Helping Patricia and Allan

Amputation. Loss. Freedom.

Not many of us know what it is like to lose a part of yourself in the literal sense.

We spend our lives going about our daily rituals and routines guided by the operating assumption that what we were born with is ultimately (although maybe a little worse for wear) what we will die with too.

When all of our limbs are intact and connected to us, the very notion that we might have to one day live without them is as foreign to our minds as a turtle contemplating life without a shell; it is an absurd consideration, when all is well…

Patricia Baillie knows what it is like to lose a part of herself. To have a part of what she was born with cut from her being. To know the feeling of freedom escaping her grasp. To know the depression that can follow when living day-to-day can become onerous.

But you wouldn’t know it if you had a cup of instant coffee with her and shared a few yarns…

At Helping Hands we pride ourselves on helping vulnerable people in the community deal with some of the challenges that disability and getting older present.

We are passionate about our work and we take immense pride in the effect that this work has on our clients and their families.

But oftentimes this work, our clients, can become all too invisible to the public’s eyes and attention spans; we often get caught up with our own lives and agendas, and the media rarely provides the service of reminding us of those who are less fortunate or dealing with challenges in their day-to-day lives.

So we thought we might help disrupt the status quo by taking the opportunity to share through our Great Lakes Community Resources Blog the story of one of our clients and how life is for them and their loved ones.

So this is the story of Patricia, her Patron Saint Allan, and how Helping Hands well, helped them out.

“This is Gross Lymphedema, from a Redback Spider bite… Allan and I had only been married a year before the bite”

The Gross Lymphedema that Patricia speaks about eventually led her having her right leg amputated above the knee. A traumatic experience to say the least, but one which she has taken with grace and defiant good-humour. The original cause of the eventual amputation (the Redback Spider bite) ironically came about due doing a good deed for her neighbour.

“There was a big storm, a big gully-raker in Wingham, and the pipes couldn’t take the volume of water falling on my neighbour’s property, and they burst.”

“My elderly neighbour was out of her house and her windows were open. I went over to help them out, and because of the heavy rain and flooding, there were literally hundreds of spiders and insects being washed out from wherever they had been hiding, I wasn’t wearing any shoes and just felt this sting in the sole of my foot. And that was when the Redback Spider bit me.”

Patricia didn’t lose her leg straight way, in fact it was only a short time later when she was back to normal duties, not thinking much of it. But this was not to last.

A bump on the knee when getting into her car was all it took for the poison from the Redback Spider to make a profound impact on her life.

Patricia’s body had contained the poison from the original bite and her doctors believed that her body had effectively ‘sacked up’ the poison in order to stop its spread. As fate would have it the bump on the knee was all it took for the poison to be re-released. Gross Lymphedema was set in motion, and after living with it for ten years, the painful reality of amputation was the only option.

“Once you take it, there is no way that is gonna grow back.”

Being wheelchair-bound obviously changed Patricia’s life and that of her partner-cum-carer Allan.

Her home needed to be redesigned to cater for her wheelchair and equipment. Changes that Allan himself undertook most of the time.

These changes enabled her to access her garden, where she would paint planter boxes (and anything else with a surface area!) and grow her own vegetables.

“I call it the “painted garden” but others usually call it the ‘crazy garden’!”

When not outdoors, Patricia has been able to keep herself busy doing decoupage and painting, and her work is quite impressive to say the least.

“My daughter thinks that I am having a second childhood because I won’t grow up… I tell her that I am 15 on the inside and 98 on the outside!”

But the day-to-day caring and tending to her needs has been in the very capable hands of her partner Allan. As mentioned earlier, Allan had been the handy-man for the home also but the bathroom modification that was required this time was needing a helping hand.

“Dean, Beau and the rest of the team, they were awesome… they were so good at working around my needs in the home during the renovation, and they were just so nice and professional”

“Dean Little, I couldn’t have asked for a better man on the job. He let us know on a daily basis what was going on and how we would be affected by the modification.”

Patricia also had praise for others involved in her bathroom modification with Helping Hands:

“Community Options were also tremendously helpful, as well as the Council. Jules Lorraine was my case officer, and my Occupational Therapist from the Mayo Hospital, Lynda Walters gave us the best advice and helped organise the bathroom modification with Dean”

In Patricia’s own words, the simple modification of a bathroom, something that many of us would take for granted to a certain extent, has changed her life.

“Since the bathroom was done my whole world has changed, I have lost weight (38 kilos over 3 months) and I really broke out of the depression from being unable to use my bathroom as it was. Having guys like Dean and the rest of the crew from helping hands here doing the work was definitely a factor in my turn around.”

We at Helping Hands were proud to deliver this outcome for Patricia and Allan.

Getting to know her, her life and passions was also a thrill that we won’t forget.

We were simply happy to help.