When the Dust Settles

by Cook, R

  The greatest thing about the underdog is that he has nothing to lose. The truth was I didn’t want to let my family and friends down, especially Sarah, Braxton and Lawson. Dad, Mum, Brad and Bec, Cam and Leza and their son Larran had all moved to Adelaide on a semi-permanent basis. As soon as it was realised that I would be in hospital for some time they decided to begin renting a place together, so they all moved into a house at Dernancourt, about twenty minutes’ drive from the hospital. The house was big with plenty of character and lovely gardens with a fish pond. Partly furnished, it had three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a granny flat at the back, making it suitable for my entire family. The generosity from charity groups, strangers, friends and extended family members was incredible, decking out the house with everything from food to furniture. Dernancourt would become the main base for my support crew for most of the next year, as they uprooted their lives to be with me in my recovery.

  My predicament was not only taking a toll on me, but also on the support crew, who were sacrificing so much for me. There were only a few hours a day when I didn’t have a member of the family by my side as they would stay until late at night and arrive back early in the morning. I hate the thought of what I put my family through: the stress, the uncertainty and the sadness. Since the accident I had been living the horror and trauma of my injury but they protected me from so much more. I hadn’t seen Mum and Sarah break down in the kitchen at Suplejack, crying as they sat on the floor against the cupboards; I hadn’t seen the numbness pass through Sarah’s face in Alice Springs when the doctor told her I would never walk again; and I hadn’t witnessed the helplessness and isolation of the ICU waiting room in Adelaide as the reality hit home for our tight-knit family unit. From all of this and so much more they keep me ignorant, saving their tears and their worst fears for when I wasn’t in the room. It was a tremendous strain for my parents who never could have imagined that one of their adult children would be left so vulnerable and dependent. The ordeal was tearing at the heart of our family, pushing everyone to the brink and testing their inner being. Amid the sadness, there was frustration and anger, each person wanting someone to blame and something to point to. Most of all, they wanted to shake themselves from this terrible dream or for a doctor to say with certainty that I would walk again. But it wasn’t to be. This nightmare would continue, and we all would be forced to find acceptance.

  My heart was breaking for Sarah, knowing I would never again be able to wrap my arms around her for comfort. My young sons Braxton and Lawson who would never again know what it’s like to be chucked in the air by their dad, nor would I be able to show them how to ride a horse or kick a football.

  Until that horrible ICU room, I had never seen my dad cry. He’s never been one to show off his emotional side, at least not around us kids. Even in the church at his father’s funeral in 2006, I don’t recall Dad shedding a tear. Perhaps he chose to celebrate a life as opposed to mourn a death. I, on the other hand, found the loss of Grandad Cook one of the saddest periods of my life. When I matured in my late teens, I began spending more time with my grandfather. One special memory was at his beach house at Sarina in north Queensland. He loved a rum, as did I, and we bonded on many a late night, chatting like lifelong mates. I had so much respect for the man and we became quite close in his later years. Grandad also had a real soft spot for Sarah, and the pair exchanged letters for a long time. It was nice to have such a strong connection with my father’s father. So I was heartbroken and gutted when Mum called me to break the news of his passing. It was devastating to lose a role model like Grandad Cook, and it was also a terrible feeling knowing my dad had just lost his dad. After I placed a photo of Grandad on his coffin in the Clermont church, I took a seat next to Dad and grabbed hold of his hand. He was ashen and crestfallen; just the shell of a man, empty and grief-stricken. He squeezed my hand as though to release his emotions, while I sat sobbing uncontrollably. It was that same pale and shaken look that Dad gave me one night in the ICU before heading home.

  ‘I gotta go now, Rob,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘I hope so, Dad,’ I tried to mouth back to him.

  As he turned to leave, the light caught the water in his eyes and a wave of emotion passed through me. Dad was a strong man and I hated what this injury was doing to him. I know that I am similar to Dad in the sense that I rely on Sarah, as he does Mum, for strength and emotional support. To see him fallen was an indication that Mum, his rock, must have been doing it tough outside my ICU room.

  Sometimes I had the chance to escape the confines of my ICU room into the courtyard for a few hours during the day. The courtyard was only about fifty metres down the corridor from my room and while the transition normally only took a few minutes, it felt like a lifetime to me. Although it was a welcome change from the sterile air and blandness of the hospital interior, my anxiety about suffocation was at its worst when we were moving. It often took three or four nurses to make the move, which began by unhooking my tracheotomy from the ventilator and plugging a hand ventilator directly into my throat. If the nurse responsible for my breathing lost rhythm or got caught up in a conversation, I would go without a breath. Once I was in the courtyard I would be hooked back up to the main ventilator, but until then it was the nurses’ job to keep my air flowing. It used to make me wild and I could tell it had the same effect on Sarah, as she would quickly snap back the attention of the nurse squeezing the hand ventilator. Some of the nurses hand ventilated me perfectly, but the majority left me in a terrible state and, fearing I was about to suffocate, I’d immediately have an anxiety attack that could sometimes take me hours to get over. The worst part of the experience was meeting my visitors in the garden, who hadn’t been able to see me inside given the strict rules and were waiting until I got outside. Of course in my panicked state, the last thing I was in a position to do was greet my friends and family. They would rush up to me, hug me and lean all over me, which ordinarily would have been fantastic if I wasn’t feeling like I was about to die. Sarah would come to my rescue and ask everyone to stay away until I had calmed down. Eventually, I’d signal that I was OK and they could come and say hello. As tough as the move from my room to the courtyard was, it was always worth it. My bed would be backed up against a wall to plug the machines into, under a shade-sail pergola near several water features. There was plenty of room for all my visitors. The biggest drawcard for me was getting outside in the elements to feel the sun on my face; one afternoon, I was even able to lie in the rain. My most memorable visit to the courtyard was the day my youngest son stood for the first time. The nurses had brought me a pair of special mirrored glasses that gave me the ability to not only see my feet for the first time, but the ground surrounding the bed. On this particular day, Lawson held onto the rock wall outside and stood up, balancing on his little bowed legs. I wanted to cheer out for him but was only able to shed a tear of joy.

  With the balloon cuff in my trachea I still was unable to talk and could only communicate through Sarah reading my lips. But a few weeks after I had arrived in hospital I was finally given the chance to utter some words to the love of my life. Despite my earlier dreams to the contrary, all of the nurses and doctors on staff were very professional and, while there was some tension at times, they all treated me with great care. I bonded with some nurses more than others, including a man called Michael. He was a genuinely nice bloke who loved his fishing, and I loved listening to his stories. Although not actually assigned to me, Michael would often come into my room with a big smile on his face and have a chat with the family.

  ‘Rob, have you had a chance to speak yet?’ asked Michael on one of his visits.

  ‘No, not yet,’ Sarah answered for me, standing next to Dad and Mum.

  ‘Well, let’s change that,’ he said with a smirk.

  We were all taken aback. I had been a mute for many weeks, and the idea of finally speaking was amazing. Using a syringe, Michael let the air out of the balloon cuff,
allowing air to flow up to my mouth and crucially, over my vocal cords.

  ‘Say something now, Rob,’ Michael instructed.

  ‘I love you, Sarah,’ I said very quietly in a croaky voice.

  The words received some adoration from Sarah and Mum, but they were a little too quiet for Dad’s old ears.

  ‘What? What did he say?’ demanded Dad.

  Taking out his hearing aids, Dad put on a stethoscope that Michael handed him. While he held it up to my mouth, I said ‘G’day’ to Dad and he smiled in appreciation. I also whispered to Braxton, and the look of recognition on his face was heartwarming. He had been keeping his distance from me up until then and for the first time since the accident, he wanted to hug me. Michael reinflated the cuff and left us to contemplate the wonder of what had just happened and the magic of speech.

  Tracey’s approach to getting me breathing on my own again was little by little, which was much better than the heavy-handedness shown by the doctors previously. We negotiated a regime where the ventilator’s contribution to my breathing would slowly be reduced over time and the cuff would also be slightly deflated to allow me to breathe in more air. On the first day the machine was taken down half a notch and I was doing OK, working hard to suck air into my lungs to meet the shortfall. The next day we went down another half a notch and I really struggled to control myself. My heart started racing and I just couldn’t get in time with the machine; panic began to set in. After some hours where it felt as though I was going to implode, I found a rhythm to keep me going. The process continued for the next few days, but I remained just as anxious as I did on the first day. Each morning, I would stare at the clock, dreading the moment at 8 a.m. when the machine would be turned down. Eventually, though, it got to the point where I wasn’t in need of much support at all.

  ‘Rob, we can switch this thing off,’ the nurses would tell me. ‘You can do this on your own, even if it’s just for a little while.’

  ‘OK, but can you please stay with me and turn it back up if I struggle?’ Sarah relayed for me.

  It wasn’t a good decision and my recovery went pear-shaped. My body couldn’t handle the machine being turned off nor could my mind, and I was taken back up eight notches on the ventilator. It really rocked me and set me back a whole week of progress, as I’d bitten off much more than I could chew. Gradually we again made up ground and I began to make it with less input from the machine – just for a few hours at first – and it was switched back on at night, because I was so scared of dying in my sleep.

  In the first six weeks, there were many rough days when something would go wrong and I’d feel angry and frustrated without being able to communicate or vent properly. Whether it was a catheter accident, anxiety or a poor night’s sleep, I found it easy to fall into a bad mood in which I became an introvert and just lay there with my eyes closed. Perhaps one in every three days was a bad day. In the sixth week in ICU, over the space of a few days I went from having a great day sharing my first beer with Dad to telling Sarah I ‘felt like quitting’ and ‘I hate this fucking place’, as I cried into her shoulder. It was a natural release valve for the shit I was going through. I often got caught up on the person I used to be and I’d dwell on the quadriplegia without fully understanding it. Sometimes at night, I would pretend to be asleep until the last person left and then lie awake thinking about what future I did or didn’t have.

  What am I going to do? I’d ask myself.

  Regardless of how long I spent dwelling on my future or what outcomes I considered, the result of my thinking always ended with the thought of Sarah, the kids, Mum and Dad, and the sacrifices they were making for me. The next morning they would walk through the door and I’d be happy for another couple of days. I never wondered, Why me? I knew why already because I was the one who got in the helicopter. The machine let me down, no one else. If Zebb hadn’t been the pilot on that day perhaps I would have died as a result of a more serious crash. Nor did I ask myself, Why wasn’t it someone else? I knew if Dad had got in the chopper instead of me, his older body might not have handled the impact and he’d probably be dead. I was managing to contain my negative feelings for the most part and I didn’t want to talk to anyone about them, least of all a counsellor. There were moments that really tore me apart, particularly when I wanted to give Sarah or the boys a hug. This inability was emphasised when someone else picked up my children and shoved them in my face so I could rest my head on their shoulder like a half-hearted hug. It was worse than not being able to hug them at all. My family, not realising the pain it caused me, would often do it, but I didn’t want to tell them how it made me feel because I understood they were only trying to help. Occasionally I would let in Sarah, Mum and Dad on the way some things left me feeling. Outside of that little triangle I just smiled and acknowledged every act, good or bad, because I would have had a sad life without any acts at all. On the very odd occasion Sarah wasn’t in the room, I sought consolation from my parents.

  ‘I don’t want to be a quadriplegic,’ I told Mum.

  ‘Rob, you will never be a quadriplegic,’ she replied sternly. ‘Quadriplegia is defined only by the individual.’

  It took me a moment to appreciate the full context of the comment as I lay in bed not being able to move or feel my body. I began to realise that being a quadriplegic was confining for some people but not as confining for others. The injury would limit me in some respects, although only as much as I let it. Mum’s wisdom slowly began to work away at my state of mind, clearing the way ahead for a new road to be built.

  While having visited me themselves, Lilly and Sonia, along with Shane and Hans, had stayed at the station to keep the place running while the rest of the family was away. Without their support at home, it would have been hard for Dad and Mum to stay in Adelaide with me. Tiani and Loretta also visited when they could, down from Alice Springs. For the boys, Brad and Cam, living between the house at Dernancourt and the hospital meant they had quickly run out of money, so they decided to get work locally. They managed to both get jobs in the abattoir at Murray Bridge, an hour’s drive away. Getting up at 3.30 a.m. to make it in time for work, and finishing at 2.30 p.m. allowed them to come and visit me in the afternoon. I think they spent more money on fuel than they were actually earning, but I’m very grateful they made the effort. It was nice hearing their various stories from the day as they sat down with me to watch some evening television soapies. One afternoon, the nurse had turned off the ventilator and Brad and Cam were in charge of watching me until I was ready to have it turned back on. Unfortunately, because they were so tired from getting up early, they fell asleep in the chairs. About ten minutes later I began to struggle to breathe and went blue from lack of oxygen, just as the nurse noticed. She woke up Brad to ask him what words I was mouthing.

  ‘Turn the oxygen back on!’ shouted Brad, jumping to his feet.

  Needless to say, I gave Brad a dirty look and explained that he wasn’t allowed to fall asleep on me again. I always looked forward to the afternoons when my brothers would tease me with a piece of chocolate and then grab their seats either side of me to watch the next instalment of Home and Away. It wasn’t until several years later that Sarah showed me some photos of the ICU with me in bed with a big smile and my brothers sitting in their chairs sound asleep. If I had only known that’s what was actually happening, I would never have put myself through the pain of that television show. I didn’t even like Home and Away; it was just sharing the moment with my brothers that made it special.

  Exactly eight weeks after I had arrived in ICU, I was breathing by myself. While the hole in my neck remained, the tube was eventually removed and any pure oxygen I needed came through a face mask. It was a huge milestone for me, the team of doctors and nurses helping me and, of course, for Sarah and the family. Instead of losing, I was now beginning to win some battles, a fact that put a smile on my face more often. The weeks past had been a rollercoaster in many ways and I was merely a pawn, going along for the ride
. But when I began breathing and talking on my own, I was able to let go of the rough days. I had dwelled on my circumstances and let the negatives get to me because I was too new to the experience to know how to deal with it, so I held on to everything. Soon I was choosing to erase the memories from my mind rather than dwell on them later. If there was a day where things went wrong, and I felt as though I was moving backwards, it became a day I chose not to remember at all, rather than a day that I remembered as being negative. I’m not sure where I learnt that approach, but it struck me recently when Arnold Schwarzenegger was interviewed about his life as a bodybuilder, actor and Governor of California. When he was questioned on his approach to hurdles in life he responded simply.

  ‘The thing that can really make you lose is if you get emotionally unbalanced,’ he said. ‘I don’t dwell on it … I don’t suffer from anything that I’ve lost.’

  They were words that rang true for me, being faced with such adversity. I would think back to the days when Dad had pushed me to work harder, faster and longer, changing my mindset to believe I could achieve anything. It wasn’t as hot as I had thought and I wasn’t as thirsty as my body had told me. That was my focus to get me through the ICU. And there would be plenty more lessons to come for me during recovery.

  Nine weeks in intensive care had been tough on everyone and I was very happy to be finally moving into the Spinal Unit. Luckily, I was only going to be a couple of weeks in the SU before I made the move to the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre, about twenty minutes’ drive across the city. Although there wasn’t too much difference in terms of hospital environment, given it was just down the corridor from the ICU, the SU would be my first chance since the accident to have a proper shower. Having had nothing but sponge baths for the whole sixty days, I craved the feeling of water falling over my head and the lasting refreshment a shower gives. Sarah had become skilled in washing my hair in bed without spilling water over me, and most of the time she had also shaved me, brushed my teeth and cut my nails. She made sure I was as clean as possible, but I really wanted that shower. Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t allowed to be in charge of my first shower, but she was permitted into the bathroom for the historic cleansing occasion. It took time but eventually she was able shower me alone. It was a beautiful feeling to finally feel washed. But in the process, having spent the previous three months in bed, I learnt how I actually went to the toilet, leaving me a little embarrassed. The times I was rolled onto my side in ICU were the times the nurses were toileting me with a pan, unbeknown to me, as I couldn’t feel or smell anything. I couldn’t believe how naive I was. No one ever mentioned it to me, so I thought they were rolling me to check that my skin wasn’t breaking down. Now, however, I was in an upright position and couldn’t avoid seeing the process, which was all based on timing. Generally I was given two pills, one called a ‘softener’ to break down the food and another called a ‘mover’ for obvious reasons, taken eight hours prior to the event. An enema was also used to get the bowel movement underway. When I was ready to go, the nurses moved me from my bed onto a special shower chair on wheels, with arm rests and a seat with the centre cut out. They then wheeled me over the toilet to do the business before taking me straight into the shower. We had some accidents along the way, and there were some near-misses, but mostly it was a foolproof system.