Journalist Melanie Reid spoke about the impact of life in a wheelchair, and relearning life skills through occupational therapy after a horror horse riding accident fourteen-and-a-half years left her tetraplegic.
Fourteen-and-a-half years after the horse-riding accident which left her tetraplegic, journalist Melanie Reid has spoken about the ongoing impact of life in a wheelchair, and relearning life skills through occupational therapy.
“When you have a spinal injury, it’s like a nuclear explosion in your body. Everything is blown apart. Your body, your life, your family’s lives, your emotional life, your practical life, your sexual life.“At first, I didn’t realise how serious my injuries were. I knew it was a bad accident and I knew that nothing worked anymore.“But it didn’t cross my mind that I wouldn’t fully recover.
“I’ve also learned that there are other grim things about paralysis apart from not being able to walk. Having paralysed bladder and bowels is one of the main challenges. A lot of spinal-injured people will tell you that actually walking doesn’t matter – if they just were able to go to the loo like everybody else, life would be a lot better.
“You’re in a very sheltered world in the spinal unit because everyone’s in a wheelchair and everyone’s sympathetic.“Amanda also came to my house to see what adaptations were needed. I live in a very old house, so we had to install lots of ramps so I’d be able to get around in my wheelchair. She taught me the skills about how to deal with those ramps. We had fun doing that.
“Amanda practised with me every day so I could learn to dress myself and put my shoes on. It was really, really hard. Sometimes I spent up to two hours trying to reach down to pull my trousers up because my hands weren’t strong enough.
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