parents' experience
Fatherhood and sudden disability
Tim Rushby-Smith from London, UK, describes his experience of sudden disability and the challenges of becoming a father just months later.
On 1 April 2005, while working as a tree surgeon, I fell from a tree and broke my spine. The resulting spinal cord injury left me paraplegic. At the time of my accident, my wife Penny was five months pregnant, and although some people thought this added an extra level of tragedy to our story, after the initial shock it gave us extra determination, as we had something really positive to focus on.
The first 24 hours were very difficult. After diagnosis and having to tell family and friends, we had the forced separation of the hospital environment. Penny and I ran a successful garden design and construction business, which meant that as well as having been married for eight years, we spent every working day together, so the feeling of isolation we both felt was hard to cope with.
Rehabilitation
Two weeks after my accident I was taken to the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville to begin rehabilitation. The staff were really supportive from the word go, saying, &lquo;Even if we have to push your bed to the maternity unit, we'll make sure you're at the birth!&rquo;
Rehabilitation was hard work, but it felt good to have something physical to focus on, and I also made sure to find out as much information as I could, as I was determined to be completely self-caring.
The psychological issues around coming to terms with my disability were much more difficult to deal with. To this day, I'm still not sure whether I've fully accepted the change in my life.
Rosalie's birth
But the ‘birthday’ was always on the horizon. I stuck to my task, and I was discharged from hospital on 22 July 2005, exactly one week before our daughter was born. I was with my wife Penny at the birth. I wouldn't have missed it for the world and the sense of relief and joy that I felt when Rosalie was born was utterly overwhelming.
The next challenge we faced was going home. We had to find our way through the bureaucracy of the disabled facilities grant (a local council grant to help towards the cost of adapting your home to enable you to continue to live there) and organise the building work that was needed.
We kept a close eye on the details, as I was determined that our home shouldn't look like a hospital.
Writing about our experiences
Back home, I put together all my e-mails and a diary that I kept through my rehabilitation, with the idea of perhaps writing the book that so many friends had told me I should write. I managed to get a few thousand words together, and was offered a contract by a publisher, which certainly helped my confidence.
I made a point of writing about all aspects of spinal cord injury, as I think there is a lack of understanding about what is involved, and I could sense a lot of questions around me that were never asked for fear of offending or being seen as insensitive.
The process of writing about our experiences was cathartic for me. Some of it was very difficult to revisit, but it also enabled me to see how far I'd come in such a short time. Penny has been incredibly supportive throughout, and having her and Rosalie in my life makes me feel lucky every day.
Learning together
Fatherhood from a wheelchair has been a challenge, but as Rosalie has only ever known me in a wheelchair, we are learning together. It can be difficult watching her running around sometimes, as I feel unable to move fast enough to catch her if she falls, but she's pretty cautious, and I think every new parent has to go through something similar.
When we're out and about, Rosalie knows that she has to be on my lap when we're on a busy road, especially important as she's now faster than me over the first few metres.
Generally things get easier as she gets older. Being able to explain stuff to her helps, and as she's getting more confident physically, going out is easier now she's able to get in and out of the car unaided. We have a car with a sliding rear door, which was a great help when I used to lift her into the car seat, and it's still useful to be able to get up close to the car.
I spend a lot of time on the floor playing on her level, which is really rewarding and makes me practice getting back into my wheelchair regularly, something I worked hard on in hospital. My attitude is ‘figure out a way to do it and then decide if it?s worth the effort’. Most things can be achieved with enough practice. I have remained very active since my accident, playing wheelchair basketball and more recently tennis, as well as going to a gym that is fully wheelchair accessible.
Rosalie continues to impress me with her ability to accept me as a wheelchair user. She thinks nothing of climbing onto my lap, and on very rare occasions she even tidies her toys away to prevent me from being stuck in the corner of the room! Mind you, the sound of a wooden brick flying across the room from underneath a wheelchair tyre is enough to make even the very young appreciate the peril. I have thought about making some kind of toy-plough for the front of the chair…
Editor?s note: Looking up: a humorous and unflinching account of learning to live again with sudden disability by Tim Rushby-Smith is reviewed in this issue (see Resources).