About this Short Film
No description available for this film.
Film Details
Country:
Australia
State:
Victoria
Category:
Open Entrant Documentaries
Festival Year:
2018
Filmmaker:
Jake Cawfield & Kai Vanleeuwen
Film Transcript
I visited the doctor on the 22nd of December 2016 with a sore toe. The doctor looked at it and said, 'yeah, it's not great. You really should go to the hospital'. I went to the Epworth in Melbourne. They said basically, 'yeah, you're going to lose your leg' and it went downhill from there on.
The steps in getting a prosthetic limb were obviously, first of all, I had to recover medically. I had to be free of infection and my stump had to start clearing up. It healed pretty well and then after that it was all to do with prosthetics — getting a leg. I was really desperate to get a leg and to get into the rehabilitation hospital, get a leg made so I could actually start walking.
My biggest motivation to get up and walk again — one of the goals actually — was to walk the dog again. That was always my big driver: to be able to walk him in the park. That's all I wanted to be able to do; that was my first goal. Everything that I did from there on, everything I put in my mouth, everything I did in recovery, all the work we did with prosthetics was focused on being able to walk the dog around the park.
My occupational therapist really said, 'don't push it too hard, don't really push it too hard, you should, you know, be constrained', but I wasn't. I just pushed harder and harder to get fitter and stronger and further each time. That's how you do it. That's how you recover — it's that single-mindedness of just going for it.
The first day I walked was pretty remarkable, but I could only really go for 10 metres or so using some handrails. They made some adjustments and those kinds of things. I could really only wear it for about 15 minutes at a time even after that, and each time you just keep pushing yourself further and further until eventually you can go out and walk the dog.
Walking Woody for the first time was an amazing feeling. We actually initially started doing it in a wheelchair and then from there I pushed myself a little bit further. I got some crutches, got to the park, walked without the crutches, walked with a couple of sticks and then from then on really pushed myself a lot further to be able to do a complete loop of the park, which is one and a half to two kilometres over rough terrain. That was kind of remarkable to get back to essentially normality. That was a goal achieved, but I still had to push myself a lot further to get fitter, to be able to walk a lot further and to be able to actually run some.
I probably, if I'd gone to my doctor earlier, probably wouldn't have lost my leg. I think men in particular aren't great at going to the doctor and you can't know how serious something is unless you actually do. I think it's really important that we actually go when we're sick and not just try and suck it up and say, 'she'll be all right mate', because often she's not. That's what I did. I said, 'it will be fine, it's nothing, it's just a sore toe', and here we are without a leg.
The advice I give to people who are in a similar situation, who have just lost a leg or are about to lose a leg, is that first of all it's not the end of the world. As long as you heal up nicely and you put the effort in, you'll actually recover and in some ways be better than you were before because you're going to be a lot healthier. People like occupational therapists tell you not to push yourself. That's nonsense. You really do have to push yourself. If you don't push yourself you don't get any better, you don't get stronger, you don't get fitter, you don't walk further. You'll just sit on the sofa and be the same person that you were. You need to make changes and you need to push yourself.
Filmmaker
Jake Cawfield & Kai Vanleeuwen is the filmmaker behind this entry. See every Focus on Ability entry from Jake Cawfield & Kai Vanleeuwen.
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2 comments
Excellent video. Love the determination in this man. Very inspiring.
Amazing manAmazing documentry Inspirational story