow as to tell me this?’ Sarah asked, tears rolling down her face. ‘Why now? You’re basically on your death bed, Rob.’
I couldn’t answer her questions. Perhaps it was an epiphany. If I was going to die, I wanted to die being the real me. For twenty-seven years I had bluffed my way through life, leading people to think that I was this great bloke who always made the right decisions. But after the hallucinations and scary mind games I had just been through, I didn’t want to leave this life with people misinterpreting who I really was.
‘I don’t want to die with my kids thinking I was something that I wasn’t,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want them to make the same mistakes as I made.’
My words weren’t enough for Sarah. I needed to hug her, but I couldn’t. I needed to hold her and let her know everything was OK, but I couldn’t.
‘Why can’t I fucking move?’ I asked, frustrated, my subconscious already knowing the answer.
I was sick of the bed and I was sick of the dreams and hallucinations. I wanted to console my wife, who was struggling with my words and the shock of the accident, but I couldn’t. Coming clean on my mistakes had shocked my body and mind into an unusual state of clarity. I began to comprehend the seriousness of my injury and realised the importance of clearing my thoughts.
‘Sarah, can you tell the fucking doctors to cut out the drugs?’ I mouthed the words. ‘I can’t handle the shit any more, it’s messing with my head.’
My brain was tired of having pain relief and sleeping agents pumped into me like there was no tomorrow, enough to make anyone’s head spin. I wanted to take back control of the situation and get a grip on reality.
About a week earlier, on the day of the helicopter crash, news had quickly filtered through to the family.