MY HEALTH EXPERIENCE: MARIE LENNON:I began to realise I had to take everything back bit by bit
THE CRASH happened on April 9th, 2008. I was driving down to the main road from my home in Donard, Co Wicklow and I got walloped. My brain shut down immediately and I have no memory of what happened.
My daughter, Aoife, was at home at the time and a neighbour phoned her to tell her there had been a car crash. Another neighbour gave her a lift down to the crossroads and she travelled with me in the ambulance to Naas hospital. My husband, Dave, drove to the hospital from his workplace in Dublin and my son – who I was on my way to pick up in Newbridge – got a lift to the hospital with a friend. I don’t remember any of this though.
Initially, the doctors thought that I had had a stroke because I was vague and unresponsive. But, even though I did get a bang on the head, the CT scans didn’t find any brain injury. The doctors later said that I suffered from post-traumatic amnesia.
I had a fracture in my left arm and left leg and multiple fractures in my pelvis. I was moved to Tallaght hospital where I had surgery on my leg and then a few days later surgery on my arm. I was on strong painkillers and was only vaguely aware of being in hospital. I knew I was married to Dave and that I had two children but I still didn’t have any memory of the crash. In some ways, I hope I never remember it: I’m not even curious about what exactly happened.I remained in Tallaght hospital until the end of April.
Once home, I had to use a wheelchair to get around and I had to sleep in a downstairs bedroom. I was bedbound and wheelchair dependent for some time. I read a lot and I slept a lot. Sleep is so healing. Luckily Aoife was home from college for the summer and she looked after me so well along with a group of friends who came for three to four hours each day to help out with housework and cooking meals.
Unfortunately, the bone in my arm didn’t set properly and I had to return to hospital at the end of May to have another operation. After the second operation, I lost my confidence in life. I worried about everything. I couldn’t see an end to being immobile. I didn’t know how I would ever become myself again and return to being a yoga teacher. I felt the crash had stolen my old life.
Then, I began to realise that I had to take everything back bit by bit. The early summer of 2008 was beautiful and from my sunroom, I could see the apple blossoms on the trees and listen to the birds. I began to stand and move a little. I had weekly sessions of physiotherapy at Naas hospital and I did my exercises at home religiously twice a day.
Yet, I was pushing yoga away and still couldn’t see how I would ever get back to teaching yoga again. When you break bones in your arms and legs, you also have to rehabilitate the wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles because they seize up and get tight. I was working hard to get better but at my check-up at the end of July, the orthopaedic surgeon suggested I have manipulation under anaesthetic to get back full movement into my arm.
I really didn’t want to have another anaesthetic. I had been trained to use yoga therapeutically so why wasn’t I using this training to help myself?
My yoga colleagues had been encouraging me to do yoga movements. I wasn’t listening but the threat of another anaesthetic worked wonders. I began to incorporate yoga into my physiotherapy sessions at home. I did them at the beginning and end and then gradually I began to replace the physiotherapy with yoga. I learned to walk again in August. It was difficult and painful because I couldn’t use crutches – my left arm was still tender and painful.
I was asked to return to my work as a tutor on the Yoga Therapy Ireland teacher training course in September which gave me great motivation to improve. Getting back to teaching was wonderful. I worked with my colleague, Helen Morrow. She did the posture work with the students and I did the breath work and anatomy and physiology. It was so empowering to be back with the students. They were a fantastic support to me as I began to do yoga postures again.
I had found the physiotherapy great to begin with but I realised that yoga worked wonders. By doing arm and leg movements in alignment with my body using breath and silence, I got more movement back: each time, I focused on breathing into the joint, I found I could move a little bit more on each out breath. It was a great learning for me. I now had this new very personal knowledge of the power of yoga to heal.
Soon, I wanted to claim everything back – even the housework. I told my daughter I wanted to be mammy again. I continued to teach on the teacher training course throughout the autumn and I got back into a car to drive again in December. And, I started to teach my yoga classes again in January 2009.
As a yoga teacher, what I learned most was how valuable yoga really is when you are recovering from a physical trauma. And although I see the value of one-to-one yoga therapy for people who have specific injuries or accidents, I genuinely believe that yoga classes provide encouragement, feedback and support that working on your own would never give you.
In conversation with
Sylvia Thompson
