Never Broken (10 page)

The truth is I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair full stop, and I was proud so I didn’t want to ask for a handout. Jamie persuaded me ‘needs must’ and so I swallowed my pride as the situation was desperate. I told myself I wouldn’t need it for long but as the wheelchair was so old and the house wasn’t properly adapted I couldn’t get it over the steps to get outside unless I hobbled up the stairs on my crutch and Jamie carried it out for me and then pushed me where I needed to go. We
also had to move the furniture and I scraped the paint off the walls in the hallway with my wheels. Being sedentary meant I ballooned and my weight crept up from nine stone towards my peak weight of twenty-one-and-a-half stone within months.

The Army were great at supporting me financially and within months I received a compensation payment for my initial injuries. I was still on full Army pay, although I was on long-term sick leave, and it enabled me to pay off my credit cards and debts as well as put down a substantial deposit on a house in Winchester, which I planned to move into when I completed my Army career.

But in other ways, things initially weren’t so good.

I was on two strong opiate drugs, oral morphine and fentanyl lollipops, which are normally given to terminal cancer patients to help ease their pain. The only time I’ve seen someone else use them is in the pictures taken when reality star Jade Goody was dying from cervical cancer. They are supposed to be much stronger than the morphine and I used them for a quick burst of pain relief when the morphine wasn’t working. You let them dissolve on your teeth and your gums – they make you feel like you’re not really there.

I wasn’t functioning as when I wasn’t consumed by pain, I was off my face on the drugs and I could barely look after myself, never mind be a mum. The most painful thing of all is that I became redundant as a mother. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t lift Milly, I couldn’t take her to the park or nursery; I couldn’t even give her a bath or put her to bed. Jamie had to do it all, and in addition to everything else he became my carer. He’d get home from work, take off his jacket and then he’d start all over again. It was a living nightmare. I’d force myself to manage the toilet on my own but I could only have a
bath when he was in the house. I’d always loved a good soak with bath oil and candles and at first I was so determined to try and help myself that I used to drag myself in and out of the bath even if it took hours, as I didn’t want to be completely dependent on him. Other times, I was in so much pain I had to let him help me get in and out, and he’d even help towel me off while I kept my balance on my one good foot, holding the sink. I used to love relaxing in the shower as well, but I couldn’t take them because I couldn’t stand up anymore. No woman wants to ask her partner ‘Please can you help me take a bath’, and I found all the little losses of independence that were mounting up extremely hard to bear.

He did all the housework, dusting, hoovering and ironing, even doing the dishes as I sat there and watched him helplessly, hating every minute. I couldn’t reach the hob, so he cooked. We put the kettle on a coffee table so I could make myself a drink without the risk of tipping scalding water down myself, but that was about the only thing I could do independently. One thing I could do for myself was crawl upwards on my knees and slide downstairs on my bum, holding my injured leg out in front.

Besides that, Jamie helped me to get dressed and undressed, peeling my skirt over my head so it didn’t touch my leg. I lost my dignity at that point. To Jamie’s credit he never once complained. He was my rock and I realise now how strong a man he is to have managed. But I didn’t cope at all, instead feeling embarrassment, shame and anger that I was now completely dependent on him. Over time our relationship as husband and wife began to slowly erode, but I was too wrapped up in my own selfish bubble of misery to even notice.

Every night he’d cuddle me until I fell asleep but I totally
lost my confidence and wondered how he could ever find me attractive at the size I was. I felt a failure not only as a wife but also as a mother as my life consisted of sitting in the house staring at the four walls or crawling around while I waited for my next operation. At first I’d crawl upstairs when Jamie was giving Milly her night-time bath, thinking even if I couldn’t help, at least if I was there watching and talking to her then I was a part of it. As I sunk deep into a depression, I didn’t even bother to do that anymore. Instead I’d sit downstairs. I didn’t even cry that often – I just felt numb with it all.

On top of everything I started to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Night after night I’d cower underneath our bed screaming, convinced I was in the middle of a mortar attack. Luckily toddlers sleep like the dead and Milly never woke up. Later she often heard me screaming in pain, but Jamie and I protected her from the worst of my PTSD. Even though I was in the grip of it, my maternal instinct to protect her remained strong. To me the nightmares would seem completely real and even though I was in my bedroom, I’d be convinced I was back in Iraq.

During the daytime, whenever I was alone, I developed an obsession about watching videos of explosions in Iraq on YouTube. Hour after hour, I’d replay them again and again. It was like a form of self-harm; it would trigger me into reliving the horror of being buried alive in the rubble. I also became hyper-aware of Milly, convinced there was some unknown and unseen threat that would hurt or kidnap her. Unable to switch off the adrenaline, I was constantly in a state of fight or flight.

The reality is I’d become mentally ill. My thoughts weren’t making sense and I was wrapped up in depression and
misery, which in turn turned me into a selfish person. My mental health problems literally fed my weight gain. Along with steroids and the other cocktail of drugs I was taking, I pigged out and continued to balloon. During the lonely hours when Jamie had dropped Milly off at nursery and while he was at work, I’d wheel myself backwards and forwards from the fridge and kitchen cupboards to mind-numbing daytime TV shows. Binge eating to fill the bottomless pit of misery inside me, I’d think nothing of polishing off entire packets of chocolate digestives, six Penguin bars and an entire six-pack of Walkers crisps in a day. I didn’t eat cereal, I couldn’t even be bothered to make myself a sandwich; I just grazed and ate junk. And the more I binged, the fatter I became.

The Army did their best and they offered me help at every opportunity, but at that point they hadn’t developed the incredible support systems that are in place now for casualties as the sheer number of injured troops that there are today didn’t yet exist. The Army’s support system has evolved so much that now they give you help before you even realise you need it. But back then, everyone did their best and they constantly offered me assistance, saying: ‘What do you need?’ But I didn’t know what I needed and I was so insular and sick that I didn’t want to ask for help. As the years passed I saw a dramatic improvement – and I got an incredible amount of help, without even having to ask. But at that point they were still learning how to help those who were still serving but had significant or life changing injuries.

Jamie did the shopping as I wasn’t well enough to do it and he bought what I wanted. Struggling by then to keep his own head above water, he didn’t even question me when I asked him to get more biscuits or even more of my favourite
sweets, and because I was barely moving in my wheelchair, I just ballooned. After he’d been to work, bathed Milly and put her to bed and done the housework, Jamie would be too exhausted to cook, so he’d pop down the road to the camp chippie and buy a bag of chips or he’d order a takeaway curry or pizza each. I’d eat whatever it was and then gorge on a family bar of chocolate for dessert. In the grip of a food addiction, I was out of control and my appetite never seemed sated.

I didn’t look in any of the big mirrors in the house because I didn’t want to be confronted by what I’d become. Instead, I’d use a tiny, handheld cosmetic mirror in which I could only see part of my face so I wouldn’t be faced with seeing how bloated I was.

The weight piled on at an extraordinary speed, in part due to the steroids I was taking. First, I went up from a size 10 to a 14, then a 16, then 20 and I ended up a size 24. I’d stand in the bathroom and when I saw the rolls of fat around my tummy and thighs I hated myself, but then I’d go down and open another packet of crisps. I felt so trapped in my body. My entire wardrobe hung unused.

I’ve always been a girly girl and when I was out of uniform I loved wearing beautiful bandage dresses, mini-skirts and knee-high boots. I had dozens of pairs of designer high heels too. Now the thought of getting into any of my Army uniform, apart from my beret, was laughable and I had to apply for an outsized one, which was utterly humiliating. I couldn’t shop in normal shops anymore so everything was coming from plus-sized places and being bought online. If it was baggy and it was black, I would buy it.

For months I’d clung on to my wardrobe of size-10 clothes,
but once it became obvious I wasn’t ever going to fit into them again I started throwing them out. It was awful and so depressing, like throwing away the real me. I was being attacked from all angles, it seemed. But what was even more depressing was seeing my clothes hanging there in the wardrobe as a reminder of what I once was. I just couldn’t handle it, so they had to go. I remember throwing out the last of my smaller stuff – a Vivienne Westwood evening dress and a pair of skinny jeans – and just crying and crying about what had become of me and my life. I’ve always loved Michael Kors shoes and I got out my favourite pair of black high heels and just sat there, holding them and sobbing. I’d never wear them again.

But it wasn’t about the shoes; it was about what I’d lost. I’d lost control of how I looked and I became so depressed I stopped wearing make-up. For days I went without washing, I completely lost my sense of identity and I hated myself and what I’d become. I felt very misunderstood and isolated as my whole life revolved around three things: TV, eating and my next hospital operation on my shattered leg. I’d always feel a sense of hope in the weeks leading up to the op that maybe this time something would go right for me, and then when it didn’t, I’d be bereft all over again, feeling desolate when the pain didn’t go away. I hid from my parents and family how dark things were. Even now, my mother struggles to understand how despite being such a close-knit family, I didn’t ask her for help at that point, and when they wanted to help out at home I pushed them away. Even when they tried to talk to me about what I was going through, I got so angry and wouldn’t speak to them about it. In fact, I hid from them the awful truth. I felt there was no point as there was no possible
way they could understand. I was so bitter and twisted and angry that I’d become a shadow of my former self.

One of the few people I allowed near me was Nikki. She tried to coax me out of my misery and on one occasion she even managed to persuade me out of the house to go to a mess do. I just thought I couldn’t buy anything nice as I was so big. Already I’d started covering up as much as I could; I didn’t go out because of my size and I didn’t want to meet new people because of it either. Nikki encouraged me to go shopping with her and helped me to buy a black dress.

Something happens when you are in a wheelchair: you become invisible to a lot of people. Some look at you surreptitiously; others talked to Nikki, or if I was out with Jamie, they’d speak to him. That has the effect of making you even more insular and pushing you into a little bubble, where you become a silent bystander of your own life. But with Nikki’s help we found a lovely shop assistant, who helped us choose a half-flattering dress for me, even if it was the size of a tent. Then I started looking forward to not being in the house that night for the first time in ages. I made an effort and put on some make-up and she pushed me to the ‘do’ in my wheelchair. As she wheeled me in I felt insecure as I didn’t want to be the fattest person in the room and the only person in a wheelchair, but everyone was a soldier or a soldier’s partner so there was no one to be unkind.

I spent the night laughing at jokes but it was all a front and I behaved how I thought I was expected to behave. ‘Maybe if I act happy that’s how I’ll end up feeling,’ I thought, but in reality I was dying inside. Bless her, Nikki has always had my back and she knew how vulnerable I felt, so to cheer me up she started strumming an air guitar, using my crutches on the
dance floor. It caused a few raised eyebrows among the higher ranks but she didn’t care one bit. She was one of the people who kept me going. God, I don’t know where I’d be without Nikki, Jamie and my family.

In total I had eighteen major operations to try and save my leg and many months of pain and rehabilitation after each one, but despite everyone’s efforts, nothing was working and after each op I felt like I was back to square one again. It was soul-destroying. I was just thankful that I had my friends and family around if I needed them, so it was not only heartbreaking but also a massive shock to find out that stability was about to be wrenched from me again within weeks.

T
he only time I feel the Army truly failed me was in 2009. While I was still undergoing treatment and operations on my leg, out of the blue they told Jamie he was being posted for six months to Northern Ireland. I was devastated. I’d been on long-term sick leave, so when we were told we had to move within a month it was like they threw another grenade into the wreckage of our lives. I’m still angry after all these years that they did that at that time because it seems nothing short of stupid.

I was so poorly I contributed nothing to the move. The Army had a removal company who came in and packed everything up and unpacked at the other end. So while the mechanics of moving us over there were handled with typical military efficiency, what no one took into account was the devastating impact it had on our day-to-day lives. Nikki came over to see me just after James broke the news and I started sobbing, saying, ‘I can’t understand why they are doing this now.’

I felt so powerless. It was terrible as not only was I in agony and still in and out of hospital, but for the first time we would have no support from family and friends as we were so far from home. We’d only just arrived when members of Jamie’s unit were shot by suspected IRA dissidents after ordering pizza delivery at Massereene Army barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast.

I was in hospital having a minor op at the time and I remember lying in bed, not being able to sleep and switching on Sky News and seeing the headlines that two soldiers had been killed. Still suffering from really bad PTSD, I was screaming and panicking and trying to ring Jamie as I was convinced it was him who’d been killed. I cried with relief when I finally got hold of him an hour later, but it was just such a stupid place to post us as a family after everything we’d been through and were still going through. When I look back on it now it seems insane that someone decided to ship us over there. I had around fifteen hospital admissions during that time and Jamie was just incredible at coping but it nearly broke us.

To be fair, the Army did all they could, and I would regularly get flown back by Aero Med with an escorted nurse every time I had a hospital appointment in the UK. But it was the isolation that broke us. Not only did Jamie do his job, he was looking after Milly as well over in Belfast and we’d lost the support network we’d had at home. He was my rock during that period and gave Milly the support and family life she needed. At that point he was also my lifeline to the outside world and he was my best friend in every way.

My injuries meant that intimacy was hard. Not only was I in agony, I felt like I was wearing a fat suit because my weight
had ballooned so much. If I’m being honest, my mood swings were also so bad I wasn’t a very nice person to be around then, but Jamie loved me anyway.

I remember one night he came home from work and I felt so isolated and alone I had a total mental breakdown fuelled by the PTSD and sheer quantity of pain-relieving drugs I’d consumed. I’d become convinced Milly hated me and I was an awful mum and so I just lost it, screaming and shouting as I felt the whole world was against me. But Jamie never once raised his voice to me: he just took it and was always so kind and understanding; he let me vent off. For months I was crying on him every single night when he came home from work as I couldn’t believe my life had come to this. All the simple, little things we take for granted in life were gone.

Looking back now it seems incredible that Jamie and I had barely any outside help at all. We didn’t even think to ask anyone at the hospital or in the Army if we could have a carer or a nurse to help me with the day-to-day stuff. It just didn’t occur to me to ask for help because I wasn’t disabled enough in government terms to qualify for help: in their eyes, I only had a broken foot. I didn’t know my rights as a disabled person and looking back now I could, and should, have got some kind of care package.

The only good thing in Northern Ireland was that I had an amazing boss, who would come and pick me up in my wheelchair in his own Land Rover so I could come and sit in the admin office and just keep in touch with working life. Not that I ever did anything at all productive! But it was just the fact he took the time to come and get me. He showed me real kindness and he’d sit down with me and the other ladies in the office and we’d have a chat and a gossip. It made me feel
there was life outside the four walls I was a virtual prisoner in. That small act of kindness made me feel human again and once I got to know them, a few of the women would even pop in and see me during the day. Clearly they all realised I was in a desperate place and they really did try to help me.

Apart from that, I was so low I just didn’t want to socialise with people and I even pushed my own family away. They tried desperately to help but I wouldn’t let them as I was so bitter and angry I almost wanted to be on my own and being so far away I was able to hide just how bad things had got. I was prescribed anti-depressants and at first I took them to try and take the edge off what I was feeling, but when I started to need stronger ones, I refused to take them as I didn’t want to go down the route of self-medicating on top of the cocktail of drugs I had to take for the pain. I was in a vicious cycle and I couldn’t see any way out. That’s when I began to think of suicide as an option. I was just so low and I was getting into a darker and darker place.

I remember sitting in the bath one evening and thinking I could just go downstairs and take every single drug I owned and that would be it. Black, nothing, the pain would be gone and I’d finally get some peace. But always at the back of my mind I knew I had Milly and I couldn’t leave her without a mum. It sounds awful to say but this made me feel worse as I felt so trapped and frustrated with my situation that I didn’t even have the control over my own life to actually end it. I just felt so angry and bitter. Besides, I couldn’t end it because of my responsibility not only to Milly but also to Jamie. If I’d killed myself then he wouldn’t have been able to handle it either, but I was going downhill so fast at this point that I seriously considered it.

This period was the darkest of times for me. I wasn’t coping with the pain, I wasn’t sleeping with it, and I was literally going out of my mind. Our married quarters were right by the airport and every time I heard a plane go over the house during the night I was convinced it was a mortar attack. I’d scream and crawl down the side of the bed in terror. On one level I knew my PTSD was crawling its way back into my mind and I was trying desperately to fight it. On the other hand, at that point I can truly say my PTSD was beating me.

I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling because to admit I was struggling mentally would be an admission of defeat. The flip side was, I was just bottling everything up and then flew into terrible verbal rages. At some points Jamie couldn’t even say hello to me without me getting angry. It was awful – I was a person I didn’t recognise. I’d distanced myself from my family to such a point I felt I wouldn’t have a second chance with them, which is absolutely ridiculous to think back on now. My mind was all over the shop. I felt like I was so trapped by life, my injury and the fact I had nobody else around me. But the reality was that wasn’t the case at all: it was all in my head.

Poor Jamie had so much to deal with. He would suggest something to help, even going out for a breath of fresh air, and immediately I’d start shouting and screaming, abusing him verbally and just obliterating him as a person. I’m ashamed to say I flung in his face my decision to go to Iraq, shouting at him: ‘You could have gone! It’s your fault. You stood by and let me go.’ That was never the truth and it hurt him, and I’m so desperately sorry I said that to him, but I was finding it really difficult to cope with what had happened to me. It’s true that you lash out and hurt those you love the most.

The PTSD manifested itself with a growing number of obsessions at this point. I became convinced that I was dying or something terrible was going to happen to me; I also lived in fear someone was going to hurt me and I’d die. Another obsession developed that I had a brain tumour and I repeatedly went to my doctor at the medical centre. At night I’d insist a terrorist attack was imminent at the Army camp, and I’d sleep on the floor. The brutal reality was, Jamie was living with a lunatic.

Thankfully, it was Jamie who saved me from myself, recognising that what I was doing wasn’t me and that I had all the symptoms of PTSD. Apart from Karl, he’s the second man who saved my life. He turned to the Army for help and they immediately took it really seriously and I was given counselling and coping strategies. Many other serving and former soldiers struggle with their lives for many years after conflicts have ended, but the Army gave me expert treatment there and then. There is no cure, as PTSD changes the physical structure of your brain, but today, because of their help, I would be able to recognise it and would know how to deal with it if ever it threatened to come back.

Jamie carried on loving me even when I was screaming in his face about how useless he was; he just never stopped giving love. He just kept telling me that we would get through this and he would agree with me that it was shit what had happened and I had every right to be angry. Jamie has a way about him and one of his strengths is that he’s so calm in a storm. I didn’t know at that point, but, understandably, he was struggling as well with how dark our lives had become and what had happened to me. He was just so strong for me when I needed him most and held it all together for so long that I never knew and he never showed any of the suffering
he was obviously going through. I don’t know what I would have done without him. If he had been a lesser man he would have walked away.

Although things didn’t work out in the end for us there’s no doubt he is a great person and I’m so lucky he’s Milly’s dad. Ironically, things only got worse between us when things actually got better with my health; we had been muddling through in our current dynamic, so when things changed that’s when the cracks began to appear. He wasn’t my husband anymore: he had become my carer.

Perhaps my misery was written on my face because after eighteen operations in three years, Professor Sir Keith Porter at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham, whose medical care I had been under since day one, tentatively raised with me again the possibility of having my leg removed. He explained in such a gentle way that my situation would be improved as I might actually get mobility back as opposed to being in the awful agonising rut I was stuck in with my foot. It was a big decision, but after so many procedures, we both knew they had come to the end of the road. In my heart, I’d had enough as well – I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. The minute he mentioned it as a real possibility for me a light bulb went on in my head. As I was on my own, he told me I had to talk to Jamie when I got back to Ireland and to think about it a lot.

The flight home to Northern Ireland went past in a blur because all I kept thinking about was the amputation and how despite me losing my leg I might actually have a chance of getting my life back. I couldn’t go on anymore with what was happening, my weight was still creeping up and I was desperate to change all that.

Looking back, I also recognise that I was at the end of a
three-year grieving process. I had mourned not only for what my life ‘should’ have been but also grieved for my leg. I’d had tears, anger and now my leg was holding me back from living again. In my heart I now knew that the doctors had done all they could and unfortunately it wasn’t getting any better. It was that fact which ultimately made my decision easy: I finally recognised that amputation was the light at the end of the tunnel. This time, I knew that was what I was going to do. It was as if something in me clicked. I made a decision there and then that I was going to be happy: it was that simple. Already I’d started to see what other soldiers were achieving. I decided to get myself in the best place possible because the moment my leg was amputated I wanted to hit the ground running; I wanted to get on with life. I’d grieved enough and I didn’t want to do it anymore. For two years I’d virtually not had a leg anyway.

Jamie picked me up from the flight and I’d barely shut the door of the car when I told him about it. Immediately he said that he would support me if I decided to go for it. He’d seen other guys in his regiment who had had amputations and how well they were doing, and how not only had they got their lives back, they’d actually got a stab at a better life. One of the guys in Jamie’s unit, who’d lost a limb in Iraq, actually got back to full service. He just kept saying to me: ‘If you truly feel it’s right you have got to do this, you have got to take the chance to change your life.’ I knew with all my heart it was the right decision for me at that time. By the time we had completed the twenty-minute journey back to our house that was it, I was set on getting it done. With Jamie’s help and backing I could do it and I felt it was my one chance to live again.

I called my mum the next day and told her I was going to have my leg removed and at first she didn’t want me to do it. It was awful for me as I felt so responsible that I was making her feel bad and worrying her but I knew there was no other way back for me. I tried to convince her I was doing the right thing to give me a chance of living life again. She was just so worried about me. I think it was the thought of her only daughter actually choosing to do this to herself, but she didn’t live in my head and she didn’t live inside my body and didn’t know the mental torture and physical agony I was going through every minute of every day. I think she still hoped, just as I once had, that my foot would get better.

I had pushed my family away to such an extent they didn’t really know what was going on in my day-to-day life and just how depressed and suicidal I’d become. But the more I tried to explain on the phone to my mum why the amputation was a positive thing, the more she asked me to think about the long-term reality. I didn’t want to hear that so I just got really angry with her and started shouting that she didn’t know what the hell was going on with me so how could she have an opinion? In the end I slammed the phone down.