Plan B

 Life is movement. The more life there is, the more flexibility there is. The more fluid you are, the more you are alive.

Arnaud Desjardins

As a small child, I was a fast learner. I would copy the headlines from the newspaper and ask my Mum to read them for me. I would 'write' stories, squiggly lines on little pieces of paper, but they made sense to me. 

I had a great passion for learning and a prominent lisp. My father helped me to work through speaking without a lisp by teaching me about dinosaurs and getting me to name them. "Tyranatharuth Reth" was a favourite.

At the age of 5, I started ballet lessons, I dreamed of being a dancer and singing and being famous. I lived these daily daydreams where my life was a musical. There were theme songs for each event and occasion. Then it changed in one moment of distraction. 

I was getting flavoured milk from the milkman across the road. My little brother was sick. After I purchased the milk and was about to cross back to the other side of the road, I turned to talk to another little girl I went to school with. I stepped out from behind the truck on a blind corner and everything went black. I had been hit by a car and thrown over it. 

My next memory was waking up in my parents' bed 2 days later. I had lost all the skin from my back, had a huge lump on my head and a sore back (I had fractured my spine). We went to the local GP where he removed the dressings the ambulance drivers had put all over my back. Due to my tape allergy, I lost even more skin to the tape. Then he had to clean all of the gravel, dirt and bitumen out of my back. I am pretty sure there was a lot of anaesthetics involved! I spent weeks laying on my stomach on a towel in front of the television while my mother painted my back with betadine.

When I returned to school I became a public exhibit of "What happens if you get hit by a car and don't die." I was taken from class to class, from the lower school all the way up to the oldest grades and made to show everyone the damage and scars on my back. It was pretty humiliating. I had to give up ballet as I had lost the flexibility in my spine. 

I continued to have my daydreams about singing and fame, life is filled with music and joy. It didn't stop me from wanting to learn more about the world, from devouring books written for older age groups and adults. Sucking the knowledge out of everything I could get my hands on. I loved music lessons and I loved maths. I loved maths so much I used to embroider maths equations.  

Being flexible with dreams and goals, working around things that weren't working as well as others, that was the way to live life. Part of that I learned from my Aunty Terry. 

I had planned to go to University from Highschool and study Geology. It didn't work out so I moved to another city and changed direction.

I had a son.

I broke my spine again at age 21. 

I married a wonderful man and became a Mum of 4.

I was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 29 while about to complete my web development certification.

I did achieve my dream of becoming a singer.

I spent 8 years seriously ill

I had brain surgery

I went back to study 13 months later

I was accepted into a Bachelor of Science (Clinical Science)

I had to change direction because of brain surgery side effects. 

I completed my Bachelor of Psychological Science and have started my Master of Global Public Health. 

I didn't imagine in my wildest dreams that this is where I would be, flexibility and determination made it happen.