The Sweet Life
Boredom is never easy, especially when you’re unable to move your body from the chest down. My brother Alec, rendered quadriplegic, lost the simplicity of youth on one unfortified corner of a racing track. His body lay sprawled, a superbike sliding across the tarmac sideways, untethered to its rider. A helicopter picked him up and transported him to Adelaide Hospital, dragonfly blades lifting him high into the air, away from the sport he loved and the life he knew.
Bali was hot, idyllic and helped ease the extreme cold of Alec’s dysreflexia*. But when it rained, the un-guttered roads became swamped; the rising water practically picked you up and swept you off like discarded litter. My brother and I sat in our Balinese compound watching the raindrops bouncing high off the pool’s surface.
Our holiday was curtailed and we were at a loss. To pass the time, we lapsed into increasingly ludicrous myths about who had it toughest when we were growing up. Alec’s tales of tearing bark from trees to whittle school pencils, then walking barefoot hundreds of kilometres to reach the classroom, barely alive when he arrived, had us in hysterics (we lived in the city).
The rain muscled down and dug in. Boredom replaced laughter. Our childhood stories had worn thin. We needed a brilliant plan.
‘Balinese lollies?’ I suggested.
‘Alright!’ he concurred joyfully, such a man-child. Inspired by his enthusiasm, I donned a cheap transparent travel poncho, grabbed a back-pack and braved the torrent. Alec lay confined to his bed, waiting in anticipation. Oh, the joy!
I made it back to the villa, drenched but alive, and we got stuck in.
‘This is the winner.’
‘You’re wrong. Taste this.’
‘What would you know? You like the poxiest lollies!’
Stories, laughter, and sheer idiocy helped temper the pain and loss in the earliest days of his accident. It still did. We reassured each other that he was okay, even though we both knew he wasn’t. And in the darkest days, we had lollies and storytelling.
*autonomic dysreflexia: dangerous overreaction of autonomic nervous system, rise in blood pressure, inability to regulate heat and cold after a spinal injury.