The Legless Lizard

At this stage, I'd headed back to work for 2 days per week.  Katrina is Matt's awesome Physiotherapist at Nepean Hospital.  She's invested in her work immensely and her humour makes life simpler.  Katrina touched base by phone initially and got Jenny O'Neill's number and the two of them conversed together on what each was working on with Matt.  A stroke of luck to get someone like Katrina, who is as passionate about her work as Jen is.  The Universe strikes again for the Charnley family :) Katrina filmed this little section for Matt to send to me to see how he started off with his "first leg". He started off doing an hour to an hour and a half some days of this initial therapy.  Looking back now, he's just learning and getting his balance.  This was an amazing milestone.  Matt said this was the last part of his session so he was pretty exhausted by this stage.  

With our lives getting back to their new normal, the blog has taken a backseat, so I thought it was time to get some updates happening!!!! After what seemed a long journey for us, but seemingly fast for surgeon's, bystanders, physiotherapists and others involved, Matt's amputation wound healed well (and he has a mighty good looking stump might I add!) so he was ready for Physiotherapy! Matty started doing 3 sessions per week with the nothing short of amazing and miraculous, Jenny O'Neill - who has been Matt's incredible physio from Day 1, not to mention headspace extraordinaire and inspirational, motivational mentor!   Interestingly enough (with this fabulous Government Australia has) from a financial perspective, of course the NDIS will not allow any of his funding to be compensated for any of this cost because it is "private physiotherapy".   The logic in not supporting people to be proactive in their healing astounds me!  Shouldn't that save them...

Time is of the essence and like most things, one thing leads to another, domino effect etc etc etc.  Focus has been largely on rehab and physiotherapy and maintaining Matt's mind space.   There's the catch 22 situation when one needs what they class as heavy drugs for pain, then trying to wean off those, yet with more movement and therapy, more pain increases.  It's one of those things that 'hangs in the balance' but one that we are all mindful of, particularly Matt himself.  We've been there before and it's not always pretty!  Yet it's a mindful process this time around.  You learn from your mistakes, or experiences as I'd prefer to call them.  You make sure you aren't going down that path again. So whilst we are focusing on getting going, on more movement, better life quality, more functionality we have completely forgotten to nurse the progress and the changes of the impact of actually being more mobile & functional!  It's been a long...

This day was absolutely amazing!  The smile and look from within, just shone through his entire being.  A very blessed day for us all.

After experiencing limbo, impatience, some detachment and depressive & frustrating moments, we have all survived the waiting, which has seemed like forever.  Most people say "wow, you're home already"  or "you've got a leg already" so it mustn't really be that long, but like anything I guess... if you're living it, it's totally different! So last week it was off to the Prosthesis Clinic at Nepean and there was Matt's new leg!!!  Funnily enough, the evening before, Matt says to me "did you buy me new boots?" and my answer was no.  Here is the most important appointment of all time and I'd forgotten to bring home the most vital part for this new life force!!!  Not that they're MY boots, or it's my leg!  The reality is Matt could've done that himself but just him getting back into some kind of 'normal' is a slow process.  Being in crowded places with staring eyes, is something he's not supe...

After a number of emails from centres & their expression on how much the clients miss Matt he took the plunge.  It was a big step after much deliberation about getting back to 'normal', Matt decided to give one session of work a go.  For those that don't know,  Matt does music therapy for persons with disabilities (he also does this for aged care centres and teaches guitar) where these centres book him weekly, a year in advance, because these clients just love him so much.  He plays for an hour, he takes them microphones so they can have their 5 minutes of fame and interacts with the clients as only Matt can.  These centres have been so understanding of our situation, and very patient in waiting for Matt to return to work, and we are very grateful. So Wednesday the 1st of March we were off to Penrith after the hospital.  The clients saw Matt through the glass windows and doors and were sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!  There w...