The morning of Sunday 29th April 2007 dawned as partly cloudy with a hint of rain in the air. After a rather lazy breakfast I settled down to a few minor computer tasks when the phone rang interrupting my train of thought.
Slightly irritated, I reached for the phone but Judith had beaten me to it and was answering the call in the kitchen…I can recall overhearing her saying before she hung up “thanks Oli”. Oli, who we didn’t know at the time, was the proprietor of Cheeky Monkey Cycling; he was calling to tell us that Jenny had had a cycling accident and was taken to Canberra Hospital.
With nervous concern I phoned the Hospital under the assumption that Jenny had come off her bike in wet conditions as there were intermittent showers state wide at the time. I thought to myself,…if they’ve taken her to hospital she may have a fracture, or even a couple …and lacerations, God she must be in pain! After what seemed like hours the Doctor was on the line…”Your daughter has had a serious accident” …I felt my heart thumping and I found myself taking a deep breath…”how serious?” I asked, by now starting to tremble uncontrollably.
“She was hit by a vehicle and has suffered fractures to her cervical spine, multiple fractures to her pelvis, fractures to tibia, fibula, multiple fractures to her left ankle, fracture to her elbow and ligamental damage to her knee”…I couldn’t control the tears welling in my eyes and fought like crazy to stay calm.. He went on..” I’m afraid we’ve had to amputate part of a finger and she has a punctured lung; it is also highly probable that she has suffered a brain injury and is now in a coma”.
By now in shock I tried to force words from my parched throat “Do you think we should…..” “Yes,” he said, “I think you should come now; and please be careful, some of the roads are wet.” I put the phone down and broke the news to Judith; we hugged each other for a very long time as gradually the initial shock waves seemed to dissipate ….I told myself I needed a clear head. That point in time marked the start of the longest journey of our lives.
Our son, Sean drove us to Canberra together with Jenny’s sisters, Jane and Kate with our other daughter, Kieran flying from Queensland as soon she could. Although Sean made good time, the trip seemed to last forever with conversation at a minimum, each of us alone with our thoughts and feelings…my own contained a good deal of fear and apprehension. Although with loved ones I felt strangely alone and thought only of Jenny as I traced her young life from birth until that fateful day.
When we arrived Jenny had already undergone hours of emergency surgery accompanied by several blood transfusions. Though very concerned, we had all calmed somewhat after the first few traumatic hours. However when we saw our baby for the first time the shock waves returned with a vengeance, I was seemingly not in control of thoughts or actions, just going through the motions……a state that I was to remain in for the next 24 hours. She was linked up to an IV drip, a ventilator and various monitoring devices. Her face was just visible behind a huge neck brace, her elbow was in plaster and her partly amputated finger wrapped in a bandage. Her pelvic, leg and ankle fractures where stabilized by external orthopaedic braces which pierced her small frame from what seemed to be all angles and her right knee was in plaster. The unshaven part of her hair was matted with blood. Praise is God that although suffering multiple lacerations on her body, her face had only two small cuts. On her cheek and above her eyebrow she was still as beautiful as ever. In a coma, even if she wanted to she could not move an inch………… and that is how she remained for the next two months.
The ensuing few days listed Jenny as being critical with more operations to repair a ruptured cecum and an operation on her brain to drain pressure building fluid, this being the first of five such operations to be conducted in the future. With the invaluable support of family, work colleagues and many of Jenny’s friends, particularly her cycling and triathlon buddies, we remained cautiously hopeful but mindful of how desperately serious the situation was……we were in tune with her progress almost every hour of every day . One thing we were absolutely sure of……..she was getting the best help anyone could wish for in ICU at Canberra Hospital…we were all hanging on….
About the tenth day we were all ushered into a meeting room to consult with the various Doctors and Nurses who treated Jenny; these included the Hospital staff and specialist Doctors, neurologists, neurosurgeons, orthopaedic surgeons ,gastrologists and the like as there were many areas of concern. I surveyed the room and looked upon the faces of my wonderful family for now my heart went out to each and every one of them as well; I saw a picture of apprehension but tight lipped determination; something we always admired in Jenny if anyone could get through this…she could. The Doctor in charge of ICU broke the silence with words I shall remember for a long time to come…”provided Jenny doesn’t pick up a major infection and she remains free of blood clots we have reason to believe she should survive”…I held Judith’s hand…very tightly. Our little girl had begun to fight back.
Yes, Jenny had begun to fight back and a few days later a tracheostomy was inserted and she was breathing on her own; she now was able to be moved from ICU into the neuro ward for it had since been established by many scans that she had a serious diffuse brain injury…her condition was now listed as stable but with the prognosis that a long road lay ahead. After yet more orthopaedic procedures (her ankle had to be reset twice) and fluid removed from the brain area Jenny was becoming more stable but still had to endure life threatening infections which had to be treated with massive multiple antibiotic therapy. Many other drugs were used to stabilize bodily functions whilst her nutrition was provided via a naso gastric tube; with the help of these aids she was finally out of crisis and was able to be air lifted back to Sydney…it was exactly one month to the day.
Canberra had been our ‘home’ for the past month and we were happy when Jenny was moved to Sydney as it eased the enormous emotional and physical strain on many family members who also had jobs and their own families to consider. She was transferred to the Brain Injury Unit (BIU) located in the precincts of Westmead Hospital where her rehabilitation was to begin. Unfortunately, for this process to begin in earnest we had to wait for at least another two months for her ankle to be reset for a third time and all her fractures heal ……impatience was another human trait we had to deal with .
As Jenny passed each milestone in her recovery, it was met by excitement and joyous relief by all, and a realisation perhaps that we were putting life’s small mercies into perspective. Such was the feeling when she had her neck brace removed and her tracheostomy followed weeks later by the big one…her external orthopaedic braces: her body was in a sense now free…all cause for cautious celebration for up until then, that tiny body, emaciated by months of inactivity, had endured nearly forty hours of surgery………celebration indeed!
One final piece of surgery to deal with….removal of the naso gastric tube and insertion of a PEG line directly into her stomach and this coincided with increasing the strength of her nutrition……now we’re really ready for rehab! Of course we knew that Jenny still needed further reconstructive surgery on her knee and ankle but we assumed that as being a piece of cake compared to what she had been through; she would be much stronger to begin with………However in our excitement at her obvious recovery thus far we tended to underestimate the most serious and over riding injury of all…the injury to the brain. Her recovery to this point was, comparatively speaking, only a nano second in time. From now on it will take hefty resolve from Jenny and many others to gain for her some quality of life. When I look now at her beautiful face, almost unmarked, I find it hard to comprehend that our last born child cannot do one, single thing for herself.
John McKenna
