35

Thoughts

It’s currently the evening of Monday 4th August 2025 and my mind is wandering back to Saturday 4th August 1990. The last time I walked up the steps of my grandmother’s apartment and into bed, waking on the morning of Sunday 5th August not knowing it was the last time I would get up and walk away from my bed. Countless thoughtless movements throughout that day, walking to the kitchen, standing in the shower, messing with my brothers, skipping down the steps excited to go and meet friends, running to the beach, strolling across the street for lunch, swimming through the sea, climbing up and over rocks, diving off the rocks and then a thud. A full stop. An entire lifetime spent moving my body totally oblivious to the neural pathways, the spinothalmic tract and the lemniscal pathway, the 100 billion neurons in the brain and spinal cord, over one million axons, minuscule cells that connect your central nervous system and send messages to control conscious movement. The conscious movements that enable you to scroll through your phone or computer as you read these words….unless you’re listening to the audio.

The World Health Organisation states that a severe spinal cord injury is the most traumatic injury the human body can sustain (I’m a fucking rockstar). For the uninitiated the spinal cord is divided into five sections: the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal regions. The level of injury determines the extent of paralysis and/or loss of sensation. No two injuries are alike, there is no one size fits all approach to life after paralysis, one has to make their own way, fumbling in the dark holding on to all the hands that offer love and support. And laughter, if you’re not bringing laughter to counteract the trauma then why the fuck are you here, please leave the room.

That was 35 years ago. 35 years of not walking or running but recalling both vividly, probably more vividly than you can recall walking to the bathroom this morning. 35 years of random strangers asking “what happened to you?” 35 years of sitting slightly uncomfortably. 35 years of lusting after a classic single breasted overcoat that I can never wear because they look crap sitting down. 35 years of knowing that if I walked into a room people would react differently to me. 35 years of men I don’t know asking “can you feel anything, can you cum?” 35 years of hyper vigilance on the look out for unsafe paving slabs, acorns, stones or pine cones that could propel me out of my chair. 35 years of saying “oh I completely understand don’t give it a second thought” when friends organise an event in an inaccessible location. 35 years of saying “no that’s what paralysed means” when asked if I can’t even walk 2 little steps. 35 years of saying “no it’s rather more complicated than that” when cab drivers insist there must be something doctors can do to cure me. 35 years of taking a deep breath and counting to ten when people compare their temporary injury with my permanent one. 35 years of smiling politely when drunk people say dumb shit because I’m aware of my physical vulnerability around their unpredictability.

I’ve seen plenty of people post about their injury on their anniversary including photos taken during their time in hospital. I don’t have any photos from that period, everything that happened to me exists only in my memory and I rather like it that way. Obviously this was before smartphones and digital cameras and the compulsion to photograph every single fucking thing. It would have struck me as odd to photograph and memorialise that period in hospital, not least because for the first 12 weeks I was immobilised flat on my back. I was a 14 year old girl confronted with a traumatic injury and a dramatic change in her appearance, with a partially shaved head and a Gardner-Wells cranioskeletal traction tong* pinned into my skull; I wasn’t posing in front of a lens anytime soon.

I treasure two photos from 1990, one taken the night before my accident on 4th August and the next one taken was 24th December on my first weekend home from hospital. A stark contrast but i’m smiling in both images. I’ve never posted those photos publicly and I don’t think I ever will, I cherish them so deeply, they are so intensely personal to me. I’m a strong believer that not every moment or memory has to be shared on social media, especially things related to trauma, we’ve become conditioned to sharing everything without considering the cost to ourselves, without pausing to consider are we writing from scars or wounds. Sometimes you have to keep a little piece of you just for you.

I’m not sure why I feel drawn to write something about it every year, perhaps it’s to honour that 14 year old girl. Maybe one day I’ll stop or maybe one day I’ll dive deeper and share more in a memoir, who knows, but until then do please feel free to share with anyone with whom the words may resonate.

* the Gardner-Wells traction, super cute non?

3 years later, full regrowth. (Of hair, unfortunately the spinal cord cells did not make it to full regrowth.)