Riaan wrote
I remember what Riaan said earlier on in this thread about what a difference could be made here. Long term patients like Vincent often end up in a confused and depressed state.]
I wasn't exaggerating when I said you played a defining role in saving this guy's life. I've seen far too often how paraplegics, once they're over the acute injury and treatment, simply lose the will to live once they're faced with the long term prospects without adequate rehabilitation. They eventually develop bedsores, pneumonia and septicaemia and die. Simply because something in the mind - I don't know what - "switches off" at some point. I think depression is only partly to blame. It's as if they decide to die, and with eyes like "black holes in the sky" (really) they simply do just that.
OK... Vincent is not a paraplegic (I state this because it's a fact - not to make a point against paraplegics). He'd had a very bad motorbike accident and had multiple fractures in both legs. When I met him he was in a wheel chair. He walked out of hospital. I don't know the exact history. I know he sustained head injuries as well (he had wires in his jaw). His left hand had been damaged. So whilst he was not a paraplegic his injuries were distinctly non-trivial.
I'm know the hospital therapists played a major role also, but my gut feeling is that with this project he was given substantially more - you may well have provided him with something that stopped him from flicking that switch.
Well done Bob, Keira and all who played a part. Hats off to you guys!
I don't doubt for a moment that it made a substantial difference to his time in hospital. When Keira told me that she was prepared to provide tuition I checked things out with the team that are treating Vincent. They were very happy, enthusiastic even for Keira to come and give him lessons and I think I know why now - it was the gift of having some human contact and a stimulating activity.
I took Vincent to TJs one night. He enjoyed this outing tremendously (especially, I suspect, the change from the hospital food). He paid a lot of attention to the songs and recalled several of them in a conversation he and I had on the way back to the hospital. In particular he was struck by the very last song that was played - Eric Bogle's "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda."
This song is written from the perspective of an Australian troop who fought at Gallipoli. It includes the lines
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in my hospital bed
And saw what was done, I wished I were dead
I never knew there were worse things than dying.
For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me
Which were lines that he remembered and referred to.
Vincent said he'd heard similar things said in hospital, especially by a room mate he'd had who had lost both legs.
So this fits in with what you said earlier - and none of that was melodramatic or overdone.
