The path for me – my journey

It was the type of day that was fated to be different from the start in many life changing ways.

My brother had taken my young daughters away on a camping trip for the weekend and I in return was looking after his three dogs. My husband brought me a cup of tea in bed, ‘What a lovely start to a bright summers morning’ one would think. Then chaos hit.

As my morning tea arrived, dog dirt had been trodden in and carried up and through to the bedroom which as you can imagine did not smell too pleasant. To make matters worse, the backdoor had been opened to air the house and at the same time ‘ Mr Bertie-Wooster’ my little canary had escaped, sadly never to be seen again. So, a horrid and somewhat smelly start to the day.

We decided to make the most of the afternoon once the dog walking duties were over by going out on the motorbike. We didn’t plan to be too long so we put the chicken in the oven to roast slowly and off we set.

Fifteen minutes into our journey as we were traveling around a very sharp bend we lost control of the bike. Next thing I was flying through the air in very slow motion. Yes it is true, when your life is at risk things do slow down, and I remember thinking absurdly ‘I really have not got time for this’.

I hit the grass verge, landing on my back with quite an impact and was unable to move at first. We had actually hit a car head on which had been traveling in the opposite direction which happened to be a car full of devout Christians who were standing over me telling me that God didn’t mean for me to die today, which I believe was intended in all good faith to be words of comfort in my time of distress.

My husband had landed on his head further up the embankment and appeared to be totally fine, he staggered to where I was lying and asked the drunken passer by who had also stopped to advise me in my time of need, to move along.

When the ambulance arrived they managed to put me safely inside and off we went. My husband was rightly concerned as I was in a great deal of pain...he went to remove a thorn from my neck and as we travelled over a bump he managed to stick it further in so I decided at this point that I wanted him to sit over the other side just to be sure.

When we arrived I was put on a stretcher and the doctor came to examine me. It seemed I was covered in blood and my collarbone was suspected of having a break. After an x-ray my collarbone was fine but my sternum was broken, but on the positive side the congealed blood I was covered in turned out to be blackberries.

In past times if you had a broken sternum the process was to open up the chest area and wire it, I’m so very happy to say that this practice was discontinued as it caused severe problems more often that not.

What a day, we had three dogs at home and one chicken roasting away in the oven....a friend went and sorted the chicken and dogs.

I was in hospital for a while and when I did go home I was unable to use my arms properly as without the sternum support I didn’t have the arm strength. I had been accepted at the university on a Foundation Art Course and had been really looking forward to my new direction. When the course began I was still in the early stages of recovery and was not allowed to attend. I was advised to wait until induction the following year.

A few months later I attended a course at the local college called ‘ Women and Management’. It was extremely interesting and I learnt a great deal, but the main point was that it made me focus around my life at that specific point in time and that focus was my four amazing daughters.

What job could I do that would earn an income but also fit around my family life?

I looked into several options but kept coming back to the fitness side. I studied hard while still on the management course and got my basic fitness qualification. I was encouraged to come up with a name and have it registered at Companies House. I decided to call my business ‘Fit 4 You’ as my four daughters where my main focus and my business hours would need to fit around school term and holidays.

It is now nineteen years since fate stepped in and changed my path and I could not imagine my life any other way. I have studied and worked very hard since that time to update and keep my knowledge current.