This guide is a short explanation of the six stages of suicide with practical activities to help you prepare and assist your mind in the event it becomes irrational and unsafe.
Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist described these stages that people experience prior to carrying out suicidal acts.
Included is a mind-monitoring tool to assist you in identifying if your mind is displaying signs of reacting within the various six stages. This tool provides actions you can do to support your mind. A link to a printable PDF of the tool is included.
At the end of this guide, you can find a list of help crisis hotlines for various countries.
My original article is independently described as a:
‘Very good report, written in a humanistic way. The observed stages of suicide are of serious scientific interest, i.e. can help in preventive terms’.
The more you understand how your thoughts and emotions respond in irrational ways the more you can transform your actions beyond the influence of an unhelpful mind to that of a supportive mind and live freely and fully.
If you are a therapist, this is a useful resource for your clients. It also is filled with illuminating content for those people curious about the irrationality of our minds and how to prevent that from interfering with our quality of life.
“Stages of Suicide is an excellent insight into the though patterns of those dealing with suicide. Each stage very well describes the kind of thoughts, behaviours and emotions one feels as their condition continues, which I found extremely accurate and relatable. As for someone who has experienced these stages second hand, this is an incredible tool that can help non-suicidal people understand what it is like to be suicidal which I believe is one of the most important things for dealing with suicide on the larger scale.
After each stage there is a ‘prepare your mind’ section which works as a helping hand/’what to do about this’ counterpart of the stage. I found this to be really useful in not only making the content a lot less daunting and overwhelming to take in, but the reader is reminded that regardless of what stage you find yourself or someone close to you in there is always a solution to help you get out of it, which is exactly how this book approaches the terror of suicidal ideation.
Moreover, the mind monitoring tool at the end seems incredibly useful to help the user understand their own thoughts and emotions as they go through stages as well as help to generate some rational thinking patterns.
Overall this is an extremely insightful and practical helping hand for those dealing with suicide. Definitely recommend this to anyone who are either going through it or know someone who is, this book can help!“
“It’s not often I find myself holding my breath as I read a book, however in the opening story of Wild: Life death encounters with wild animals, I was doing exactly that.
The shark encounter at Murramarang Beach raised those old fears which were embedded into everyone who watched the 1975 classic, Jaws. I watched that film as a child and was terrified for some time of the overcast days at the beach, when you couldn’t see what was under the surface. Even though I know Dr Myfawney Webb, and am familiar with many of her stories of an adventurous life, I was still riveted to the pages of my kindle as I followed her narrative of the shark encounter.
Myfawney has a knack for bringing you into her experiences, through the truth of the tales within this book and the authenticity of her voice.
It’s a real talent to be able to convey emotions such as desperation, fear, sadness and terror while staying true and real to her story.
Dr Webb has achieved this, and it was a real joy to see her stories brought to life with such passion.
I can highly recommend this book to any lovers of adventure, wildlife, Australian experiences and those who like to read a book perched on the edge of their seat.”
Helen Menzies
5.0 out of 5 stars Journeys with Myf
Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 17 October 2021
“It seems to happen in my life that I set out for an adventure and it’s dramatically rearranged by the gods into one of those deep priceless experiences.”
So says Dr Myf Webb in Life Death Encounters, and it’s no exaggeration. The book is a stirring tale of derring-do, told in an authentic down-to-earth no-fuss Australian voice.
“I … reflected on how I had somehow survived three direct active threats on my life by three very different types of animal, a Great White Shark, an Eastern Brown Snake and now a wild buffalo bull.”
To that list of adventures the spellbound reader can add spiders, wild horses, wild donkeys, beached whales, the hunt for secretive possums as part of her doctorate work, and being thrown from her horse when it was attacked by a bull-Arab hunting dog intent on murder.
Phew.
Most of these stories were written by Mfy Webb during her year-long treatment for cancer. In a lifetime of challenges this was yet another to overcome. The details of that adventure are yet to be published, but readers of Life Death Encounters will know to anticipate another inspiring journey of curiosity and courage.”
menace aforethought
5.0 out of 5 stars Wild by Nature
Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 3 October 2021
“It’s wonderful to see these works collected into a book. These are stories not just of the wild, but of the inner being, how we tread our path through the world, how we learn about ourselves and how to become a fully engaged person through challenges that we sometimes seek and which are sometimes thrown at us by life.
The stories not only surprise with the breadth of Myf’s experience from her work as a mammal specialist, travelling and living in remote Australia, but also in her love of animals and the wilderness in general. She takes on an immersing ride surfing, fascinated by a shark attack until the reality of the risk finally hits home. ‘This is the first time in my life I have completely and absolutely maxed out on exerting my body physically.’ We are there with her, feeling that intense moment, the stress of trying to get back to shore when there are no waves to help and splashing could be the worst possible idea! Fortunately, this is followed by ‘White and pure EUPHORIA’, and she is safe on the shore. But danger was never far behind her in the bush while she studied mammals, or even when she was young, and being confronted with angry brown snakes as well as death adders, yet that didn’t seem to faze her. Although she has learnt to respect the angry brown snake a little more over time. I remember going out with her and her reptile specialist husband, Johnno, on one of his field trips to collect death adders near Darwin. My partner John and I were in the back of the ute as he drove along a road between rice fields where he would jump out from time to time and bag one, only to toss it in the back with us! One thing I learned from our early time living in the upstairs flat from them in Glebe, where they were breeding Funnel web spiders to feed his study animals – death adders – life was never dull around Myf! A photo of her in the book, smiling while a python winds itself around her neck is a classic!
Whale rescues and her surprise at the bond she formed with one, her hundreds of efforts trying to trap wild Rock-ringtail possums in Kakadu, and I know she had to wear beekeepers kit at least at times to protect her from swarms of killer mosquitos, lost in the Kimberly among ‘dodgy mineshafts’ with a ‘team of blokes’, ‘waking up in the morning, la de la de la, walking down the sandy creek bed,’ and being confronted by a wild buffalo, one of the most dangerous animals you can encounter in the bush, the scientist in her even taking in that he pawed the ground with his left foot, so perhaps one part of the 7% of ‘left-handed’ creatures! How she escaped this situation is classic. She came off less well when her horse she was riding was attacked by a dog, ending in a 15-kilometre trek with a broken arm and a one-handed drive to hospital!
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
This quote from Alice in Wonderland seems particularly apt when I think of how Myf has crashed her way through life to contribute enormously to our understanding of the natural world, and perhaps this is how people have to be to do this work. So, it is not surprising that she has fought cancer with the same chutzpah, and now has given the world a wonderful collection of stories from her adventures to inspire new generations to get out there and go for it!”
Magnolia etching by the Australian Artist Lionel Lindsay (brother to Norman Lindsay)
Asleep in a foreign house, I’ll half wake thinking I’m in my childhood room with the adjoining terracotta tiled veranda just outside. After a moment I realise I am not there at all. Nor am I at my current home with the leaning eucalypts that seem to peer inside the bedroom.
This fuzzy, disconnecting feeling happened a lot recently during a week away, maybe because the flowering gardens of the holiday rental reminded me of my original family home, which was full of assorted pink and white azaleas and the green brown leaves of the magnolia tree. My subconscious mind began to go back in time. I’d wander along the silent neighbourhood streets full of opulent park-like gardens full of spring colour. I have not ridden my pushbike or run with my dog along these streets for 32 years. My memories were forged during thirteen years of living in a heritage house set on a leafy suburban quarter-acre block. Memories that are spiced rich with smell, colour, textures and feelings.
Somehow, just a few days after that first trip away since months of covid, I ended up driving by the house I grew up in on my way home from a trip to Sydney. What happened next squashed that disconnected, fuzzy feeling but has also given me a mind-bending riddle that I’m just now figuring out.
As I drove by my childhood home, I noticed a yellow development sign pinned to the low green and cream brick wall. This is the border wall that’s framed by a massive, native Lillipilly tree that the stingy caterpillars love. Parking the car, I walked over and read that the development is for another dwelling. As I was trying to figure out where exactly this would be, a young bloke carrying stuff for a council pickup walked down the gravel driveway to the grass near me. I asked him if he lives here and he said yes. Without thinking, I quickly said “I did too”. Then I asked him about the development. We ended up swapping stories about living there and I bombarded the poor guy with a bunch of questions, although he didn’t seem to mind.
No, he hadn’t noticed the ghost of Australian artist Lionel Lindsay who lived there too but his mum may have.
Yes, he’s seen the statue commemorating Lionel up at the park.
Yes, it is a really cool house in a heat wave (I felt that cool dry air relief as I whooshed in the door after walking home from school on a hot summer’s day)
Yes, the view from the top of the two 120 year old magnolia trees is pretty good. (I now saw into the hidden garden across the road and felt that exhilaration of climbing up high).
The pool is a lot of upkeep, and the little pond is still there. (I could see the light blue ripples as the sunlight sparked into the pool and I smelt the earthy dark waters of the tiny pond).
Yes, he’s seen lots of the funnel webs too.
Funnel web spider in attack position
As we talked, I could look right up the orange gravel drive to the far porch and apart from a flowering white climber stretching to the roof, and a BMW parked in the drive, the scene looked unchanged since my childhood. I kept noticing the wrong car and the image kept pulling me back to the present. But then I’d be remembering standing right there as a kid, talking about how my cattle dog bailed up a Funnel Webb spider under the flowering wisteria that draped over the pergola out the back. His dog did the same thing and he was worried, but I said I was worried too but then found out dogs are immune to the spider’s venom. Then I pointed to the gutter nearest us and told the guy that there was a funnel web spider there one night. While I was on a roll talking about spiders, I pointed to the gravel drive and recast how I had trodden barefoot on a huntsman spider in the dark that bit me. We talked about the neighbours and how the bushy creek at the end of the road is gone now and how I used to cut the lawn edges along the gutter with a manual rotor tool and how just this month I bought one for my place after all these years.
I think what really helped me consolidate my childhood memories of living in that house, was the easy flowing conversation with a young man who was gathering his own happy memories of living there. Every ten years or so I have driven past my childhood house, and I’m afraid to admit, it jarred me to look at the ‘new’ tasteful steel fence and the different orange plants and neat hedges. Now, this sensation dissolved thanks to a short but powerful story-swapping conversation with a stranger.
My bedroom opened out to this veranda (I took this photo ready for dancing for my 18th Birthday)
Jean Lindsay circa 1900 – 1910
After leaving the house, I drove the exact route I’d taken as a kid, threading through the streets where I’d take off on my bike or with the dog. My choice of streets meant I avoided the steep hills and traffic and the route took me past my favourite gardens. I noticed during the slow drive that the real estate looked more polished than I remember. What I found interesting, was as I instinctively turned into the various streets and recognised the scenery, it felt easy and okay. Just like during that conversation. I expected it to feel familiar, but the discomfort was gone. This surprised me. Remembering the free-flowing bike rides here felt good. This remembering may be the past, but the past is as real as the present as I drove my same childhood route decades later. I’m still not sure how to describe this but it feels like some sort of validation of my past and childhood and all that good stuff that goes with it. Not something to forget but rather to remember and cherish.
Me as a kid at home
The final layer I discovered when delving into this concept of shared memories is how we share connections to special things. One of those special things for me I share with Lionel Lindsay. A man I never met but nonetheless, as a kid, I had felt his somewhat judgmental vibe whilst growing up in his old house. One thing I didn’t divulge during the conversation with the current inhabitant, is that once or twice in the last few decades I drove past the house around Christmas time and I’d stop and snap off a monster sized magnolia flower from one of the two old trees, to take home. These are one of my favourite flowers. They are the size of a dinner plate and emit a heavy heady scent. The petals are thick and smooth and shine with a regal ivory colour.
I planted a magnolia tree in the garden where I currently live. It signifies home and is grounding to look at even if I feel a twinge of discord. I don’t think I’ll feel that twinge anymore.
Like me, Lionel admired the very same two magnolia trees and their repeated flux of flowers every year. The blooms inspired him to create beautiful artwork. They may also have become an anchor for him as they are for me. One of his magnolia works is entitled “Lionel’s Place”.
The young fella told me that after the recent big storms, the arborists said how they are amazed at how solid and strong those two huge Magnolia trees are. I love that. I’d say Lionel would too.
My initial thought of going through radiotherapy to treat my breast cancer was “yeah I’m so not looking forward to grappling with the conflict of allowing my body to be bombarded with radiation”. The word radiation glowed luminous green in my head, and although I hoped that it would kill any remaining rogue cancer cells, I knew that radiation kills people. I’ve seen the extreme photos of Hiroshima where everything turned to ash. The imagery in my head was of my body slowly turning into tiny grey fragments and disintegrating like those Japanese people. Or would my body remain intact until I fell apart one random month into the future? These thoughts crowded my head but I suppressed them.
I didn’t know how I’d cope with a daily schedule of turning up every single day, five days a week for five weeks, whilst being pleasant to everyone… everyday. The effects of the chemotherapy hadn’t worn off and I still felt crappy. What I came to realize during those weeks is that besides the most obvious gain – an increase in the odds of living – there were unexpected bonuses that I could take home from the whole experience.
For my cancer type, radiotherapy increases my overall chance of survival by about 10%. I needed to know this before I commenced the treatment. My radiotherapy doctor spent plenty of time in our consultation showing me the results of studies with and without radiotherapy for my type of breast cancer. Perfect! I told him I needed that to help me feel good about the whole thing. For my cancer, this radiotherapy has better outcomes than the chemotherapy I’d just finished. Type of radiation for me? Photons. Photons are light particles so I tried to think of it as light therapy. Light as in life, and NOT that going up to the heavenly light thing.
So the next thing I had to grapple with was whether my heart would be damaged by the radiation because my tumour sat right above my heart, and the therapy involves focusing the radiation on the tumour. Well two things saved my heart from damage. Firstly, the physicist, who designed my ‘more complex’ treatment plan algorithm with the configuration of directions and angles of all the beams across my upper body, did an excellent job by bypassing my heart. I saw the images of my CT scan and the intricate beam patterns over layering the top. He said that I’m not the usual patient (yes I keep hearing that) as no one has ever asked to talk to the physicist before. It’s not that I don’t trust people’s words, it is just that I understand better when things are more tangible and then I feel like I get it then. I wished to see what they are talking about not just hear it from their mouths. He went through the plan report in detail explaining the acronyms and jargon terms for me. And I had questions that only he could answer. Serious questions about radiation that had been bugging me the whole time but I was too scared to know the truth till I was near the end of treatment in case I backed out and didn’t complete it. I’ll get to that soon.
The beam configuration over my left chest wall and shoulder.
The second heart saving measure relied on remaining perfectly still. I had to hold my breath to push my chest cavity out and drop my heart away from the deadly beams. Perfecting this technique became my goal. Thanks to the staff who reassured me all the way through the process, I began to look forward to holding my breath twelve times each day for the 80 second period it took to radiate me. These long breaths could have been broken into 40 seconds instead but that meant more time taken up. At first I tried to imagine that I was surfing. I envisioned taking a breath before enduring a massive underwater hold down but this backfired because the reality of a surfing hold down is that if you panic you can drown. That scenario was too confronting. Instead, I imagined I was diving down to a deep coral reef on snorkel, which stretched time into 80 seconds. In my mind I could see the anemone fish close by, and high above, the Barracudas circling backlit against the sun. There was also a cheeky green moray eel but not wanting to involve sharks, I soon ran out of new things with this adventure. I then developed a whole string of different walks that I knew well, adding in as much detail as I could. (One of these is a childhood walk or rather run you can read about in my memoir story Freedom Creek). Using this visual imagery relaxed me, and kept my heart rate down, and allowed me to hold my breath for the duration of the walk, sometimes with air to spare. Later, practiced this in the spa at home, and made sure I used my method of taking up the air slowly and ‘locking the chest’ compartment while I held onto the bottom of the pool. I then practiced this while body surfing and then when my skin became strong again, I could do it whilst surfing. I even taught me daughter my technique so she has more confidence surfing. I wasn’t expecting that!
On the radiation bed
Another bonus I didn’t expect was becoming comfy in my own skin…without boobs…fast. I thought I had come to terms with losing the ‘girls’ but actually I hadn’t. My mind was still catching up with the reality of the surgery that removed a part of my femininity. At the time all I could think was that the boobs were bombs implanted inside me which needed defusing by removal before they exploded and sent me to oblivion. Due to my skin feeling too sensitive during the radiotherapy treatment I couldn’t wear any restrictive clothing like bras or synthetic materials. At first I felt resentful that I couldn’t wear my padded bras and feel normal after all I had been through. My boobs had come off nine months earlier and I no longer had any cleavage, I had a flat pre-prepubescent chest. I ended up wearing skimpy tops like halter necks with no padded bra for boobs. It was summer and it was hot. Before long I felt normal and attractive again in my attire thanks to being forced to go without the fake boobs day in and day out during the treatment. I worked out that if I chose the right top such as a gathered style at the front, then I looked sexier than some of my old outfits with the padded bra. Now six months on I remain equally comfortable wearing or not wearing cleavage. Without undergoing the radiotherapy I doubt I could have reached this mindset so fast.
As it turned out, in the end I didn’t have to worry about coping with the daily radiotherapy treatment session. I looked forward to seeing the staff who looked after me, and I enjoyed great conversations with everyone from the manager to the radiologists to the nurses, the other patients, and even their partners. One time my daughter came with me and the ladies were happy to show her everything and let her check out what they did with the machine behind the window. I asked if she could take a photo of the screen on the machine, which was great because only then could I actually seemy heart dropped back in the cavity with my breath holding technique in action. These people are a special type to care for us when we are at our most vulnerable and I am so grateful to them for their warmth and the humanness that they gave me.
A photo my daughter took
Towards the end of the five week treatment, I was walking past the wooden book swap cupboard in our neighborhood, and as I peered in I found the book ‘Shockwave Countdown to Hiroshima’ by Stephen Walker. I took it but I couldn’t start reading it for a while. Then I couldn’t put it down. Some of the assumptions I had about Hiroshima were wrong. Hundreds of thousands of people perished, but miraculously, some survived. The author interviewed a handful of Hiroshima survivors who were healthy, even though they were relatively close to the T-shaped target Aioi bridge where the bomb known as ‘Little Boy’ landed two hundred meters away. The bridge itself survived. Not everyone who survived suffered a long term decline from radiation sickness. Today, radiation is being used to save lives. My body and my life may have been saved thanks to a technological breakthrough that wreaked horror in 1945.
Now to that serious question for the Physicist. Yes the physicist not the physican. How does the photon ray bombardment compare with the rays that victims experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What I really wanted to know is if the long term side effects would be the same. Photons used in radiotherapy treatment are non-ionizing radiation and have less energy than ionizing nuclear reaction radiation. The rays passed right through my body rather than linger. On the back of my shoulder there is a dark patch of skin where the rays exited my body away from my organs and bones. This is amazing technology. My bones should be quite intact and my heart has been protected. I wondered about my circulating blood being irradiated but I suppose as it keeps moving, and cells keep turning over then it should be fine too.
Exit point of radiation can be seen as the red circular area on my upper back
So I have no regrets about going through this treatment. My concerns and fear were replaced with good things. I’m glad I asked the questions about the treatment, but I should not have been such a chicken and asked them way earlier.
Until now, I have managed to escape injury and death during my encounters with wild animals, but depending on how you see it, either my luck ran out recently or it kept running because I’m alive and writing this after one animal closed in on me.
For some reason, it seems to be those moments when I am relaxed and having fun that my world is flipped on its back. Minutes before El Toro the scrub bull confronted me I had been walking along a tranquil sandy creek bed anticipating a cool soothing wash downstream. Minutes before Jaw’s fin sliced through the water I had just begun to really relax out in those crowd free waves. This time was no different. Earlier in the day I had driven for forty minutes out to a floodplain paddock I’d leased for two of my horses. The grassy green field is in one of the narrow valleys that are flanked by the steep ridges of the Ourimbah State Forest, west of Gosford, an hour north of Sydney. I had my heavy breaking-in saddle and my light weight all-purpose saddle with me, and I planned to ride my new young gelding Jindy first and then my mare Twiggy. Jindy is pretty green and I had no idea how he’d react to the dirt bikes and four wheel drives we’d encounter so I rode him in the breaking-in stock saddle. When the first car approached us along the main road he freaked out, running backwards and he did the same when a string of very noisy guttural dirt bikes motored down past us as we climbed up the steep 300 meter accent onto the forest ridge line. I urged him past them with my calves gently pushing round his barrel and then he gained some confidence and started to relax and enjoy himself. His paces were smooth and super comfy and he behaved perfectly when we encountered more bikes, cars and wildlife during the ride.
Next it was my Arabian palomino mare, Twiggy’s turn. We had been training over the last few months for an endurance race so on that Saturday afternoon I planned to ride for thirty kilometers. Starting out slow my plan was to maintain a steady pace for the middle third, and then finish with a fast pace ride home. Usually I ride her in the light saddle but thankfully, this time I used the more secure breaking-in saddle. On the ride out she shied along the track a lot more than Jindy but mostly at rocks and stumps which is usual for her. We passed quite a few packs of dirt bike riders; a father with his boys on teeny cute dirt bikes and a few 4WDs coasting along. People were friendly and calm as I rode past.
Twiggy and I on a trail
After about seven kilometers, we chose the left fork at the main intersection and headed further west. I knew this track was pretty remote reaching deeper into the forest far from the hobby farms and well-used roads. I didn’t expect to see anyone this far out this late in the day. One red 4WD did drive past us but that was it. We kept on and the late autumn sun dipped below a large round high hill ahead of us. I felt my body start to cool down although I was wearing a fleece jumper.
I don’t know if it was the hill’s sweeping, dark black shadow or intuition but as we trotted along, the track ahead constricted into the bush and the air become super still. My instincts told me that we should turn around and not go any further. My eternal problem is I always want to know what’s around the corner so I ignored my gut and decided to explore further. We’d push on and just see what it looks like up the top there and then head home. Near the top, the track turned sharply to the left skirting around the steep hill while an embankment flanked the track on the left. The sun shone again, we slowed to a walk and I relaxed. I was just about to turn back when I heard a car engine slowly climbing the hill behind us.
The sound became louder and then it was drowned out by the noise of people yelling and screaming. I thought they were some drunk young hooligans driving along that were about to seriously hassle me. I coolly asked Twiggy to trot and looked ahead for side tracks but there were none. The screaming became more crazy sounding and I glanced back but only made out the blur of a white ute.
Then we saw it….Cujo (like from the horror movie). This grey bull-arab hunting dog, a meter high with a monstrous head had bolted hundreds of meters in front of the ute to intercept us. Cujo crossed the distance between us in seconds. So fast in fact that we didn’t know she was there until she was a few meters from of us. (I refer to her as female because the image of her is etched sharply into my brain and there is no willy in that memory). She didn’t stay within the three meter perimeter zone like wary dogs tend to do. Instead, she quickly circled us and moved in close very quickly, looking for an opportunity to strike. I spun Twiggy to face the dog, and when it refused to back off, I yelled at it “Go away” with my deepest voice. The dog didn’t back off. I looked up to see what the owners were doing, and I could see they were still 20 meters away. I looked back to the dog and it raised its head, staring up at me, rolling the whites of its orange colored eyes, mouth agape. It darted in under Twiggy’s neck and locked its massive jaws into Twiggy’s front hoof and pastern. Twiggy’s worst nightmare. Instantly she jumped away from it and leaped up the steep cliff rocky embankment next to us. Luckily she dislodged the dog’s grip, but she kept going and turning side on she started to fall back down towards the track. In that instant I weighed up the risk of bailing off her backwards verses becoming crushed if she rolled over me if she did continue her fall. Plus I didn’t know if I’d stay on anyway because I could not predict where she was headed or how. In the past I have saved my butt with a deliberate ejection and as a kid I fell off so many horses I kind of learned how to fall and not go thump and instead dissipate the momentum of energy by slowly rolling.
A dog with the same appearance as one that attacked my mare
As Twiggy fell sideways, the last thing I remember was pulling my feet backwards out of my oxbow stirrups, letting go of the reins and trying to leap off her back as Twiggy’s body rose up in front of me. Usually in these situations, this is when time slows right down and I’ll remember the every detail in slow motion, from leaving the saddle to hitting the ground but not this time. No opportunity for that prayer of contrition, Betwixt the stirrup and the ground or having my life flash before me.
I blacked out. I came to, my entire body a bundle of pain. I lay on the rocky dirt track and I think I was face down on my front. I couldn’t move at all nor could I speak. Eventually I started getting annoyed at the bloke who owned the dog whose voice I could hear telling me to get up just over and over. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak and he expected me to get up! At one point there was some commotion I couldn’t see and I irrationally thought maybe I could be run over by a car and would not be able to do anything about it. The all body pain rush started to subside and I realized the worst pain patch was my wrist. My leg and elbow were sore too. Moving my fingers I told myself and the man that it’s probably just a sprain. That type of pain however felt quite severe. I had no bones sticking way out of my arm, only a small bump protruded. I sat up and the bloke proceeded to talk at me. I still could hardly speak. He kept on a few times about how my horse jumped up the cliff like it was her fault. All I could do was listen and store his words for later thinking. He said that the dog was his friend’s and that it didn’t bite the horse. I was in no state to even look at Twiggy’s body or really take in what his words even meant. Something took over in me in that vulnerable state that even if I could manage words, no way would I argue as I needed the help of the man and the woman that was with him. I couldn’t see the dog and they must have caught Twiggy. I did ask two things. Was it a pig dog? ‘No never hunted’ was his answer. I remember the feeling that there was this urgency that they wanted me back on my horse so they could just leave the scene. The second question I asked was ‘can you hold my horse while I get on’? They were happy to help. Both of them looked into my face and apologized to me which brings tears to my eyes as I write this. I think because those words gave me a sense of relief that they wouldn’t hurt me and vulnerability is not my thing. The man clutched hard at the reins and I remember the whites of his knuckles gleaming round lumps. The first attempt to mount failed because Twiggy moved. I knew I had strength for only one more go so I’d better make it as good as I could I told myself. Somehow my body let me swing over her back and settle into the comfort of the saddle and security of being able to get away. I turned towards home and the lady handed me the visor from my helmet which I didn’t know had broken. I vaguely recall another dog and maybe a kid but don’t remember the car number plate but over the few weeks since this happened, I’m starting to get an image of it suggesting I did try and take it in.
Aggressive dog
The first ten kilometers after that were a mix of relief and trepidation. My left hand stopped working; it was broken, so I had to keep a firm right handed grip on the reins. My left leg ached with every movement and my right elbow hurt. I knew if Twiggy shied, I’d have trouble staying aboard and if I fell, I would really injure myself due to lack of muscle control and balance. I would hit hard. My body was a cauldron of pain especially my back which jarred at very step. My phone was strapped around my waist so if I came off, and there was reception and I could move, I’d be able to use it. After those first kilometers my fear was the people and Cujo would drive back behind me so on the slight inclines, I began to force myself to endure a slow trot to cover ground faster. I realized that if I lent forward and we trotted slow enough, I became distracted, and the pain became bearable and I loosened up. Twiggy shied slightly once which hurt but she really looked after me and carried me back the 15 kilometers safe and sound.
Puncture wounds to my mare’s pastern after dog attack
I slid from her back, tied her up but it was hard going undoing all the buckles and I knew the saddle was too heavy to hoist into the Landcruiser with one arm. I called out to my friend Jane who was feeding her horses across the road and she helped me out by doing it all and washing Twiggy down and later disinfected the puncture wounds in Twiggy’s pastern. In contrast to what the man had told me, his dog had inflicted deep wounds to the horse’s leg. Jane helped me take my bangle off my swelling wrist and gave me some panadol from the glove box. She offered to drive me to the hospital and take me to her house to sit with a cuppa but I said that if I could manage to turn my car around using her driveway then I’d be right. The hospital was on the way home. I managed to drive one handed although roundabouts were a bit tricky and I couldn’t park properly. Three hours later I left the hospital and drove home with a plaster cast after an x-ray showed a piece of bone protruding from my wrist and fracture across the main bone. No breaks in my elbow but a later bone scan revealed a compression injury to my tibia. The injuries I have don’t match with how I found myself face down on the ground and it is frustrating having a memory gap like this. My injuries included a grapefruit sized swelling and green thunder bruise from the back of my left knee to the top of my thigh, a serious knee injury, a broken left wrist with bone protruding, a bruise to my right bum cheek and elbow. And I had busted my helmet visor. But it could have been much worse. Twiggy could have lept down the cliff, the horse could have fallen on me, and the dog could have mauled me as I lay unconscious on the ground. So my luck is still running with me I reckon. And faster than Cujo can run!
Twiggy’s wounds healed and a month later, although I wore a cast on my broken arm, we successfully competed in an endurance race.
Twiggy and I during the endurance race.
Twiggy and I during the endurance race after the dog attack
The best piece of advice I was given I would have to say was to not follow the crowd, don’t be a sheep, be your own person, that concept. The other dimension is not to waste energy competing with others.
I learnt this in first grade. I was 5. Linda unknowingly gave it to me. Our task for the lesson was colouring in. My patience never stretched as far as colouring in perfectly up against those thick black lines. Never. No matter how hard I tried. Hopeless I was. But, I couldn’t see the point really. Linda however was perfectly skilled at this. Linda had blonde hair, was my friend, I liked her and was super popular. The teacher asked consecutively around the room what our favourite colours were, starting with Linda. She said pink. Alison my other friend said pink. Glen probably said pink. They all said pink. I loved pink but I said brown. That felt good.
Since that moment I have never worried about going against the grain. It has me in trouble but it’s usually worth it.
Last month I knew I had to do something. May 1st was on its way. That day I would be doing something I truly feared. The fear is from not knowing if I am doing the right thing. I knew that if I went through with it then I alone would be responsible for the consequences. If I choose this I would allow my body and brain to cop a heavy hit of cell-destroying drugs. These drugs have a low probability of working on my rare subtype of breast cancer but maybe, just maybe they will save my life. The drugs may have irreversible side effects including serious cognitive impairment. This scares me the most. I know that these drugs may prevent secondary cancer that I may not even have right now, or later on in the future. I feel like there is nothing rogue left in me. No bad cells anywhere. Do I put my body through this and come out the other side a zombie? Or do I not go through with it and maybe regret my decision because I die young from a cancer that spread? So this is the fear.
I cannot reconcile my fear in my head. Usually I am good at doing that but for this I can’t, not yet. I needed something additional to give me some strength. Already I have been overwhelmed by support from friends, family, acquaintances and strangers but I am greedy. I reached beyond the living to the dead. I gathered up strength from my ancestors to go through the third nasty infusion of chemotherapy drugs. Two weeks before the horrible day, I asked my mum for her father’s old Masonic ring. The next week she gave it me.
I never knew this man but everyone is strong in their way and that’s what I wanted from him, a little piece of his strength.
Same goes for my other ancestors. I wished to suck up some of their strength.
On May 1st 2018, I dressed and slipped onto my fingers, my grandfather’s ring from my mum’s side of the family and my grandmother’s ring from my dad’s side who, with her husband I never knew. I wore my wedding ring and gained my husband’s strength and I wore a ring from his grandmother who I was very close to. I also wore a ring I had made at school for myself to remind me not to forget my own inner strength. None of these rings are full of jewels and they are not valuable in terms of money but to me they are priceless. To touch and handle items my ancestors wore, particularly those I never met, helps makes these people real and tangible to me.
As I settled into the passenger seat of mum’s car to go to the hospital, mum presented me with her mother’s beautiful Dux award from school. She told me she would wear this around her neck with a piece of string during exams for good luck. This took me by surprise. It made me feel complete. I loved my Nan and now I had something from her. I thanked mum and told her I didn’t need to wear jewelry she had given me because I had what was better and that is the real thing, her, by my side. I now had all my families with me now and I felt ready to face my fears.
They all took a piece of that fear and dread away and they all gave me a piece of their strength.
