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My fiance has been on this forum since she was hurt and I thought I should get involved in some discussions as a carer and a partner of an incomplete paraplegic, I also am looking forward to seeking advice and giving it where possible.
I am 23 and Australian, I met my fiance (who goes by Kay on this forum) while I was training freestyle moguls and making money to support myself in ski school. To start with i'm 5'4" 1445lbs and I saw her at a whopping 6'3" and 135lbs and immediately thought she wouldn't be interested at all but I talked at the bar on my days off and made a fool of myself on a couple fo occasions since I have a reputation of going way beyond the "do not pass this point" moment. To cut a long story short I bought her a plane ticket to Australia and got her over there after meeting her parents and winning them over. It was 3 weeks after being in Australia after being in and out of doctors and the ER that she was admitted to hospital with blood clots and a severe infection we now know was Transverse Myelitis, this link explains the disease. http://www.ninds.nih...rsemyelitis.htm
I don't mean to blow my own horn but I am extremely proficient with dealing with and getting what I want from travel insurance companies and their underwriters who are usually large insurance firms such as Allianz in Australia or Access America in Virginia USA. I was getting fed up with the neglect and downright rudeness of the hospital staff so I pushed them to evacuate her and myself as her carer on the flight back to Denver Colorado. Not only did I get them to pay for our beach front hotel while we waited for the flights to get booked we were picked up in a stretch limo, had business class seats from Perth to Singapore, to London then Denver. Beds on every flight and excellent service except for London Heathrows wheelchairs that are like hospital gurneys and are unable to be maneuvered by the user and have no foot rests! I carried her to the bathroom on the flights to save time to get the aisle wheelchair and stayed awake to give her anti coagulant shots and pain meds etc. It was on our last flight from London to DEnver that I knew I wanted to be with Kay forever despite anything that could possibly happen and I proposed with the help of the captains announcement over the intercom and the flight attendants popping champagne for us! The captain was awesome, he read my speech I wrote on a napkin! to the entire plane! So this whole flight and accommodation I worked out to be just shy of $60,000 AUD which is about 61K USD or 36-40K GBP. I scored big time and infact got a free return flight to australia (economy unfortunately) also to sort my stuff out back home since I left in such a hurry.
So I am still happy with my decision, in fact more than happy I am almost glad this test as I see it happened so early in our relationship. My family however is not so supportive but luckily Kays parents love me and think the world of me.
I am hoping I do not do too mch for her, I carry heavy bags with law books, I carry drinks and her dinner plate and water cups ect in the house while she struggles on her good leg with crutches. I used to carry her into the pool out of her wheelchair before her left leg recovred to roughly 50-60%. I oush her up stepp ramps still as she cannot with her 40lbs of law books on the back of her chair and her skinny arms from high and triple jump where they focus on lower body and core not tri&biceps etc. She is much stronger after we started swimming together the over arm or the front crawl she call sit in canada and the US. I do let her transfer on her own and make her food herself and pur her drinks etc buy food let her open doors to cars and buildings when she needs to and let her bake and cook awesome gluten free food for me (i'm a diagnosed celiac, worst Australian ever! Allergic to BEER!) Her mum unfortunately thinks she either can do everything if she doesn;t ask for help or can't do anything on her own if she makes a mistake unfortunately but it is because I think, she has not come to terms with her daughter being disabled and beleves she will one day wake up and be 'normal' again. It's a bit of guilt and shock I think and I am finding it very difficult to cope with her attitude toward Kay. It is extremely frustrating when her mother says things like she shouldn't need pain medication anymore or why can't you just use crutches all the time and why are you so tired after school all the time and are you ondrugs etc!!! So i would like so help coping with her mum wh does not accept or believe Kay is disabled despite her being diagnosed and her Mum forcing herself into the doctors office to hear it.
Anyway there is far more but this is too long already for an intro and I need to sleep so I look forward to meeting all you carers and your other halves on here and I go by RADNY and I love to ROOOOOAR! like an animal in public places hahahaha!
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