Life can be such a fickle thing. In January you are hurling through college like a warrior with attitude, in February morphine-induced flying monkeys circle your hospital bed. Left leg shattered, right foot crushed. A traffic collision that fractured both bones and dreams. At 3:25 p.m. on Friday January 12th, 2001, I came off second best in a tangle with a builder's lorry while waiting at the junction of Griffith Avenue and Glandore Road. As I cycled from Dublin City University that afternoon, I didn't expect to be drawn through my reel life.
Pictures of family and friends, school days and Croke Park performances flashed before my eyes as I struggled to break away from the lorry's grip. Luckily, something gave me the strength and speed to scramble free. I now move about in a wheelchair at the Mater Hospital, with both legs in plaster. I suffered compound fractures to my left fibula and tibia, while my right foot sustained multiple fractures and dislocations.
The consequences of this accident are severe. My hurling career is over. The DCU musical Little Shop of Horrors, which I had successfully auditioned for, cannot be a realistic option. My academic progress in journalism is delayed, as I have missed my examinations, which I had prepared well for. The prospect of repeats in late summer is looming.
Mentally, I'm coping. But for the first four days immediately after the accident, tears of frustration, hallucinations, flashbacks and deep sweats were part of my fix. My morphine dosage, controlled by a button on my left arm, was a paradoxical nightmare. The drug, while offering my aching legs some relief, also produced a band of flying monkeys that circled my hospital bed, accompanied by a strange appetite for flirting with nurses and student doctors.
By day five, I was beginning to regain control. Dr James Harty, part of the A-Team of surgeons (led by Mr Martin Walsh) looking after me, advised: "Face it with a grin James, at least you have a foot to walk with." I then decided be positive under pressure. The possibility of running a - mile again is unlikely, but a sedentary round of golf at my local Rosslare club is always an option. At least I'll walk again.
But mobility for me in the immediate future will be difficult. I will join, hopefully on a temporary basis, the wheelchair users on the DCU campus. Fortunately, the university's progressive policy is committed to facilitating equal opportunities for students with disabilities. The provision of wheelchair-friendly restaurants, lecture halls, library and gymnasium will allow me to resume some of my college activities.
Unfortunately, hurling with DCU will not be one of them. Mr Tom O'Donnell, the GAA development officer at DCU, who was good enough to grant me the AIB hurling scholarship, has already offered me a new role. By coaching, working to secure sponsorship, and helping with the various PR activities, I can retain my scholarship.
Having enjoyed playing club and schools' hurling in Wexford since I was eight years old, and competing in Croke Park with the Wexford minors on four occasions, I have some fantastic memories. These cannot be taken away from me. But I also had ambitions for the future, dreams of great deeds on big occasions and of winning awards and becoming an All-Star. Are these dreams shattered? Maybe they are, but on with the show.
My plans are to catch up on my journalism studies with extra effort in the library - time won't be a problem. My voice has been trained by Mr Alan Cutts of the Wexford School of Music since I was a young boy, and that facility, together with putting lyrics to melody, will be called on as I try to redirect my energy to some constructive pastime. I love performing, and the stage is now my venue.
Looking down from my hospital window on to the maze of traffic swirling around the streets of Dublin, I now realise that travelling in anything less than a four-wheel-drive is insane. The driving experience in Dublin is a game of nerves, with no real winners. It's a game full of lane changers, speed demons and secret shortcuts. Young people on bicycles are low priority.
Thinking of the hundreds of bicycles parked in the racks at DCU, I am visualising the potential for injury to their owners when battle is joined later on the streets. Is this the way to reward us environmentally friendly cyclists?
It was Douglas Coupland who said that when you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun - that life is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays - whenever. For me, this near-death experience has ensured that my best years won't be an interlude - some "scrambly madness". I've had a life review, and it has given me a new perspective. Life is not a rehearsal.
