Never Broken (14 page)

I rang Nikki and said to her: ‘I’ve decided it’s time for that holiday we talked about’. I spoke to Jamie and said: ‘I’d love to have a girly holiday’ and, as always, he completely supported me. I told him I want to treat myself and Jamie had said: ‘If you can get yourself up and walking then you deserve it.’ The hair extensions made me a bit less insecure so the time was right to take a Thelma and Louise style trip. I booked Paradise Island in the Bahamas, including a limo to pick us up from the airport with champagne – it was the most expensive holiday I’ve ever been on. It was unbelievable and I’d never experienced anything like it or seen people literally dripping with wealth like they were there – famous American Football stars, swimwear models dripping in Cartier diamonds – and us!

The team at Headley Court made me a special swimming leg and so, just a matter of months from when I’d learned to walk I was on a British Airways flight to the sun. My military ID card was in my passport and as soon as they saw it they upgraded us to First Class. The BA hostess at the end of the flight gave us a carrier bag full of mini vodkas and said: ‘Girls, this is such an expensive holiday I’ve given you this – use the money you save to go and do an activity on us.’ British Airways was so amazing they actually thanked us for our service over the tannoy on the flight and the passengers were clapping. They could not have been kinder to us. Nikki and I kept looking at each other saying: ‘Wow, flying with BA is amazing!’ Going with Nikki was brilliant. We spent days by the pool and I even managed to walk across sand – which is no mean feat as a newby amputee because it’s so uneven. Nikki gave me the confidence to take off my leg as we sunbathed by the pool – and after initially being unable to
relax, in case people were horrified, I quickly realized no one seemed particularly interested in me.

After a few days I was having a relaxing snooze, with my prosthetic propped up against my sun lounger, when I was awoken by the sound of a walkie talkie: ‘Houston,’ a little boy whispered urgently, ‘we have a problem! Urgent assistance required.’ I opened my eyes drowsily to see three cheeky little boys gasping at my prosthetic leg, in a mixture of fascination and horror. ‘Hello!’ I said. ‘Do you want to see my robot leg?’ and soon they were all fascinated and talking about it. Funnily enough, that gave me a bit of confidence, as I was so cripplingly insecure. But, of course, nothing ever goes to plan and later that night as we walked across the hotel reception, my amazing robot leg just snapped, sending me sprawling across the floor. ‘Oh my God, Nikki, what am I going to do?’ I said, thinking, I was thousands of miles from Headley and god only knows what I was going to do for the rest of the holiday with no leg.

‘Wait there,’ she said ‘It’s OK, it’s fine.’ And she literally pulled my spare leg out of her bag. ‘I thought I’d better pack a spare just in case,’ she laughed. Now that is a sign of a true friend – packing a spare leg secretly in her suitcase! The only downside was that my spare leg didn’t quite fit as well, so air would get trapped and force its way out, making loud farting noises each time I took a step. So it was slightly awkward in that every time I walked around I made somewhat undignified noises. In the end I made light of it and I’d say: ‘I’m sorry you must have heard me coming, excuse me, but my leg is farting.’ And, thank goodness, the rest of the holiday was blessedly uneventful.

Shortly after returning from the Bahamas with Nikki, a wonderful opportunity came along. I was invited to take part in the Amputee Games, an event organised by Battleback, a charitable sports rehabilitation programme. So I signed up, just like everyone else. But before taking part I had a crisis of confidence: I thought everyone would be staring at the fat girl and I had to force myself to go. I did no formal training and just turned up at Stoke Mandeville sports ground, thinking I’d try out a variety of sports. Because I’d been lugging my twenty-one-and-a-half stone frame on crutches for the past three years, I had good upper-body strength but it still came as a surprise to everyone just how good I was at weight lifting. I started out pretty light and when I found it easy, the guy running the event said: ‘I think you are pretty good!’ So he entered me there and then for the competitive part of the Games.

Because I was still struggling to walk I’d wheel myself to the bar in my wheelchair and then stand up to get myself in position for the event. I sailed through stages one and two and then it came to the finals and, unbelievably, I won a gold medal! Somehow I managed a silver in archery and a bronze in rowing too – also down to my Russian shot-putter’s physique! Afterwards, I was asked if I’d consider attending a talent-spotting event, where future Paralympians were often found, but I felt I’d reached my peak with that gold and I decided I didn’t want to take it any further as I didn’t think I’d be able to fit it around my life as a mum.

When I look back at photos of myself competing I’m speechless, really. There were a lot of factors that made me so fat, but ultimately I was responsible, as I put the cake in my mouth. But there are positives as well: I look at the old
me and think that was the start of it all, the beginning of my journey back to recovery.

With so much going on I was surprised to be asked to attend a meeting in front of a board who wished to talk to me about Iraq. I sat at the opposite side of a boardroom table before a number of officers I’d never seen before. They asked me a series of questions about my experience of Iraq: whether I felt I had the right kit, how I’d been dealt with medically afterwards and what morale was like out there, and whether we were asked to do jobs that were appropriate to our skill level. At that time I was told it was to do with the Iraq Inquiry. I can only assume, prior to Chilcot, it was a fact-finding exercise and they wanted to speak to a broad spectrum of people to get a wide range of views about what was going on. I told them what had happened to me and that morale was on the floor when I was out there. How it was hard that Iraq is such an unpopular war with the public back at home and it’s now gone to wrack and ruin. I felt I could have seen that coming while we were out there. Our boys were handing over to the Iraqi police force and quite a few of us felt that things were going to fall apart.

Back at Headley Court, things were great for me socially as well as the physical stuff. I met so many brilliant people, who are still friends now. I arrived at the same time as two other lads and the three of us immediately hit it off. We were all single amputees and all started off together in the wheelchairs. Our little gang would sneak off for cigarettes together and we were always getting told off by the instructors when we weren’t where we were supposed to be. It was a laugh, like bunking off from class at school. There was a bar at the centre, just to give the place some kind of normality, and it was a great way
to unwind and have a laugh and make friends. We’d be there every night, propping it up.

There was no stopping us as soon as we grew more competent on our legs. When we had finished our day we would head to nearby Epsom for a drink. Because I was with two other amputees I felt less self-conscious or embarrassed at being seen out with only one leg. People would sometimes stare at us but that was probably because we were a group of amputees. Together we just took it on the chin. At that point I didn’t have a leg that looked like a leg – it was metal bar with a foot – but because I was with two friends who also had the same legs I knew I didn’t have to worry as they would never have allowed anything to be said to me. I’d been so miserable before that to be able to go out again was a window into a world I thought I’d lost forever and I just went for it.

There was another great guy who used to come out regularly with us. He was a triple amputee and still used his chair, but he didn’t let that hold him back in any way. One night he got so drunk he fell on the joystick that operates his chair and we found him spinning round and round outside the pub. I just though:, ‘Oh, my God! If anyone sees this we are going to be in so much trouble!’

We used to cover for each other all the time if one of us was hungover. As there were three of us there was always one person who would make sure they’d told the instructor we were in prosthetics or somewhere else when really we were getting a couple of extra hours in bed. It sounds silly and trivial now but this whole after-hours’ curriculum was all part of the rehabilitation process as we were entering back into normal life again. It was the first time in years many of us had begun to feel like normal people again, able to go to the
pub to have a drink and a laugh just like everyone else. It was also a way to chat through how we were feeling emotionally and mentally and not just concern ourselves with our physical rehabilitation. Just sitting having a drink in a pub was not only a way to let off steam, it was a way people could feel they were letting their barriers down and to actually share stories with each other.

It was while we were on one of our nights out that one of the lads told me he had had a really odd out-of-body experience. We started talking about how out of it you are when you first come round and it’s really common for a lot of guys to have no memories of the moment they were injured. Some do, but I always felt extremely lucky that I don’t have to face the nightmare of those moments. He sort of dreamed, while he was still conscious and awake, that he’d been taken out of his body and put into another body, where he became a kind of super-soldier. He had to battle to get back into his body on earth. When he won the fight, that’s when he came round. We started speculating about whether it’s the painkillers you are given that lead you to vividly hallucinate, but I really don’t think that was the case with me. Many of the severely injured have had experiences like that – it’s really common – but only the ones who have been close to death. I’m not religious but I now think there is something else; however, I don’t know what it is. I’d always described myself as an atheist, but I am more spiritual now than I was before. I don’t think we cease to exist – I think a little drop of our essence as human beings carries on somewhere else.

If you had told me months before that I’d be able to open up with people I’d never met before and discuss things like that I would have laughed. I’d spent years becoming invisible
in my chair and not engaging with life. But Headley Court was changing me physically and my mental outlook was certainly improving. I’d overcome the darkest of times and even though there were still moments when I was in that dark place, I could see light in my future. That’s why I agreed to take part in a photo shoot with a rock star.

Three months after my amputation a journalist called Caroline Froggatt contacted me through the injured servicemen’s charity Blesma and said: ‘We are looking for a girl to take part in a photo shoot for a book, with pictures from it being put on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Would you like to come to Bryan Adams’ house to take part?’

It was all a bit surreal but I said yes. Jamie drove us into London; we turned up at Bryan Adams’ house, which I wasn’t expecting. He had set up a studio in the vast basement of his house next to the River Thames. His wife had just had their first baby and she and Caroline opened the door and welcomed me in. There were a load of lads that I knew from Headley Court and some were already in the studio having their portraits taken. While in a group I’d discovered a newfound confidence that hadn’t yet translated into life outside Headley Court, so when I walked in, I felt crippled with insecurity and really miserable. But I wanted to do it. To be honest, I don’t know why, apart from the fact I was quite proud of my artificial leg as it meant so much to me because it had transformed my life.

Here I was, taking part in a professional photo shoot with Bryan Adams, yet I was totally miserable because of the way I looked. I had lost some weight by then, but it was a drop in the ocean compared to what I needed to lose and I was big. I sorted out my make-up as there was no stylist on the shoot as they wanted us to look natural and like we were in real
life, and then Bryan came over and said hello. He was really friendly, explaining he wanted to capture me relaxed. There was a big team helping him, a vast array of cameras, flashes and photo-editing kit – the full shebang. I stood against a huge white infinity wall while he clicked away, talking all the time, only pausing to pose me in a new position, guiding me as to what he wanted me to do.

It was a real struggle, but I managed to stand on my prosthetic for long enough so he could take two sets of photos of me: one in a long black dress and a second set in military uniform. In both I showed my prosthetic leg. In front of the camera I was incredibly under-confident; at that point, with strangers, I struggled to even make eye contact as I was still battling with my self-esteem. But Bryan put me at ease as much as it was possible to do, which was no mean feat. He had no celebrity airs; he was just a lovely man. The bottom line is I just wasn’t happy being the ‘me’ I was at that time. I didn’t even ask to see any of the images on his camera.

Regardless of that, it was a lovely day. Bryan got everyone sushi for lunch and we ate with his family and then left. Jamie chatted the breeze over lunch, talking about football, where he’d been on his recent travels and asking about the cameras. I was pleased that I didn’t have to do any of the talking – I felt painfully shy and introverted. When you’ve been in a wheelchair for three years you get used to people ignoring you and talking to the person who is pushing the wheelchair, so I’d become a person who didn’t have to engage in life very much. Although I was walking on and off on my leg I still hadn’t come out of the shell completely, so instead I just soaked up the atmosphere.

I didn’t see Bryan Adams’ photos until months later when
they were finally hung in the National Portrait Gallery and they asked me to attend. I received a lovely email saying, ‘Would you like to come to the launch?’ So I went online and had a look at the website and that’s where I saw the photos for the first time. I was horrified. I just thought: ‘Oh God, they’re awful!’ I was so upset. I absolutely hated them, so there was no way I was going to go and see them in the flesh.