Forged with Flames (17 page)

The next day, as I was still basking in it all, Andrew Richardson, the Australian flautist who had accompanied James the previous day, arrived back in my room bearing a flute—a gift from him to replace the one I'd lost in the fires. It was a beautiful instrument which I cherish and still play to this day.

I later learned that a friend of Terry's had arranged for James' and Andrew's visit through a neighbour who worked in the concert department of the ABC, with help from other friends and the Prof. This experience, and the generosity of spirit of James and of so many others, filled me with a profound sense of joy at a crucial time in my recovery after such a time of loss. But most of all they reminded me to never think of giving up—that one's life can change with the opening of a door.

21

THAT'S NOT MY MUM

I
n early March, when Sarah first saw me after I was burned, her first words were, ‘That doesn't look like my mum'. Rachel's response was, ‘That
isn't
my mum'. So similar, and yet so different. In Rachel's four-year-old eyes, her truth was ‘the truth'—she was convinced I wasn't her mother. Although Sarah would come into my room in the ICU, for long weeks Rachel wouldn't and no amount of persuading helped. I missed her dreadfully. Rachel had coped with the fires basically by shutting it all out—and me with it. Sarah, who'd watched the house burn down and protected her sister in the car, must have been deeply traumatised but she always came in, not because she wanted to, she told me a long time afterwards, but because she thought I'd want her to. She recalled the first time she came to my bedside, inching along the linoleum floor, feeling as though it took forever to get there. One cautious step at a time. At first I wasn't even recognisable, but as she neared the bed she saw my eyes—the only part of me that looked the same.

Finally, three months after the fires, when I had returned to the Burns Unit, I could bear it no longer: I had to see Rachel, too. I asked Terry to go and get her and bring her into my room even if she fought him all the way. And that's exactly what she did. She kicked and screamed in his arms; and Rachel's scream was always a force to be reckoned with. Terry persevered, holding onto her as she struggled to escape, bringing her wriggling to my bedside. In spite of the protests, it was a joy to see her properly at long last.

After a while she calmed down, helped by the store of sweets in my bedside drawer, the lure that kept her coming back in—bribery was absolutely essential in this case. She remained careful to keep her distance, though, even as she reached out for a sweet. I didn't blame her for not wanting to touch me or for not letting me touch her. My exposed skin, still healing, was red and flaky with unsightly scabs. My voice had changed, too—it was deep and husky for a while—and most importantly for the girls, my hair was gone. The fact that I'd had my head shaved really threw them. About that time when Terry mentioned that he was going to get his hair cut, they pleaded with him not to.

‘You won't look like Daddy, anymore,' they cried.

I longed for just the briefest acknowledgement from Rachel that I still mattered in her life. We had always shared an easy, close relationship and it hurt deeply that I had become such a stranger to her, however much I tried to understand it. I looked at my little dark-eyed darling and worried that it would never be the same again. Rationally, I knew things would settle down eventually, but I still wondered what would happen when I was discharged, and if she'd even want to be in the same house as me. At this stage, not knowing how I would look or what
I would be physically capable of, played on my fears that my family might reject me.

Rachel's fifth birthday came around at the end of June. Terry bought me a silver cross on a chain to give to her, which he'd carefully gift-wrapped. I'd given her one before that she loved, which had been lost in the fire along with all her other belongings. I imagined optimistically that we would have a breakthrough, that she'd be delighted when I gave her the new one, and be happy at last to approach me with a big smile and hug. So I felt a wave of happiness rise up in me as she came close enough for me to hand it to her, and saw that she was so obviously delighted when she opened the box. As she picked up the chain I said hopefully, ‘I could fasten it around your neck if you'd like, Rachel?' Immediately, she jerked back as if she'd been stung and said, ‘No, I want Daddy to do it'.

Such a little thing to get upset about, but I was stricken. ‘Don't be impatient, it'll happen', I repeated to myself, like a mantra. Common sense suggested I mustn't force anything; just let things take their course. But my heart wasn't moved by common sense; it knew what it needed desperately—to feel like a mother again.

22

OUT FOR LUNCH

A
t the end of June, four-and-a-half months after being admitted to the Alfred, the sister in charge of the Burns Unit told me that I was physically up to leaving the hospital for a little jaunt if I wanted. After all this time of being inside and isolated from the outside world, it was an amazing prospect. A couple of nurses offered to take me down the road to the Chevron Hotel for lunch—a favourite haunt of the Alfred staff, then. Terry and I weren't really pub-goers so it made the excursion all the more interesting. The one drawback was that I didn't have anything to wear, not in the normal sense of I-don't-have-anything-to-wear, but literally. The nightgown I'd been given by the staff was my entire wardrobe at the time!

Somehow Peter, the intern, heard of my problem and brought me an outfit to wear for the day out. The brown tracksuit may not have been glamorous, but it was soft, warm and light, and totally practical and comfortable. I was so touched by the gesture—I didn't even know that he knew about my predicament. It felt oddly thrilling to be wearing clothes at last,
even if they were brown tracky dacks.

As the time approached, I was exhilarated yet nervous. What if something went wrong when I ventured out of the hospital? I was still very sore all over, had burns that were being dressed and hadn't completely overcome the feeling that I might die. My body somehow remembered that. But wow, I'd waited for this moment—it'd been so long coming.

It was a cool and cloudy June day, stubbornly overcast, but none of that mattered for me. The nurses were laughing as we left the building and I felt like a kid starting out on the Big Dipper. As we exited through the main doors, the noise coming from busy Commercial Road hit me immediately. It sounded far too loud to my ears—all one and a half of them—and the cars seemed to be whizzing past much too fast. It was more challenging than I had imagined. It certainly wasn't a dream run sitting in a wheelchair, however, even though one of the nurses was doing all the work pushing it. Every bump or crack on the footpath was uncomfortable, and the curbs loomed like cliffs. On the other hand, just being outside was invigorating, and being able to breathe in fresh air again, or rather fumey fresh air, but at least it didn't smell like disinfectant.

Fortunately, we didn't have to go far on this bumpy ride but when we reached the hotel door I had a bout of apprehension: I was now out in the real world where people didn't expect you to look like someone who'd just escaped a nuclear explosion. I still didn't know what I looked like but I knew it wasn't good. We sat at a square, wooden table in the middle of the spacious main room, with me facing the door where I could see people coming in and out. I felt squirmingly self-conscious when the waiter brought the meals but he was effortlessly friendly, asking
how I was, and talking to the nurses, so I soon eased into it. I had ordered a main meal of fish and vegetables, which the nurses cut up for me. Although I couldn't eat much of it, I was elated just to be out in a normal social environment.

These nurses had taken the trouble to organise this outing during their spare time and insisted on paying for my meal as well. I was struck again by the generosity and caring attitude of many of the nurses I encountered in my time in hospital. This was an extracurricular activity for them.

Not long afterwards, one afternoon in early July, I was waiting to carry out my daily tasks in my wheelchair in the occupational therapy room and, for some reason, was in a particularly pensive mood as I watched the staff going about their business. They would sit with a patient for a while, then get up to fetch something or go to another part of the room. I was mesmerised by how unthinkingly everyone moved about. Don't they realise what a miracle it is just to be able to get from here to there without even thinking? They have no idea how precious and wonderful that is. Of course, neither did I five months ago. Movement was just another one of those everyday, ordinary things of life that I had taken absolutely for granted. With that thought, I vowed to myself that if I ever managed to walk normally again, I would always remember this moment and feel overwhelmingly grateful. And I have.

23

LOSS OF FACE

O
ne of the things I barely thought of as I slowly recovered from my injuries was the change in my appearance. I'd somehow assumed that, yes, I'd have scars, but that they'd eventually fade in significance. I'd never been the sort of person who was particularly fussed about looks nor had I needed to worry about such things as I was lucky enough to be naturally attractive—not beautiful, but attractive. However, my appearance had been a big consideration for the staff of the Intensive Care Unit, who'd repeatedly asked themselves if, by some miracle, I survived, what sort of quality of life I'd have given the way I was going to look?

For some reason, one day in early July, I
had
to look at myself. I asked one of the nurses for a mirror. It was about five months after the fires and I was still unable to get out of bed on my own. The nurse was reluctant but I insisted, saying I really wanted to see my face. She took some time—more time than I'd have thought necessary—before coming back with a rectangular mirror that looked as if she'd taken it off a wall somewhere.

I took it from her and forced my right arm to hold it up in
front of my face. As I stared at myself, I just froze. My chin and cheeks seemed distorted, as if I'd transmogrified into another person. The scarring had not yet become raised and red, as it would later, but what I saw didn't even look like me. The face staring back at me was ugly and was registering my dismay. My face—the face I'd grown up with, the face that was
me
—was gone. I burst into tears. I wept for the part of me that was lost forever. The nurse tried to console me as I cried, telling me that I looked alright.

‘But I'm so ugly now,' was all I could say.

It struck me that I was going to stay looking that way. How could I cope with that day after day and have other people looking at that face? I thought, too, about the many years of surgery that lay ahead—the doctors said at least six years—and about all the other adjustments I'd have to make to my life.

Up to then, I'd been cocooned from this other reality whilst surviving was my priority. I thought that if I could come through it and stay alive, somehow everything would settle back to being the same. How naive I'd been. I knew with a jolt that nothing would ever be the same again. I'd always been fit, healthy and sporty—which undoubtedly helped me survive—but I couldn't even stand up, sit up or use my hands properly. How much mobility would I get back? Would I always need help? Would I have the stamina to be a fully engaged, fully functioning wife and mother? My days of excelling at sport were obviously over but would I ever be able to play the games I loved again? Would I be able to run again?

A hospital psychiatrist, Frank, had been seeing Terry and me together, and me individually for several months. I think it was Frank who first raised these things—matters that are common
to all burns patients. When he initially came in, I talked to him about being afraid of dying. Now we talked about living, in particular, how I'd manage and how I'd feel about the way I'd look. One of the issues that Frank had discussed with us in a joint session was the very high percentage of marriages that break down with burns patients because of the enormous stress the husband and wife are under for such a long period of time. At the time and long afterwards, it never entered my head that we'd be one of them. We were secure. At least
that
would never happen.

24

AGAINST DOCTOR'S ORDERS

T
owards the end of my stay at the Alfred, in late July, Peter the intern again showed his thoughtfulness when I had to have my hair shaved off for the second time. The first occasion was when I was admitted and, even though I had more urgent things on my plate, not having hair really did rankle. As it gradually began to regrow it used to stick up and the nurses would giggle. This was several decades before hair sticking up at all angles became fashionable! I'm sure they shared their amusement with me to help me see the funny side of things, but I used to get really cross about it. you try having no hair, I thought! I took consolation in the doctors' assurances that I would only need my head shaved that once.

However, coming round after one surgery in the middle of June I found they'd done it again. My hair had grown back quite vigorously and now I'd lost it again. I was devastated—quite out of proportion really, but having hair had seemed part of getting back some semblance of normality in my life. I guess my reaction must have shown that I was upset, at least to Peter.
Ever practical and keen to help, he came up with the idea of getting me a wig. I used to have long, dark, glossy hair but I'd always wanted blonde curly hair when I was a little girl—like the child film star, Shirley Temple. I envied her golden ringlets that seemed to have a life of their own. So when Peter and I discussed a wig, I toyed with the idea of going blonde or maybe red, and definitely curly. Like any woman with dead straight hair, I really liked curls.