32
Alternatives
As time moved on, I was learning more and more in rehab about spinal cord injury, especially in the patient education sessions. I have always had an interest in science, and I take the view that the human brain is the most complex structure in the universe. The spinal cord is an extension of the brain – an extension cord allowing the brain to talk to all the other parts of the body through billions of tiny connections. Billions!
I studied my X-rays and talked to the doctors, who helped me understand the severity of the damage to my cord. It was close to being completely severed. There was a big wedge of bone that had crushed the cord upon dislocation – like crushing a computer cable until it’s nearly impossible for the wires inside to transfer information or power. A complete injury, and I knew exactly what this meant. I understood when the surgeon told me straightaway to forget about my legs. But that didn’t stop me from learning about the spinal cord and how mine had been affected. I believe in science, in facts; I understand it – not so much magic and miracles.
Aimee had always believed in magic.
She continued to sit at the end of my bed each night, holding my feet, her eyes closed, praying, willing something to move. I would try my hardest to move something, to visualise going for a walk, all the while thinking, This is fruitless. We should put our energies in another place.
Aimee’s internet searches led to alternative therapies and medicines. She stumbled across a doctor who was highly regarded in the field of acupuncture and who specialised in SCI. He was based in Sydney. Aimee had come to me with the idea of seeking him out. Although I was on my path and a lot closer to accepting my injury, I knew I still had to respect my wife’s beliefs. I had to give it a go for her, even if it was only to help her to accept things. Acupuncture did interest me, as I’d never had it done before.
Aimee made contact with the doctor, and he agreed to come and treat me in hospital, as he had done with others. The hospital staff allowed it, but they were very sceptical.
I had an idea of what acupuncture was like, based on what others had described to me, along with what I had seen on TV. When he arrived and laid out his tools, I quickly realised that this wasn’t the stereo typical acupuncture. The needles were up to five inches long. He explained the process and the general concept. It was basically shock therapy – getting the body to feel pain and force signals up through the blockage in my spinal cord and back to my brain. It didn’t sound too inviting.
The first session was fairly straightforward; he was doing his needle work on the parts of my body that had no sensation. I closed my eyes once I saw the length of the needles. I might not have felt the sharp insertion, but I did feel the pressure of him stabbing me in places with some force. When he’d finished, I could see the horror in Aimee’s eyes after witnessing the event.
After that first session, we agreed that he would come twice a week. Just before he left, he warned me he would need to look at my hands next time – hands that had feeling in them.
Two days later he waltzed back in and rolled out his torture tools before asking to look at my hands. I was apprehensive. I had felt the force he’d used when puncturing me earlier in the week, but now he was going to work on a part of me where I had sensation. He pulled out a slightly smaller needle, only around three inches long, and held my hands, studying the webbing between my thumb and index finger. He explained that this part of the hand usually atrophies first.
I closed my eyes again before he drove the needle in and wiggled it. I let out a big scream. It felt like the needle had punctured straight through my hand. He smiled and said he needed to place a needle along and in between each finger, along with the pressure points on my palm.
I gritted my teeth and moaned through the next ten minutes while he used me as a pincushion. I put up with it, thinking that if I could just get my hands working, I could deal with the rest. I also had to do it for Aimee, to satisfy her that we had tried every treatment available and left no stone unturned.
The session alternated between these two areas – one day he focussed on my body, one day on my hands. I thought back to when I was in Singapore getting my lungs sucked out and wondered which was worse. I decided that both were awful, and equally painful.
Dylan is also a believer in alternative medicine, maybe even more so than Aimee. He had a friend in Queensland who knew a self-proclaimed ‘spitball healer’. When he first told me about the guy, I immediately rolled my eyes, knowing I’d have to show Dylan and Aimee that I was open to everything. Aimee thought it was a good idea to see him; we had nothing to lose – nothing to lose in my recovery, but definitely something to lose in my mind. I kept telling myself, Just remember: satisfy others, Daz.
Aimee and Dylan talked, and they agreed to bring the healer down to see me. I felt like I was being put through experiments, like some kind of lab monkey, but I went with it. Dad and Annie picked him up from the airport while Aimee, Bowie and me waited at the apartment.
When we met, I was surprised to find that he looked relatively normal, apart from wearing a weird thong/sandal set-up. I think I was expecting some kind of witchdoctor. We had lunch on the balcony, and he started talking about adventures he’d had in the ‘spirit world’, battling evil souls like it was some sort of WWE wrestling event. Aimee and Annie were right into it. Dad and I exchanged eye rolls and smirks. As lunch went on his stories got stranger and more intense as he described how he beat up demons and what the world looked like ‘on the other side’. This guy was full on!
I was sitting there, a bit tuned out at this stage, thinking about paddling across the river to my favourite beach, when he suddenly asked if he could feel my neck.
I said, ‘Yeah, no worries’ as the others looked on intently, wondering what he was going to do. I was wondering the same thing …
He walked behind me and held my neck with one hand while holding the balustrade with the other. His hand felt warm, but that was probably because we’d been sitting in the sun. All of a sudden he started shaking. Loud sucking sounds roared from his mouth, as if he were trying to suck all the ‘bad energy’ from my body. It startled me; I thought he was just going to have a feel around. I was looking down, and I had these visions of him convulsing, as if he were being heavily electrocuted.
I thought he was totally nuts, especially after hearing all his stories. This act lasted for about a minute before he let go of my neck, leaned over the edge of the balcony and tried to vomit.
Aimee’s and Annie’s eyes were wide open in amazement. I could see what Dad was thinking: Is this guy for real? Did that just happen? This is ridiculous!
After he had spewed out whatever darkness he’d sucked up, Mr Spitball sat down nonchalantly and said, ‘I can help. Shall we start?’
My mouth was hanging open in disbelief. Surely that didn’t just happen? Is there more?
He wanted the two of us to move to the lounge room – everyone else had to leave.
Once the others were gone, he sat me in the middle of the room while he placed rocks around me, and then he got changed into his war uniform of bare feet, no shirt and a long linen pant-skirt. I had my head down again, one eye open, making sure I wasn’t going to get rumbled, the other eye closed, thinking, How the hell did I end up here? And what the hell is he doing?
Mr Spitball told me to relax, and he started chanting. It took me back to the jungle for a second, until I heard the chant grow louder while he slapped his hands together and danced. I still didn’t want to look up.
‘HOOGER BOOGER, HOOGER HOOGER BOOGER, BOOGER HOOGER!’
I sat there laughing to myself, thinking of other things I could be doing – playing with Bowie, cruising around town, anything but this. I felt absolutely stupid.
This routine lasted for about fifteen minutes, and he finished off by holding my neck again and conducting another suck-fest. Then he told me I was done. I should feel better in a few days.
Aimee came out of the other room, and I a
sked her to bring back Dad and Annie as soon as possible so they could get this guy out of here. I’d had enough.
As they were leaving, Mr Spitball said I should look out for whales – when I saw a whale I would be healed.
All I could think was, I’ve seen plenty of whales before, mate, but I’m sure I’m not going to see one in western Sydney!
Back at hospital, with no whales in sight, it was obvious the acupuncture wasn’t doing too much either, so Aimee sought out another acupuncturist, an older man, Dr Tai, who had mentored the first therapist. He agreed to see us but said that we would have to travel to his rooms, which were in Randwick, a thirty-minute drive from the hospital.
Dr Tai looked like an old-world ninja master. He was very small and had grey wispy hair with white whiskers on his chin. He spoke abruptly in broken English. His method was the same as the previous acupuncturist’s, just more intense.
I had to strip off all my clothes and lie face down on the bed. He felt around a few places before he rolled out his torture bag, which was twice as big as the previous guy’s. He started on my heels and stabbed continuously across my body in a straight line before moving on to the next line, two inches above the last. I have no sensation where he was needling, but I felt the heavy thumps. He worked his way up my legs and back until he arrived above my shoulderblades where I had sensation. I held the legs of the bed with my clumsy hands and planted my head firmly into the pillows, bracing for the torment.
In they went, one by one – a big thump, puncture, then a little wiggle – from one shoulder to the other until he got to my neck. I tensed and screamed into the pillow with each needle, reminding myself that I was doing all this for Aimee.
Dr Tai slapped me on the back and shouted, ‘Done! You change!’
The next session he had me lying on my back. When he reached above my nipples, an area much more sensitive than my back, I began letting out loud yelps and moans with each needle, with nothing to hold onto and no pillow to smother my face with. He finished with some traditional acupuncture in my face, which did feel nice and settled me quite a bit.
He also wanted to work on my hands, but I was very reluctant because they are so sensitive. My experience in hospital had been horrible, and that acupuncturist had been milder than Dr Tai, so I always pulled my hand away. He’d straighten the whiskers on his chin with his fingers, giving me the eye, until eventually he’d nod his head and say, ‘Done. Go!’
I felt relieved after each session was over. I would sit silently in the car while Aimee drove us back to the hospital, wondering how much longer I could keep going with this torture to satisfy Aimee. I was mindful of people preying on the hopes and vulnerabilities of others.
My injury was all explained by science – my spinal cord had been nearly severed – and I knew these therapies wouldn’t lead me to a full recovery, but I decided to keep going for Aimee, no matter how painful it was.
33
Back to the ocean
We’d made a few weekend outings in a row, and I was getting used to the process and negotiating obstacles, but all we’d done was hang out at the apartment and roll out to get some lunch.
Then Aimee’s great-nan from the Northern Beaches was celebrating her ninetieth birthday, and we decided to go. The family was hosting a big lunch in one of the function rooms at Harbord Diggers, which overlooks Freshwater Beach, just north of Manly.
Freshwater Beach is famous in Australian surf lore as the place where Duke Kahanamoku introduced the Hawaiian art of surfing in 1915. (He made the board himself out of wood from a local hardware store.) There’s even a statue of him there to recognise the importance of the event.
This was going to be our first outing to a different location where we had to think about wheelchair accessibility – getting through the front door, entering the room, whether there was a lift, if the toilets were accessible. Aimee organised the logistics and made phone calls ahead of the event and, being an RSL club, they cater to a lot of oldies, so access was all good.
I knew where the club was because I used to go there for dinner quite a bit with a girlfriend when I was working up in Sydney. I was going to see the beach up close and personal for the first time since the accident. Initially it didn’t bother me, but I was curious about how I’d feel when I saw waves again. Now that I was in a wheelchair, the front door wasn’t always the way in, so we went up to the function room together using the service lift. The doors opened onto large picture windows, and Freshwater Beach and the ocean were right in front of me. BANG – it smacked me in the face. Even though I’d convinced myself there wouldn’t be a problem, in the back of my mind I was thinking, I hope I’ll be fine seeing waves. But what if I’m not?
It was an overcast winter’s day, and the wind was offshore. The water was smooth and steely grey, probably about two foot. Some surfers were out, trying to make the best of it.
I sat there, ignoring everything else that was going on around me. I stared out of the window at these little two-footers, just closing out, all dumpy … but the movement of the water … and the waves … and seeing the guys surfing … I was positioned on the top of the staircase, and Aimee began to move me around to another lift up to the function room, but I said, ‘No, no, no. I want to stare at the ocean.’
I was mesmerised. It was a reunion with a long-lost love.
As I sat there I couldn’t help but smile. A lot of people thought I might sink into some sort of darkness, seeing the waves and knowing that I couldn’t surf and never would be able to again, but it gave me this surge of energy. I was surprised at how much I loved sitting there, watching others surf, but my focus was on the waves. It was all about the waves.
Anyone who’s hooked on surfing looks at everything as waves. Well, I did anyway, and I know others who do. They’ll see a grassy mound or a ridge on a hill, and they’ll pretend it’s a wave and mind-surf it. I still do it today. So I sat there, mapping what I’d do out on the water, mind-surfing each wave. Some clean waves came through – nothing special – but my love for surf proved as strong as ever.
It’s what I was born into. It’s what I had grown up doing. It’s what I had built my career around. It’s where I’d formed all my friendships. It’s where I socialised every day.
I had gone through the party scene like most people, but I’m not the guy who goes down to the pub and has a drink with his mates. If I’d loved going to the pub before the accident, then I could still go to the pub after the accident – no loss. But I went surfing with my mates. That’s where I would socialise. And that’s why I felt that virtually everything in my life had disappeared. All my eggs were in that one basket.
How was I going to connect and do the things I needed to do to keep me mentally in tune, rather than actually riding waves?
Not being able to surf was going to be painful, but I wanted to be involved in surfing where I could, one hundred per cent. There was never a doubt. Obviously, I still wanted to run the shop, and I was involved with the local boardriders club. Some things would have to fall away, though – surf contests involved being down on the sand, a place I couldn’t get to.
But if I was going to move forward and keep a positive attitude, I had to be a part of it. There was no other option. Surfing had always been and would always be my number one.
In terms of actually riding waves? That day at Freshwater, I did think about it, but I had the same feeling I’d had when they first threw me in the pool: ‘Yeah. I’m back. This is fine. This is MY world. I know what it’s all about.’
I didn’t feel totally comfortable yet, but I was heading that way. I felt more at home.
We didn’t spend too long at the club. We had our lunch with the family, with me still staring out of the window the whole time, and then we took off back to the hospital.
Aimee was curious about how I was feeling, but she knew what I was like. When I told her that I was happy seeing waves, rather than depressed, she wasn’t surprised. ‘Yep. That’s another event, anot
her thing we can tick off. We’re improving slowly.’
Even with all the acceptance, I’ve got frustration and anger deep inside about not being able to surf anymore. I’ve had it all along. I’ve still got eyes, so I can see everything. Like anyone with SCI, I get reminders every second of every day of things I can no longer do.
It might just be someone walking past me or someone eating next to me who can still use their hands – all these basic, menial things that people take for granted and do without thinking. Meanwhile, I get punched in the face constantly, and I’m left trying to hit back with the only thing I have: a positive outlook.
I’ve always known I was super lucky to have my family for support, to help me knock those dark thoughts away. A lot of people who were admitted into the spinal unit were young and single – they’d had a motorbike accident or they’d done something crazy. They only had themselves, or maybe a parent. I’m especially lucky I had Bowie, my driving force to get better. If it had just been me and Aimee, I think I would have been in a much different place.
With Bowie, all of this became her normal, almost like she didn’t notice. Children adapt so quickly. From the moment she first saw me in hospital, she didn’t even break her stumbling stride. She was always there; always happy, her love unconditional. She gave me a lift every time. But the longer I waited to be transferred to Moorong, the lower I got. I felt like I was spinning my wheels, and all the negative thoughts were becoming darker and heavier.
34
Stuck mid-table
I kept staring at the board, and my name was still sitting mid-table. I was getting more and more frustrated, but there were only so many beds at Moorong, so we just had to wait for one to come free. I was constantly talking to the nurses and the physios, asking what the normal timeframe was. It depended on whether you had complications or illnesses, but it was usually around four to six weeks.
Owen and Eleanor Make Things Up Page 22
