When people ask you the best day of your life, it can be hard to decide. Is it the day you met your partner? Got married? Had your first child? Grandchild?
But ask people about the worst day of their life and it's usually pretty definitive. They know. They can name it without a second thought. I know mine. 22 February 2021 - is that day for me.
It started as a regular kind of day. Wake up, delay my alarm, sleep a little longer, then get up and get ready for work.
Once at work, turn on the PC, do some work, have a quick team meeting, until my phone rings. It's my son and I'm in the middle of the meeting so I decline the call. He calls back straight away, which he never does, and Beth tells me to answer the phone.
"hey mate...:
It isn't Hayden. It's his girlfriend, Kate. I'm not worried, she often messages me from his phone to contact me, or while he is driving and needs something. But this time there's a frantic note to her voice. She's speaking quickly and I struggle to understand what she's saying.
"Hayden and I...went to the beach...there was an accident...he's hurt, we are waiting for an ambulance to arrive..." I don't remember much more, something about bodysurfing, he can't feel below his waist, there was an off-duty paramedic helping, the lifesavers had him on a spinal board and had put a neck brace on him.
I assured Kate that we would head straight to the hospital as soon as we knew which one. My work team encouraged me to head straight to the Gold Coast, head to the GCUH where he would no doubt be taken. I told them I would wait - if it was a spinal injury he would be coming to the PAH where I worked, but they urged me to go. Bernie, one of the best friends I have ever had, grabbed her keys ready to drive me, while I rang Brendon to meet us down there. I took a breath and logic prevailed. I called Brendon and told him to come pick me up so we could drive down together.
Collecting my handbag and phone, I walked to the main entrance, waiting for Brendon, who is probably half an hour away from me. My mind racing...I need to make phone calls to let people know. My sister (a spinal unit nurse), my daughter, my mum and dad - all of the people in my life who need to know what is going on. I keep it light - "he's been in an accident, we don't know the extent of the injury, I'll keep you in the loop."
My phone rings again - it's from Hayden's phone. "Hi Kate.." "It's me, mum..." My first instinct is to rouse at him - "There better be someone else holding that phone for you buddy..." He assures me that Kate is holding the phone up to his ear, he is in a neck brace and on a spinal board, waiting on the beach for the ambulance to arrive. He tells me about the accident, including the fact that he can't move his arms or legs, and can't feel anything below his chest. But he's alive, and he's breathing unassisted. He rings off, and I wait for his dad to arrive.
It's a mostly silent ride to the coast. We are both processing what will come, what may be, the unknown that lays ahead.
We get to the hospital and find our way through the maze of walkways to the ED. There's a long line at triage, and I join the queue, only to decide that after only about ten seconds that I'm not waiting for that. I walk to the admin clerk's window and she lets us into the back of the ED to the resus waiting room, where Kate is waiting with her mum and brother.
Kate explained that they'd been planning on bodysurfing and first wave of the morning that Hayden caught dumped him. He hit his head on a shallow sandbank and immediately lost all feeling from the chest down. Kate found him floating facedown and thought he was joking. She grabbed his head and pulled it up, only to realise he couldn't move. Now she was in a battle to keep his head above the water to breathe, while the waves continued to crash around them. A number of people on the beach realised what was happening and came to her aid, and with the help of a paramedic who was on maternity leave, and the lifesavers (thank goodness they were swimming between the flags), he was stabilised and kept still to wait for the ambos to arrive.
We waited what felt like forever for the consultant to come back to us in the waiting room. Hayden had fractured a number of vertebrae and he was going to be transported to the PAH where he would have an MRI to determine the extent of damage to his spinal cord.
The relief of seeing him in the resus room was like no feeling I've ever had before. It was more euphoric than childbirth, more elated than my wedding day, the most immense feeling I've had, that I can't describe in words.
As the nursing team and doctors bustle around preparing equipment for his transfer to Brisbane, we understand the gravity of the situation. While he is currently breathing unassisted, spinal cord injury can cause shock through the body that can shut down otherwise healthy systems - almost a sympathetic reaction. As a result, they need to make sure they have everything on board that is needed should his body crash - ventilators, drugs, an amazing air cushion that is deflated so that he is held snug for the ride that will no doubt be a fast, bumpy one - all of the paraphernalia of the Emergency Room.
We watch him loaded into the ambulance, and follow him back to Brisbane, albeit slower than they drive. At PA, we head straight to emergency, where Bernie finds us and ushers us into the resus visitors waiting room. We sit and wait for news, get the chance to see him again and then watch as he is rolled out for his MRI. Bernie has sensed how nervous I am, as I struggle to fill the silences with words, words that will keep reality at bay while they hang between us all.
It's the longest hour waiting for him to return and when we get into the room with his doctors, we get the news we are dreading. Yes, he has fractured vertebrae, but he also has oedema (swelling) on his spinal cord at C6 and likely has a long-term spinal injury. I query what long-term means. The doctor responds "permanent".
The room goes silent as we all process what that means. I don't know what to do or what to say to him. How do I help him process this when I don't even know what it all means. He's scared - he told me he was - and I tell him we are scared too, but that's easy to say when it's not you that's actually going through this trauma, when it's not your body that suddenly doesn't work that way it always has for the last 20 years.
I hold it together until I walk out of the room, and then it just hits me in waves. I lock eyes with Bernie and then I'm a sobbing mess and am folded into a comforting hug. Brendon is there too and the three of us just cry in silence. I don't like crying, I hate giving in to emotions because I feel like if I do, I may never stop.
We move from resus to an Acute cubicle in ED, where we all sit with him as he rests. Kate and her mum are headed home and just after they leave, he says he feels sick. I alert Jake, his nurse, and suddenly people come rushing from everywhere. If he vomits while on his back there are all kinds of risks - they do a quick log roll, supporting his head and neck the entire time, to allow him to vomit what is potentially some of the salt water he has swallowed. I lose it for the second time today, realising how precariously close we are to losing him.
Brendon and I discuss who will stay as there is no need for both of us to be exhausted in the morning, so I spend the night with Hayden in ED. There are no beds available in ICU tonight, and because he is breathing unassisted, they are confident that he can spend the night there - with the ICU registrars checking in on him regularly to ensure his condition isn't deteriorating. I sleep fitfully in a chair leaning forward on his bed. Jake has quietly draped a blanket over my shoulders and given me a pillow to try to make me comfortable. I drift in and out all night, waking when he has his obs done, bloods taken, registrars checking in.
I finally go home after 5am, when Kate and her mum return to sit with him. As I walk back to my car, it washes over me again, and I spend the entire 20 minutes gasping for breath, my body heaving with sobs, guttural moans wrenching from the very depths of my soul. I can only imagine what I must have looked like to the early-morning commuters, but given my proximity to the hospital, the scene was probably one that has played out a million times and been seen so many times before. But I didn't care. I let the grief just come, I let it consume me. I wanted to feel this pain, I wanted to feel something after the numbness of the previous night.
I worry when I'm not distracted. I've heard the stories my nursing family tells about the depression, working through the changes to a life that may never be the same again. The dreams where they can walk and dance and run again, only to wake up to the nightmare of paralysis all over again.
But this man is strong. In my stories, I'll call him a boy, not to belittle him, not to take anything away from the man that he is. I call him a boy because to me he will always be my boy. He's my baby and I will always think of him as that cheeky little bloke who loves to give a thumbs up and a smile in a photo.
I know he will have down days. He's going to want to pack it in some days when it all seems too hard, when he is tired of having to fight for every victory. And that's ok. Because standing behind him is a family so fierce, so determined to help him find what he is capable of. I will never label him by what he can't do. I will only every look at what he can do and cheer him on as he achieves it. He has never seen the extent of what I would do for him and I don’t know that he will ever be able to fathom the depths of that. I try to explain - I've told him time and again since the accident and god help anyone who gets in my way. I've raised my kids to stand on their own, to go out into the world and grab every opportunity with both hands and I will continue to encourage that every step of the way.
I've begun recording all sorts of snippets since the accident, taken copious photos and documented changes great and small. One day, when it all gets too much, and he wants to give up, I'll show him some of those pictures to remind him of how far he has come. To show him that quitting is not an option. To show him how much his hard work has paid off. But most of all, to show him what he is capable of.
So for now, I'll finish up. I don't know how often I'll write, but I will write. I want to tell you all about my amazing friends, the healthcare team, my family and all of the highs and lows along the way. This, to me, is my catharsis and who knows, my boy may even have me write a screenplay about his life story one day. One can only dream...
