Body
My name is Sarra. I am 38 years old and live on a farm in a small village in Bedfordshire, England, with my husband and my sons, aged 12 and 9, and my daughter, age 7.
We live on a working farm growing cereal crops, boarding horses, and breeding rare sheep.
My spinal cord injury was the result of a riding accident. I have always been around horses, living and working with them on the farm and riding since childhood. In 2017, my older horse passed away, and I had the opportunity to buy a young horse that needed training from scratch. The young horse’s development went well, and he grew into a lovely lad. On 29th September 2018, my life changed forever. I was 33 years old, a very active mum with three young children (then aged 6, 4, and 1); I had my own business, an active social life, and many hobbies, including clay pigeon shooting.
We had some very hot weather that summer and the ground was dry and hard. As I was riding, my young horse spooked at something in the hedge, and I fell off. While I was not in pain, I soon realized that I was not able to move anything other than the tops of my shoulders.
A helicopter arrived to take me to the hospital. I was told I broke my neck at the C4/5 level vertebral level and needed emergency surgery to stabilize the damage. I can remember the helicopter trip arriving at the hospital. However, after that, I was in a medicated coma for a while and only had patches of memory for around six weeks.
Once I was strong enough, I left intensive care. I moved into a rehabilitation ward, where I was able to work on the strength of my cough and deeper breathing to enable my lungs to function properly so I could come off the ventilator. I spent a few weeks in the rehab unit until I was able to get a bed space at a specialist spinal injury hospital, approximately an hour away from my home. I also learned how to use a wheelchair.
Little did I know that after spending three months in hospital at that stage, it would be another 12 months before I could return home. I arrived at the specialist hospital at the beginning of December 2018 and was discharged on 30th November 2019.
I then spent five weeks at home, celebrating Christmas and the New Year, and then returned to the hospital in mid-January 2020 for planned surgery to improve my arm function. Following successful surgery, I eventually returned home in March 2020, just at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and a national lockdown.
My rehabilitation program was brilliant. I had a weekly timetable with many different activities ranging from physiotherapy sessions to swimming, cookery, gardening, and more. The aim of the timetable was to keep us busy and provide us with tasks to challenge our bodies and minds.
Learning a new life in a new body was incredibly scary, exciting, challenging, and exhausting all at the same time. My sole focus was to get strong enough, physically and emotionally, to go home and get my life back.
Overall, I feel that my inpatient experience of rehabilitation was extremely positive. I did not feel that I was in a rush to achieve things. I also felt supported and cared for by the staff who got to know me well during my stay. Setting regular, bite-sized goals was a brilliant way of moving towards my discharge goals without feeling overwhelmed by the volume of what needed to be achieved. I have always felt that a positive attitude in life gets you further; at that stage in my life, that perspective could not have helped me more. I focused each day on what I had accomplished and learned, ensuring I was hydrated, ate well, and tried to let my body and mind rest when needed.
I was also very grateful to have many people visiting me. My family and friends were so supportive and constantly encouraged me to get stronger and try new things. I was rarely alone in the daytime and would look forward to the evenings when I could relax in bed while talking to friends or family who traveled to visit me.
During my time in the hospital, I learned a lot about myself and how important independence and the ability to think clearly really are. I also learned how to allow myself the time I needed to develop my thoughts about my life when I got home and how I would tackle the challenges that would inevitably come my way.
I would say that giving someone who has just sustained a spinal cord injury time is very important. Coming to terms with the changes in your body, lifestyle, relationships, etc., is challenging. Every single person with an SCI is different, and it’s such an overwhelming, dark, scary, and lonely place to be. It’s heartbreaking, especially for people struggling to get their heads around what has happened to them. Giving people time, patience, and a shoulder to cry on is key.
I recall being newly injured and meeting lots of people from the SCI community at a sporting event, and I can remember thinking, this is great, but all I want to do is go home and be a mum. I did not want to become an Olympian or learn a new sport. All I wanted was to be me again: a wife, a mum, a friend, a daughter, and a sister.
When it comes to going home from inpatient rehabilitation, I’m not sure that any amount of preparation is enough for the transition or the emotional change. I had so many concerns and questions. Not having the constant medical support at hand was something I had to get used to. What will happen if my blood pressure drops? What will I do if my catheter blocks? There are so many medical questions that can cause panic. I also wondered about how I would fill my days. My daily and weekly timetable and my routine had been set by my therapists in rehabilitation for so long. At home, I’d have to figure out what to do on my own.
Another thing was that I would need to have carers. What would that be like? Would they be nice? I did not want my husband to become a carer, so how would being at home affect our relationship? I worried about how my children would react to me being home. Will it affect our relationships? Will I still be able to be the mum I want to be?
Mostly, I wondered, Can I still be me?
I have two personal assistants who help me on different days. Both have worked for me for a few years now and have become part of our family life. They help me with things ranging from making a cup of tea to changing the bed sheets to gardening and help me continue running the home as usual.
Since my accident, I have not been able to be as “hands-on,” I am still more than capable of managing the day-to-day running of the farm, knowing which animals need what and when, and of course, keeping up to date with all the farm administration and organization.
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As part of a grant to study how differences in acute care and rehabilitation length of stay affect outcomes for people with spinal cord injury in different countries, the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research has collected blog posts by people with SCI in different countries about their injuries and rehabilitation. In these posts, writers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and The Netherlands share reflections on their unique inpatient rehabilitation experiences, what worked, what they wanted more (or less) of in rehabilitation, what it was like going home, and how they are doing today. The grant is funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (grant 90DPHF0012).