A Bloody Paraplegic
Hospital (1)

I mentioned elsewhere that while there is always someone else worse off it is not something you think about when you are trying to work through your own problems. Go and get someone to kick you in the nuts and then see who you worry about.

Spinal cord injured people were put into the Infectious Diseases ward at Shenton Park back in 1962 so that was where I finished up after a spell in Intensive Care at Royal Perth Hospital.

Infection was rife, particularly urinary tract infections, and death was not unknown.

In those days they kept you still while your back mended and then kept you in for around six months or so while the physiotherapists got you up and going in the wheelchair.

I had a few complications that kept me in for a lot longer than normal. Around a year and a half actually.

This pretty much says it all I think. Totally fuckd'
Strapped to a standing frame next to my bed in Ward 11 at Shenton Park.

Apparently because I was madly pedalling when I hit the car the sudden stop caused calcification to form in my hip joints. At first I couldn't sit up and had to get around in a standing wheeling thing. Then they decided to cut some of the calcification out and fix me in a sitting position.

Fortunately the calcification didn't grow back as much although I still can't lay flat on the bed. My right knee sticks up a bit but I have been able to live with that.


Tex and Me	Me, Mum, Geoff and Robert.

Me and Mum.	Tex and Me.

I am not sure when I first met Bill Mather-Brown but I do remember him coming in one day all full of get up and go and letting me know in in no short order that I had better hurry up and get out of bed because we had basketball and a whole lot of other sports to play.

I actually came across him when I was playing Junior football because I remember him swinging on a pair of crutches. If I am not wrong he was the coach of the opposing team.

Bill was in the first team of disabled athletes to wear an Australian blazer and compete in an international event - the Stoke Mandeville Games, England, 1957. He was a casualty, at the age of 2, of the poliomyelitis epidemic that occurred in Western Australia in the late 30's.

He was a good role model who led by example and I am not sure that he is aware of just how many people he has helped over the years.

Bill has written a book called The Fight in the Dog which tells of his life and the early days of 'Disabled' Sport in Western Australia.

continued My First Job

I spent too much of my younger years in bed which is probably why I hate laying in these days.

Geoff, Mum, Bob and myself.

Because of complications I spent a lot of time on that trolley thing.

Tex and Me. Unconditional love.

Waiting to go into the pool.

Bill Andrews, Me, Eric Fletcher and June Hall.

A Bloody Paraplegic John Dwyer

A Bloody Paraplegic Hospital (1)

I mentioned elsewhere that while there is always someone else worse off it is not something you think about when you are trying to work through your own problems. Go and get someone to kick you in the nuts and then see who you worry about.

A Bloody Paraplegic
Hospital (1)