00:00:00
December 2016 um that's when the accident happened with the Farmgate so that's uh how old were you at the time
00:00:05
like 50 uh must have been 51 52 must have been 52 yeah um just a freak accident mate yeah was this a gate
00:00:16
on a goat farm yeah yeah so um I've got a mate that started a goat farm down on
00:00:20
the men I um and they had 900 goats you know housed in this big awesome shed um and she asked me if I'd like to come
00:00:29
along and do you know do farming for a while so I was like yeah [ __ ] yeah I would like to give this a go growth
00:00:35
mindset yeah yeah you know yeah if you had F mind said you wouldn't have been
00:00:39
there that day so yeah I jumped at the chance and um just one particular day you know this these big um de fence
00:00:47
gates and they covered in corrugated iron now the reasoning behind that is to keep the weather out of the animals that
00:00:54
are housed inside the shed okay so it's not to keep the animals in it's just to
00:00:58
keep them safe and dry comfortable sure yep yep keeping their their housing and that dry um so this particular day I was
00:01:05
closing this gate ready for milking and just a freak gusta wind mate just picked
00:01:10
me up and the gate and slammed me um against the post you know a big defense post well what are you what are your
00:01:17
Recollections of that does it happen in slow motion or it just happened so quick
00:01:20
that happened so bloody quick like a matter of seconds yeah absolutely it was you know to lift me and my fat ass off
00:01:26
the ground it had to be a pretty good you know G of wind so yeah it just slammed me there um and I ended up on
00:01:34
the ground um obviously the gate slammed and then reopened and I just landed on the ground and I looked at my arm and it
00:01:42
was just bent in a Like A L shape unbelievable like like like like blood coming out or had it slashed it or
00:01:49
no just bones everywhere just just just completely like this here was just in a V so imagine that both bones would just
00:01:57
snapped completely in half mate but the bones weren't poking out of the skin or
00:02:02
no no you don't have to get that Bloody gruesome man um I just just want to paint a picture of what you went through
00:02:08
so so you're um so adrenaline kick are you in pain or are you just um I think
00:02:13
the adrenaline had kicked in by then so no I wasn't in pain um but I had this
00:02:17
small Nick on my knee obviously from a bit of corrugated eye and I just sort of got a Nick well that was more bloody
00:02:24
painful mate seriously um it was so painful I don't know what was going on I
00:02:29
don't know where the pain had transferred down to here but it was just bizarre um so away we went to the
00:02:35
hospital um get to the hospital get to A&E and the guys they were great there
00:02:41
um they took one look and they said yep well we don't really need to send you
00:02:44
for an x-ray sh as we could see what's going on um so they took me into a room
00:02:50
um knocked me out for five minutes and realigned it and stuck me in a temperary cast and I can remember the the doctor
00:02:58
in there saying to me you'll need to go to surgery tonight Shar to get it plated
00:03:03
and um pinned you know just a few couple of Pates and a couple of pins on each side just a normal six to8 week recovery
00:03:12
and I'm like yep can handle that so you're you're feeling okay you're
00:03:15
feeling pretty good about yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely and I'm like okay surgery tonight that's fine he said
00:03:21
because if you don't go to surgery tonight shares he said there's going to
00:03:24
be some serious complications unfortunately I didn't go to surgery that night
00:03:30
and were you after being being told that were you I don't like were you sort of I mean
00:03:36
it's easy to to have this line of questioning and have this conversation with the benefit of hindsight but were
00:03:41
you sort of like you know pushing it yourself and saying Hey listen I need to get to surgery I got told I need the
00:03:47
surgery at that stage no because they told me that I'd go that night okay so
00:03:51
you know I was reassured that yeah it was going to happen that night so I was like okay so you just go with it right
00:03:56
yeah that the expert yeah you just roll with it so I'm like okay okay get that
00:04:01
night at about 7:00 they come and tell me that no I was going to be bumped again this went on for 5 days mate five
00:04:09
fraking days see again we've got the benefit of hindsight here but if it was
00:04:13
me I I I think if I was told you need to get to surgery ASAP or else there's
00:04:16
going to be complications I'd like to think I'd be like aggressively pursuing it and
00:04:21
pushing it and following up I think I was yeah but obviously you know you you're in a lot of pain um the reason
00:04:29
why I was in a lot of pain was because I could see my hand was stting my fingers
00:04:33
were starting to swell my hand was starting to go black you know and the pain was starting to get quite intense
00:04:41
so that's when I sort of got pretty um let's say forceful MH you know and I'd say to the nurses so this is day
00:04:50
this is day about three and a half yeah and I'm saying look you know I really
00:04:55
need to see somebody here um and of course the nurses had comeing I will give you some more more panad sh you
00:05:00
know in the end I I did day five I said you know this is [ __ ] I'm in pain I want to see
00:05:10
somebody I want a doctor in here today I need to see I said have a look at my hand and by that stage you could see my
00:05:18
Knuckles my fingers going black so I didn't know what the rest of the arm was
00:05:23
like so you were starting to panic well I wasn't starting to panic I was in pain
00:05:28
okay I was in severe pain right um cuz don't forget I'm still in a temporary
00:05:33
cast so a lot of the swelling couldn't swell so um anyway the surgeon came in
00:05:40
and I can remember it it's just it's just like he walked through that door
00:05:44
and I'm in a bed here like this sitting up and he just walked in the door and my
00:05:48
arm was obviously sitting here and he he just said get her to surgery now and I can remember mate I was rushed out of
00:05:58
that room um and down to surgery so I had surgery thinking that I was going to come out of that and I'd just be you
00:06:06
know couple of four plates you know two plates on each bone and screws in each each bones um when I came to the surgeon
00:06:15
was actually standing by my bed and Me in My Big Mouth I said what's going on
00:06:22
if you cut me [ __ ] arm off wow he says no sh we haven't but he said I need to inform you with had to do
00:06:29
a fasciotomy what's that exactly I said speak to me in English so a FAS cuz I
00:06:36
couldn't see my arm it was all bandaged up I had no idea what it was looking
00:06:41
like so fasciotomy was they had to they cut right down the inside of my arm cross my hand cross this side of my hand
00:06:49
and all the way back up this side now the reasoning of that is it's to release
00:06:55
the pressure because it had swollen so much it was severely swollen um so from there every second
00:07:04
day I went back to theater and they stitched up segments about this big each time so I had nine surgeries in 11
00:07:12
days on the 11th day um this young intern came in to my room and he says oh I'm just going to have a look at your um
00:07:21
check your arm sh and I'm like oh yeah that's fine didn't warn me about what
00:07:26
the hell my arm was going to look like or what I was about to see he took all the bandages off and the dressing off
00:07:34
and I don't know if you've seen any photos D but no I haven't but there was
00:07:40
this gaping hole in my arm so this massive hole here now um some people will be watching this
00:07:48
on YouTube most people will be listening to it what's the anything you can compare it to in terms of size probably
00:07:53
the size of a tennis ball okay oh [ __ ] yeah yeah so and and as round as a tennis ball so where abouts like on the
00:08:00
where like on the on the forearm Yeah just they were trying to close up um and that was and I I looked and I was like
00:08:08
holy [ __ ] balls you know um and then I looked and I said to him oh is that a bit of gor and he goes no no that's your
00:08:15
tendent I'm like [ __ ] you know I'm sitting there for the first time seeing
00:08:19
my arm and here's this massive hole I mean they would make you quasy looking
00:08:23
at it on someone else's arm looking at on your own arm are you are you panicking at there I wasn't panicking I
00:08:28
was sort of like to to be honest I was probably sort of steering away from it you know at this point um and I said to
00:08:34
him why the hell have I still got that hole there and he says oh we can't close
00:08:39
that shars we tried to close it and when you woke up last time you were in so much pain can't you remember and I says
00:08:45
no and he said no we had to rush you back into theater and take those stitches out that we can't close it it's
00:08:52
too um he's still too swollen so from there they sent me down to Hut hospital
00:08:58
and well L into the Plastics unit where they removed a bit of my backside not that you can notice um and like a skin
00:09:05
graft yep and stuck it in slapped them in there um and that was going to be what my arm was going to look like so
00:09:13
from there I went home good old recovery you know best recovery in bed sleep you
00:09:19
know let's be honest sleep is our best recovery yeah absolutely so when you when you leave um the hospital by the
00:09:25
way that's a lot that's a lot to go through like how many how many operations like so I had probably 11
00:09:29
operations all up in 14 days yeah that takes it out of you it does yeah um but you sent home so you've had all these
00:09:38
surgeries um all these all the all the stress of this and the skin graft as well and you sent home and you think
00:09:45
you're just going to recover and it's going to be good all good just honest I
00:09:48
was sent home and I thought yep my arm's going to this is a recovery stage now
00:09:52
we're starting the six to 8 week recovery but when I left Hut hospital they made another appointment for me to
00:09:57
come back so that they could check the skin graft obviously um so yeah about a month later went back down there once
00:10:04
again um took all the dressings off and it was the first time I got to see my arm um I probably should have bought you
00:10:11
some photos D it's and it's on the phone I can easily show you they no things
00:10:15
they're pretty gruesome you know this it'll show whether you're a man or a
00:10:18
mouse you know oh I'm a mouse I'm a mouse I might get some off you for out
00:10:23
for my video guide you might want yeah for sure um so yeah it was the first time I got to see my arm m yeah not
00:10:29
pretty so I was scarred all the way down here had this massive you know skin grafting in here um which in a month's
00:10:38
time the skin gting had shrunk down and it was looking okay so what do you reckon did it look like an arm that had
00:10:45
been like chewed by a dog or something would you say or yeah a shark a shark right right yeah just and you so when
00:10:51
you see that do you um what's your initial reaction like do you you break down and cry like you no what's the
00:10:57
point of crying you know you it's only spilled water you know um you look at it
00:11:02
and yeah you're disappointed I didn't realize the extent of my injuries until or the hospitals
00:11:09
let's put it this way I didn't realize the extent of the hospitals [ __ ]
00:11:13
up um because this should not have happened you are you frustrated at that point um I know you're not a person that
00:11:19
likes to look back in anger but take you back to that moment um honestly I'm not
00:11:24
frustrated I'm more all I wanted to do was put my energy and my time into my
00:11:30
recovery what's the point of feeling anger you know and boiling yourself up you not it's not going to benefit you at
00:11:37
all so no but if it was me I'm just I'm probably projecting here I'd be [ __ ]
00:11:41
infuriated well you know at that point it hadn't really hit me D okay it really
00:11:46
hadn't hit me as to what I was going to be left with what sort of arm I was going to have Okay so this stage your
00:11:52
arms are Miss but you think it's going to be fine yep okay yep totally thinking
00:11:56
that I was still going to have the use of an arm and I was going to have you know my my other arm my left arm um so
00:12:04
yeah as as rehab sort of continued on the the scars they didn't really improve
00:12:12
the um hole that was in there from my skin graph yeah it was there it wasn't
00:12:17
pretty you know I mean I'm not a com a cosmetic chick by any means take a look
00:12:22
at me you know [ __ ] I don't buy that [ __ ] you know I Was Born This Way why
00:12:26
try and spend thousands of dollars trying to cover it up so you know the Cosmetic sort of side of things didn't
00:12:31
really worry me but when I saw this it did start to get to me that you know this isn't good
00:12:39
because in the end I used to just have my arm sitting here like this trying to protect it because it was useless it was
00:12:49
freaking useless for anyone that's listening to this um imagine so she's um
00:12:53
she has is missing her left arm now but you hold it like held it like it was in an invisible sling yep for sure
00:13:00
perfect um and um yeah so I just hold it there and just try and protect it um and
00:13:06
in the end you know it was I it was useless mate I just I had a name for it you ready I've heard you say this in a
00:13:13
couple of podcasts yeah [ __ ] and a sock I used to call it my [ __ ] and a sock
00:13:16
yeah what does that mean well it was just [ __ ] useless you males will understand that you know at times you
00:13:22
know and that's why I used to call it that it was just useless cuz it was in
00:13:26
like a bandage and it was just yeah it just used to hang it used to flop so um that was my name for it you know I was
00:13:34
trying to make light of situation and you know different things and that was a way of calling it something ridiculous
00:13:39
and make having a bit of fun with it but yeah in the end it it just became redundant I lost all muscle mass and it
00:13:47
was just redundant just there but did you still have like um your grip strength in your wrist and your hand
00:13:53
okay so I lost everything mate okay so it it was literally red it was okay but I'm thinking about things
00:14:03
um we can get to this later like things things that you do now that you know you
00:14:07
people with both hands and both arms would take for granted like doing up buttons on your shirt for example yeah
00:14:12
could you use your left hand when you had that post accident no okay no no I couldn't do so it was just sort of
00:14:17
ornamental oh it was okay and it was an ugly ornamental you know it it it wasn't
00:14:22
a nice yeah thing to have sitting there um but you know I I still carried on with my life I still went out and done
00:14:29
things but it got to a point where I could see that possibly I could go into a different
00:14:37
spiral um what do you mean I I could have gone down this path of anger yeah um and being grumpy and being annoyed
00:14:49
and getting frustrated and I didn't want to go down that path Dom I really really didn't
00:14:54
want to go down that path I could see how easy it would be for somebody to spiral on a downward path so I had to
00:15:02
make a decision um and it had to be my decision couldn't be anybody else's so um I
00:15:09
thought you know I want to move on with my life I don't want to be I'm stuck in this position where you
00:15:18
know I could get in a situation that I didn't want to be negative head space yeah yeah um so
00:15:27
yeah I wanted to move forward with my life so I had to make a decision and make so it was I came up with this most
00:15:34
radical stupid decision um and it just you know it just felt right I don't yeah I don't know you
00:15:41
say a radical stupid decision I know you're doing that say that tongue and cheek but it feels like uh it was
00:15:46
probably the sensible or even the only decision to make um yeah or no yeah I mean you know some people wouldn't go to
00:15:53
that extreme you know it was pretty extreme this decision you know when I threw it at my husband whoa mate yeah so
00:16:01
you you guys been married like 30 odd years yeah yeah okay yeah he's my best
00:16:05
mate he's my best mate and he's um yeah he's got got you you know he's got my
00:16:09
back yeah there's there's no there's no agenda whatsoever at that point he's got
00:16:12
my back and so you know I threw this idea and you know I came up with how am I going to approach this with them you
00:16:19
know because it's a big thing you know um so I just one day I just said to him
00:16:23
can we sit down and have a talk um and I just said to him I've made a decision
00:16:29
um and I hope you'll support me but I said I want it off and he was no not at
00:16:36
all was he why why was that as initial um I I don't know it was you know CU he
00:16:40
must have had so this was um the amputation was 2018 so it's like a couple of years of you you recovering or
00:16:48
trying to recover or dealing with this um you know useless uh limb that you called a [ __ ] and a sock
00:16:55
um yeah why why why did why was his was that is initial reaction it must have been something that occurred to him over
00:17:01
that time well no I don't think it had I don't think it had I think I don't know
00:17:06
whether it was because he thought it it may improve over time I suppose you always hold out High pay oh for sure
00:17:13
yeah we all do don't we of course we all hope that you know it's going to be for
00:17:18
the better um but I knew that that wasn't going to be for the better so I wanted to make it for the better and the
00:17:25
only way for me to make it better was to yeah remove it cut the bugger off get rid of it feed it to the Flaming dogs
00:17:33
you know you know the dogs are like where where looks like a sharks already had to
00:17:38
go it okay so owens's so Owen's initial reaction is no does that come from like
00:17:44
a a a place of Love or concern for you or I I I honestly believe it was because you know he loves me yeah um and he was
00:17:52
looking out for me but you know so I had to sort of coax it around a bit you know
00:17:57
I I did have to coax him around um in the end I just said to him look it's my
00:18:02
life it's my body um and this is what I want to do and I said I hope you support
00:18:08
me and he did you know obviously um yeah he came around and he knew that you know
00:18:14
over time I think he thought about it um and he knew that it was the right thing
00:18:18
for me to do did you did you guys come up with like a list of pros and cons or anything or you know um I actually spoke
00:18:24
to one of my mates and said that because I didn't talk to a lot of people about
00:18:27
it um because I knew that all be you know no you can't have that Shar and I didn't want all those negative reactions
00:18:33
but I did speak to one mate and she said Shar what you should try doing is tying
00:18:37
your hand behind your back for a week and see how you go and I thought no if I'm doing this I'm going in Boots and
00:18:44
all it's just going to happen and you just got to deal with it then don't you
00:18:49
you know yeah but there's no reversal oh absolutely not but then you just got to
00:18:53
deal with it oh no wait a minute just I want the useless arm back yeah yeah so yeah I found a surgeon um did you need
00:19:01
to did they make you undergo any compost counseling or anything like that um yeah
00:19:04
I had to do a couple of sessions oh [ __ ] that's a lot of crap is it you know um
00:19:09
well it's easy I mean um yeah I I had the same sort of thing mandatory very very different situation but mandatory
00:19:15
counseling when um me and JJ and my wife at the time were undergoing fertility stuff and we were about to use a matate
00:19:21
sperm donor SP and you have like mandatory counseling but it's it's easy
00:19:25
to say the answers that you know you should say for sure very easy to fo them I think I I just
00:19:31
felt like I was just doing a recording yeah you know it was yes no yeah n yeah yeah I suppose so yeah it was yeah like
00:19:40
you say I think it's very easy to fool them not that I was out there to do that
00:19:44
D not at all no no and I'm exactly the same and it's one of those things got it
00:19:50
feels like tress we have to go through yeah and like with with my situation which is very different to yours with
00:19:54
the donor spam thing like I had a couple of years leading up to that where it's
00:19:57
like this maybe a path we have to go down so you have time to think about it same with you I guess you had a lot of
00:20:02
time to think about well I I didn't really because you know it happened in December 16 the accident so I only had
00:20:10
that 12 months you know that from recovering to making a decision to getting it removed yeah honestly you
00:20:17
know I must have had red flags by my name because you don't just go into a surgeon and say that you want to remove
00:20:25
a part of your body and next minute you're getting done so um I think they sort of knew that that [ __ ] up
00:20:32
basically and you know okay if this is what she wants let's let's make this
00:20:36
happen for her um plus I think that my surgeon um he was fantastic um I still have a great relationship with him now
00:20:46
um he's done my knees so he's seen quite a bit of my body you know um and he he's
00:20:52
yeah he's always helped me now he's made made it made things happen for me so
00:20:57
anyway I saw him and he put me on to Prof thirston um a guy down a professor down in Wellington who was um obviously
00:21:07
the man for amputations so I contacted him and um we had a few emails back and forth and then next minute I get this
00:21:16
email saying let's make it happen so we did from there it just evolved so what
00:21:22
what's that process um like do you do you discuss where it's going to be cut off or so yes
00:21:28
so we talked about it and discussed it and um because I was right cut right up here right up to my elbow basically and
00:21:36
it was a bit of a mess he said we can do a below elbow Shaz but he said I would suggest we go above elbow So Below elbow
00:21:44
would make it easier in terms of like um prosthetic Limbs and and if you see a lot of arm amputees a lot of them are
00:21:52
below elbow there's not many of us that are above elbow so we're the special
00:21:57
ones obviously um but um yeah so we went so he um amputated it just above the elbow
00:22:07
here yeah so it was as you can see it's a lot shorter now than what it was um
00:22:12
when we first done it but then after he amputated we had complications um and not only do I have
00:22:21
severe phantom pain I have this thing called CPS which is complex regional pain syndrome um um and like I said to
00:22:29
you a bit earlier when we're talking it's like if you've ever peed on an
00:22:33
electric fence you know what it's like you know you get that full instant jarring and that shocking well that's
00:22:39
what I have when does that just is that um sporadically or occasionally or it's
00:22:44
all the time permanently so um it constantly s of feels like you're being tattooed say yeah yeah um what you what
00:22:52
do you what do you take for that um so I I I don't take um I instantly got off
00:22:57
the track tramol and the seol and all that sort of stuff um and then I've I've
00:23:03
been had some super support people around me and um we've tried different things um I went to have been in contact
00:23:10
with a pain specialist Dr Amir up here um and we've been dealing with him and
00:23:16
my um people down in paly um and we finally came we've tried different medications obviously so so I'm just
00:23:26
trying to get my head around something so post um post accident but preamputation were you in were you in
00:23:31
pain you had this useless arm I was had discomfort right had discomfort but I wouldn't call it
00:23:37
pain um so and then once we um amputated it obviously the nerves didn't agree
00:23:44
with that because don't forget it was a massive trauma of being smashed and broken um you know you've got both bones
00:23:53
completely broken in half snapped in half so it's a massive trauma it's not
00:23:58
like just a break that a kid has in the playground you know from falling out of a tree this was severe um in their terms
00:24:07
um so yeah so that trauma on its own has fired the nerves um from instantly from that
00:24:16
trauma so once we had it amputated it's obviously um elevated that that pain and
00:24:24
the nerve endings so um um yeah so we we we've had two further amputations since then um
00:24:34
where I've had awesome surgeon down at Hut Hospital Dr Bon um he really looked
00:24:40
after me and tried different things so we went back to surgery another time this is a couple years later um and he
00:24:49
what he done was he shortened it he found well he obviously opened up Stumpy um found the nerves stret scratched them
00:24:58
s them and then he let them go hoping that the nerve endings would end up somewhere back up here um so that
00:25:07
there'd be no pressure or nerve endings down here where I was getting all the
00:25:10
pain um so we were hoping that was going to happen um and eliminate the pain unfortunately it didn't so
00:25:19
about a year maybe 18 months later he tried to have another go and we went through this whole process of he had
00:25:27
this brain wave of um and this idea that he had to take to a panel to get it approved first to go ahead and do this
00:25:35
so I still didn't know if I was going to have this third amputation or not so
00:25:40
they're just like going higher and yeah oh god um so we we got the go ahead and
00:25:46
the approval to do this third amputation and what he done then was once again he
00:25:51
opened up Stumpy found those nerve endings which had neuromas growing on the end of them which was causing the
00:25:59
pain um so he once again he stretched them he um cut them and then removed those neuromas and then he seed them
00:26:08
again the nerve endings and then what he done was he drilled straight through my
00:26:12
bone and he's inserted the nerve endings into my bone so that if the neuromus
00:26:18
grow back again hopefully it won't penetrate penetrate through the bone um and that was he said to me Shaz this is
00:26:26
the last thing I can think of doing for you so you know I've I've had some
00:26:31
awesome team behind me trying to help me as much as possible with this pain um unfortunately it hasn't
00:26:38
worked so we're still in pain so Stumpy's still a prick um yeah I've
00:26:45
heard you um refer to it as stumpy in a a couple of um podcasts that I've listened to night why did you why did
00:26:51
you decide to um to name it when when did that happen did that happen pre the amputation or I honestly when I first
00:26:58
had the amputation the day of the surgery I woke up and I looked down and here was this big fat you know um
00:27:07
bandaged stump um and I just looked down and I had the biggest smile on my face Dom I just um and I just looked down and
00:27:17
I said welcome to sh's World Stumpy um and it's just stuck you know and honestly I um it was the best decision
00:27:27
of my life absolutely best decision of my life mate yeah the um the the the Stumpy thing um the thing that thing I
00:27:35
like about that is uh um you rather than like mourning what you're losing and
00:27:41
talking about losing your arm you talk about gaining something new oh absolutely I don't know I don't know if
00:27:45
that was subconscious or an intentional thing but it's a way of framing it that
00:27:49
it it was just like you know this is the start of a New Journey this is going to
00:27:54
be an awesome Journey um and I just wanted it to be a great journey you know I wanted it to be a whole new Journey
00:28:02
Stumpy and I were starting over you know and it was it was a new beginning and like I say the best freaking decision of
00:28:11
my life Stumpy and Stumpy and Shar on to it sounds like sounds like some sort of
00:28:16
weird comedy movie that you'd see in video easy back in the [Music] day m