Annie's Challenge

2027 is a big year for me.  Firstly, it will be 25 years since I broke my back.  The accident happened on the Mendip Hills above Wells on the foggy morning of Saturday February 16th  2002.  The Air Ambulance took me straight to the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre, our regional centre, in Salisbury, and there I stayed until, after nearly a year, I was ready to face the world and restart my life again.
The other milestone for me in 2027 is my 80th birthday which will be on Friday October 29th.
I can’t let this year pass without marking each of these important dates and so I have decided that, as a reminiscence of the accident, I am going to retrace my journey from Wells to Salisbury, this time on wheels instead of by helicopter.

In recognition of my birthday, I am going to undertake the 45 mile journey, which will take three days, in October so that I arrive in Horatio’s Garden, at the DoCSTC on my birthday.  Friday October 29th 2027.
This will be an opportunity to return to a place to which I owe so much.  It will allow me to demonstrate that my life is not over and was not terminated by my spinal injury.  It was dramatically changed but it has been rewarding and fulfilling despite everything, and my ability to deal with the difficulties and constraints which a spinal injury imposes, is because of the expert care, both physical and mental, which I received in the DoCSTC.  It will be a thoughtful time, a time to relive some of the shattering experience it was, and to lay it to rest.

Time to consider what I have lost since my injury but, more importantly, what I have gained.
I was indeed an extremely lucky person at that time and I still am.  Whatever conclusions I reach, as I trundle along, I am regarding this excursion as a CELEBRATION, a mark of gratitude for my good fortune which, now I wish to share.

I hope that I will be able to raise some money with which I can support two schemes which will contribute to the welfare of people, today and in the future, who suffer spinal injuries and need the kind of care and expertise which I received and which succeeded in allowing me to rebuild my life.
My objective is to raise £80,000  to match 80 years.  This is equal to about £2,000 a mile of what will be approximately, but slightly in excess of, 40 miles.

The first of the two charities which I aim to support is Horatio’s Garden.

horatiosgarden.org.uk

I was part of the team who helped to create the first Horatio’s Garden which is at the DoCSTC.  Horatio’s parents are close friends of ours and they have marked their own personal tragedy by committing themselves to a huge improvement in the circumstances and the facilities for every patient in the various spinal units in the UK.  There are 11 centres in all, and 9 Horatio’s Gardens have been built and are being used by the patients and staff in the units.  2 more gardens remain to be built and plans are underway so that within the next 4 years, both will have been completed.

From then on, the work with patients, the maintenance of the gardens and the progress in horticulture as an effective form of therapy and just being out of doors, will continue.  This will go on requiring support so that to add to the thousands of people who have already benefitted from the wellbeing of a Horatio’s Garden, untold numbers of future spinal injury sufferers will be able to safely go out of doors as they make their first tentative efforts to regain normality and courage in their lives.
BUT, what about people in other parts of our world and even here, in Europe and especially in Ukraine where war is raging.  The break down in the delivery of health care and in communications within communities is causing systems and organisations to work in great danger and under terrible difficulties.  Facilities are stretched to breaking point.

There is a wonderful charity called Humanity and Inclusion which operates all over the world bringing care and relief to people with disabilities especially where circumstances are poor.  It’s clear that this is the place for me to take half of the proceeds of my project for 2027. 

humanity-inclusion.org

I will make my donation to them expressly to help people in Ukraine who are suffering terribly when they have a spinal injury at the moment.
There are at least 2 spinal injury units in Ukraine.  However, these do not have the capacity to care for the increased number of people suffering spinal injuries today.  The added number of these kinds of injuries due to the war is out of control.  The increase is not just amongst those serving in the armed services but also amongst members of the civilian community who are being injured by drone fire and in the blitz of towns and villages by enemy action.

Many of these people are having to be cared for at home with visits from qualified people who bring the necessary physiotherapy, occupational therapy as well as counselling and help with the devastating impact that an injury of this severity has.  Just as there are not enough hospital beds, there are also too few qualified people to care for these patients adequately. 

At night, when sometimes I can’t sleep, I imagine the life of an injured person in a home which lacks reliable electricity and all the other basic services.  For anyone, this would be bad and frightening, but for a person with paralysis it would be, quite simply, deathly.  With no power, how cold is it?  Does the lift work in a high rise building so that, when the air raid siren goes   that person able to get out of the building to take refuge?  Is there even a wheelchair available or is this person confined to bed. 
These are realities in this, the 21st century, and they give me the determination to make this endeavour as successful as I possibly can.

This will be the last journey of this kind which I will undertake so I will be humbly approaching my friends and those who have supported me in the past, for the last time.  I need everyone to help me to help those who suffer, as I have done, but who do not have the good fortune that has allowed me to live happily, with paraplegia, for the last 25 years.

We have twelve months to make this happen and work starts today.

Thank you.