The Wild GeeseDown Low Down Under
WinNewsLink A recent News Story
My name is Dave Lewis (My Web Site) Some Geese may know me from rides I have been on with a few of the members from time to time. Please take the time to have a look through this log and visit my web site.
Currently, more than 6,500 young people across Australia are forced to live in nursing homes because they have nowhere else to go….
This could have been my fate at 22 years of age, when I was left with a severe traumatic brain injury after a motorbike accident on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. My mother Patricia and father Rob were told that my chances of survival and recovery were slim and, if I did pull through, a nursing home may be the best place for me. If I had been placed in a nursing home, I believe that I would not have had the opportunity to improve and recover the way that I did. I would have lived the rest of my life quite alone, surrounded by elderly people at the end of their life, rarely seeing friends and family and with little or no opportunity to be activly involved in my community.
Thankfully my mother was able to adapt her home to accommodate my needs (including wheelchair access, suitable bathroom and rehabilitation equipment). She also put together an individual recovery program, drawing on the expertise of specialists including a physiotherapist, speech therapist and occupational therapist. Almost nine years on, I can now walk without assistance, communicate, and take care of my own hygiene need. Four years into rehab, I began riding a specially designed tricycle – all steps towards my independent future.
I realise I am one of the lucky young people who have been given that chance at regaining my life and I have decided to make the goal of riding around Australia on my tricycle to not only raise awareness for brain injury, but to bring to light the challenges for young people with high and complex disability, who are living in or facing entry into a nursing home. One of the major challenges is the ongoing struggle to obtain the right support services, such as rehabilitation, which makes a crucial impact to recovery and quality of life. There should not be any young people in Australia lying in nursing home beds when they could be living a fulfilling life in the community.
Following a trial run around Tasmania in February 2012, I will begin the 17,000km trip around Australia in the middle of 2012 and hope to be home by early 2013. A support van will come along for the ride, and in conjunction with Young People In Nursing Homes National Alliance (YPINHna) we will be meeting other young people with brain injuries and disability, organisations involved with young people in nursing homes, and the people of Australia, as well as raising media awareness.
It feels like just yesterday that I said I would get out of this wheelchair, and while I was at it, ride around Australia! But in reality, the years of my recovery were long and arduous. Now, I have gladly swapped the wheel chair for a new set of wheels – my recumbent trike! I am looking forward to setting off on this new adventure, and while I’m at it, helping others who are less fortunate than me.
I hope this trip will inspire people to keep following their own dreams.
For more information on the issue of young people in nursing homes, visit the YPINH website
