Broken Dreams by Bill Dodd Read Free Book Online Page B

was a common occurrence. I’d start off feeling hungry but soon lost my appetite as I spilt more than I ate.
    At first, I had to have someone to push me around in my wheelchair. Each day I exercised hard, hoping I would be able to push it along by myself. One day, after a good workout, my physio told me to have a go. I found I couldn’t move it at all. I told my physio she had me pushing into the wind—I needed an excuse. Pushing my wheelchair along sounded such an easy thing to do—but here I was, unable to move it at all. After I whinged about pushing into the wind, my physio turned me around so that I was pushing into the opposite direction. She left me on a slope and my wheelchair rolled away by itself and crashed into the wall. I tried so hard to push that wheelchair, but I just couldn’t make it go either backwards or forwards. I was in deep shit, bogged on a flat tiled floor.
    A fortnight later, after exercising really hard, I found I could push the wheelchair over flat surfaces. Now my only trouble was trying to stop. I used to look down to see how fast I was going, and sometimes I’d look up again and find someone or something right in front of me. I had a few collisions, as I just couldn’t move my arms or fingers to stop it quickly enough.
    Every Friday, along with some of the other patients, I used to play sport. On the basketball court where we played some parts of the ground were uneven. When my wheelchair hit those spots it would roll away with me into the gutter. The first day I spent most of my time being retrieved from that gutter. But it was fun having ago. Today, I realise that winning isn’t everything: having the courage to try is what counts. All these exercises kept me in good spirits.
    By this time I knew all about the meaning of the words “spinal unit”. It’s a place where you are sent if you break your back or your neck. In 1983 the average age of patients admitted to the spinal unit at the Princess Alexandra Hospital was between seventeen and twenty-five. These people were the victims of falls, car crashes, sporting accidents (including a number of diving accidents), and accidents at work. Statistics showed that men outnumbered women. Young people admitted to the spinal unit often have their goals and dreams shattered when they are told they will never walk again. When they leave, six months later, it may be in a wheelchair. Each member of the spinal unit—doctors, physiotherapists, occupational physios, nurses—has a different job as they set about rehabilitating patients with spinal injuries. They aim to help and prepare them to go out and start living as normal a life as possible.
    One day I was approached by Steve, another bloke in a wheelchair. Steve told me my diving accident was God’s way of slowing me down. He said that God wanted me to lead a slower lifestyle. I reckoned that if God thought it was a good thing to live as slow a lifestyle as this, then I didn’t want to know about it. “Don’t worry about anything—God is looking after us, He’s Number One,” Steve said. To be honest, I don’t agree with this: I reckon I am Number One, not God. I believe in myself. I’m not religious, I never have been, and I never will be. While I was in the PA spinal unit, I realised that if I never got in there and did all that hard work exercising my arms, but just sat waiting for God to come along and push my wheelchair, then I’d still be waiting six years later. I’ve seen too many things in life go wrong to be able to believein God. But I respect religious people and I realise they are entitled to their opinions.
    As time passed, I realised my family couldn’t afford to come down to Brisbane to spend much time with me while I was in the spinal unit. Mitchell was some six hundred kilometres away, and my sisters had young children at school. In any case, I preferred to be on my own, as sometimes my