Not being able to undertake our old routine results in a horrible sense of dislocation from a life we loved. I’m so grateful for your continued support. Watch the full story above Be sensitive to our limitations; don’t rub salt into our wounds by talking about things we are currently prevented from enjoying. Her days of riding herd on her three rambunctious sons apparently are a thing of the past. That one day I might fully regain my independence. Her three young sons and her husband Cameron rallied around her. A year after the accident her… I’m not. It’s up to you to choose how you will face the challenges and hard times ahead, and how you will seize the opportunities for creativity, productivity and happiness. Having tumbled sixty feet through countless branches to slam into an asphalt parking lot, it was a miracle that she was still alive. And this is where sport and friendly competition come into play. 'Penguin Bloom' does kind of take the same route here. Afternoons were spent in the waters — surfing. Subscribe for just 99¢. Being paralysed is tough enough on you and your family and friends without your becoming bitter – so if it takes a little sweat and a few blisters to feel better in the long run, then it’s certainly worth it. Perhaps if I was actually 120 years old a lifetime of happy memories might sustain me, but I am young, and I had every reason to believe that the bulk of my life adventure was still before me. Likewise there will be a period when almost anything anyone says or does will make you feel incredibly sad or angry or both. You need to get out of the house, interact with friends and do things that refresh your body and spirit after a tough day. As part of her rehabilitation, Sam (an avid sportswoman before her accident) took up kayaking. Having simple goals to aim for at each session – such as lifting a little more weight, achieving one additional repetition, greater distance or a slightly faster time – is very helpful when it comes to staying motivated. In time this won’t be such an issue, but the first year or so is especially hard. Thankfully some of the brightest minds in medical science are starting to make real progress in the repair and regeneration of severed and badly damaged nerves as a result of spinal cord injury. [Samantha Bloom; Cameron Bloom; Bradley Trevor Greive] -- Here, Sam tells her own story for the first time - how a shy but determined Australian girl became a nurse and travelled across Africa. All Rights Reserved. There’s just something about putting your fear and your anger into words that robs these horrible feelings of their power over you. What a funny pair we must have seemed – chatting and singing to each other all day. Penguin required constant attention; she needed to be fed every two hours and kept warm at all times. But three months after being out of hospital and 10 months after the accident… Thank you for reading TIME. It could be as simple as making dinner or driving someone where they need to go. Life will never be as it was before your accident, and this is not easy for you or anyone else in our situation to accept. They cannot comprehend the constant pain, hopelessness and humiliation that are an everyday, every hour, every minute reality. With her three sons and husband by her side, she undertook the arduous process of rehabilitation. However, the realisation of this important medical goal is entirely dependent on the financial support needed to fund ground‐ breaking research. Subscribe for just 99¢. Their generous charitable contribution is also being matched by our publisher, HarperCollins Australia, which I think is an extraordinary gesture. SAMANTHA BLOOM is a surfer, adventure traveller, neurology nurse and mother of three boys. Read Sam's story in her own words Full story. It may sound ridiculous but it’s true. I’m proud to say that my husband, Cameron Bloom, and our friend Bradley Trevor Greive are each donating 10 per cent of their book royalties from the sale of Penguin Bloom to support the vital work currently underway at SpinalCure Australia. She’s pretty much confined to her bed and a wheelchair. 'Penguin Bloom' follows the story of Samantha Bloom, played by two-time Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts, her husband Cameron Bloom (played by Andrew Lincoln from 'The Walking Dead'), and their three sons as they nurse back an injured baby magpie back to health. Do your own research, find out as much as you can so that you better understand what we are going through. Nothing felt right; I didn’t feel like I belonged anymore. Cameron and the boys got into beekeeping last summer, which was a little weird (especially as Cameron is highly allergic to bees) but also quite wonderful. Suddenly, I had something to do. Bloom, her husband Cameron and the writer Bradley Trevor Greive are the authors of Penguin the Magpie, which Reese Witherspoon has optioned for a film, starring Naomi Watts. When it comes to making positive progress following spinal injury I believe eighty per cent is mental and twenty per cent is physical. To be in the twenty‐first century and not have found a cure for spinal cord injury is painfully astonishing. A photo posted by Sam Bloom (@samjbloom) on May 8, 2015 at 8:32pm PDT. Also you now have to be brave and positive around someone who is angry, in terrible pain and deeply depressed. You can unsubscribe at any time. I don’t want to suggest that kayaking is my new reason for living – it’s not; my family are still the centre of my universe. My favourite pic of @penguinthemagpie. You have a limited number of free articles. On our very first morning we swam in the sea for an hour or two and then climbed the spiral staircase to the hotel’s two-story observation deck to take in our surroundings. A freak accident on a family holiday in Thailand left her paralysed from the chest down. Penguin Bloom: the bird that saved a family. We’re not able to look after your needs and feelings while we are struggling to cope with our disability, so you must make time for yourself and continue to live a rich, full life in order to stay healthy and happy, for everyone’s sake. It’s easy to become withdrawn when you are in pain; your self‐esteem has been shattered and your mobility is reduced to almost nothing. We may never be able to fully acknowledge the depth of our pain or how much we appreciate your help, but just remember that your love keeps us alive. In 2013 my husband and I took our three young sons to Thailand for our first family holiday and stayed in a tiny village on the Gulf of Thailand. I didn’t realize it at the time but, in a way, we were keeping each other alive. Sam Bloom fell and broke her spine when she leaned against a loose balcony railing at a beach resort in Thailand in 2013. There are almost ninety million people living with spinal cord injury in the world today, and up to five hundred thousand new cases are reported every single year (mostly young men, just entering their prime). I am also fortunate, courtesy of my head injury, not to have any recollection of my fall or its immediate aftermath, so I have not had to relive that horror again and again. And every day brings new hope for a cure. I didn’t take up kayaking with competition in mind – I just wanted to be out on the water. Instead of feeling helpless, try to find ways to make a meaningful difference. Her injuries were so extensive she became a complete paraplegic, unable to feel below the chest. Please sign in to contribute to the Mamamia Community. The barrier simply fell away from the deck and I fell with it, crashing onto the unyielding blue tiles twenty feet below. We regret all the little decisions and random events that led to us being injured. As Penguin increased her level of independence, so did I. I became committed to exercise and physiotherapy, and in time I rediscovered my love of watersports through kayaking, which gave me a new sense of personal freedom. I would sleep for as long as I could, then I would cry in the shower, where the boys couldn’t see or hear me. The Bloom family with Penguin, their magpie. When I first got back in the ocean I thought it would feel wonderful, but it didn’t. I cannot pretend that I’m happy with how things have turned out. Her story from rock bottom to world champion canoeist has even inspired a Hollywood movie. Of course this grim medical account came to me second hand; I was unconscious, lying in an ever-expanding puddle of blood. Of course, not everyone has a bird like Penguin, and there is a limit to what one can communicate to people who have not experienced what you and I are now forced to endure. After Samantha Bloom leaned against a safety barrier that ran along an observation deck her life changed forever. We hate having wheels for legs and we just want things to go back to how they were, and sometimes this longing seems beyond human endurance. Thanks @cambloom x, Thanks @blackmoresaustralia for a fantastic community day, the boys and I loved every minute of it! To the family and close friends of someone who has recently been paralysed, I am sorry for the sadness and hopelessness you are feeling. We all took turns in spinning the frames of honey and I was able to do much of the labelling and bottling with the boys. You and I are not the first people on earth to become paralysed and nor will we be the last. Penguin Bloom tells the true story of Sam Bloom, a mother-of-three who was gravely injured during an accident in Thailand. Sam Bloom suffered a devastating accident while holidaying in Thailand in 2013. I wasn’t sure I’d have much of a hands‐on role in managing the beehives but I enjoyed the happy drama of it all from day one. Despite my sense of taste being drastically reduced, I still enjoy cooking and baking, though it took a while to remaster my recipes, during which time I dished up quite a few disasters. Others have gone on to live stimulating and rewarding lives and we can too. What We Know About Driver Charged In Deadly Charlottesville Crash James Alex Fields Jr. is charged with second-degree murder after one woman died and at least 19 people were injured. When it came time to harvest the honey I was surprised and delighted by how much I could do to help. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. I urge you to do the same. You are our able‐bodied ambassador to the rest of the world, and if you bring back interesting stories and ideas, special treats, kind wishes and an upbeat mindset, then you’ve done a terrific job. While on an observation deck at their hotel, Bloom … When Sam Bloom fell from a rickety balcony while holidaying in Thailand with her family in 2013, her world changed forever. That said, your workload just tripled and your personal time has been cut in half. Despite the devastating physical nature of our injuries, the battle going on inside your head is the hardest to overcome. Helping her regain her strength and independence helped me enormously on so many levels. My worst day happened seven months later, after I left the rehabilitation facility. Get this from a library! It’s one of those stunning cloudless summer days the morning I … I was certain I would never smile or laugh ever again but thankfully, in the end, I was proved wrong. That said, I don’t want to gloss over what has been and continues to be a great and terrible hardship. According to the World Health Organization, most of these people, like myself, will have a greatly reduced life expectancy, and are also five times more likely to commit suicide, especially during the first year after their accident. You have to tackle your symptoms and limitations on your own terms, and the harder you work at this, the better you will feel. My son, Noah, found an injured magpie chick that had been blown out of its nest in a towering Norfolk Island pine tree. On a 2013 family holiday in Thailand, Sam leant against a rotten balcony railing falling through it and crashing 6 metres onto the concrete below. At some point, I leaned against the safety barrier that ran along the observation deck. In the tropical heat, everything shimmered green and radiant gold; pineapple farms, rubber trees, water buffalo, jungle fowl, distant temples, bright sand, and even brighter water seemed to stretch into forever. More importantly, I was my own person again, with new dreams and new reasons to smile. Subscribe for just 99¢. By then I was committed to competitive kayaking and I had something to feel excited about and look forward to. Alice Oscura, Featured Writer Warning: Minor Spoilers Ahead. If reading our story has touched you then I sincerely hope you will consider making a donation to SpinalCure Australia via their official website: www.spinalcure.org.au. But that is still not enough. I was no longer an independent woman, and I no longer thought of myself as a wife and mother. If you want to be supportive, the first step is never to get caught feeling sorry for yourself or wishing things could be like they were before your loved one’s injury. As is so often the case, I found that helping someone else feel better was the best way to help myself feel better. If you're not already a Mamamia member, sign up (it's easy, we promise). My sense of personhood withered away, as did my will to live. TIME - In 2013, Samantha Bloom was vacationing with her husband and their three young sons in Thailand when she suffered a devastating accident. Sam Bloom experienced a life-shattering injury on holiday in Thailand and was paralysed from the chest down. Over time I began to include some close friends, but I kept it small. If you’re not careful you can be trampled by a herd of weepy well‐wishers. Others have also had complete emotional meltdowns from time to time, and we’ll probably suffer our fair share of those as well. If you’re unfamiliar with the story of Sam Bloom and her family, then you’re about to discover a tale of hope and inspiration. You deserve the truth and I promise you nothing else. You have far better things to do. Words can’t express how grateful I am for their love, or how much I love them in return. There have been many occasions when I have felt so bitter about the bizarre accident that left me like this that I wanted to vanish into the wilderness and scream my lungs out. A photo posted by Sam Bloom (@samjbloom) on Jun 8, 2014 at 11:02pm PDT. When the time is right you will be ready to reconnect with close friends, and all those who are true friends will understand and respect this. It’s a difficult balance between genuine gratitude and profound despair. Many intelligent and compassionate people you love and admire have no idea what being paralysed means – they assume that being confined to a wheelchair is as comfortable as can be. By the time she was ready to make her home in the wild and start her own family, I had won two national kayaking titles and was bound for the world championships in Italy as a member of the Australian para-canoe team. It took me at least two months just to be able to sit in a kayak without tipping myself into the water, which was initially terrifying as I was securely strapped into my seat with a heavy‐duty Velcro belt and I feared it might be difficult to escape if I capsized (it actually wasn’t hard at all). Another fundamental that helped me was basic physical strength and fitness. Please attempt to sign up again. Talking through what you are feeling can be helpful, if you can bring yourself to talk about such things. I also constantly worried that, having no urinary sensation whatsoever and having also lost my sense of smell, I might have wet myself and not even known about it. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. I became happier and more meaningfully engaged with family and friends—and I resumed my most cherished role as a mother to my three beautiful sons. You have 3 free articles left. In 2013, Samantha Bloom was vacationing with her husband and their three young sons in Thailand when she suffered a devastating accident. This may seem a pathetic cop‐out, but it highlights our basic desire to be treated normally. Your family and friends want you to be happy that you are still alive, but everything you do is very slow and very painful, and so much of what you enjoyed most, the things that actually made you feel alive, are now quite impossible. You cannot know what you are good at or what you might enjoy until you try it a few times, so I encourage you to say yes a lot more than no, and to persist even when something doesn’t feel quite right at first. You certainly don’t have to be paralysed to become a self‐obsessed bore, but it helps. “Perhaps I was searching for the most promising waves or surveying the countryside, I’ll never know”, says Sam. Penguin always listened attentively without becoming visibly upset and never accidentally said anything thoughtless in response. It broke my heart to feel so removed from my former life and the people I loved. I don’t think I had felt as happy since my boys were born. Speak to that person and not the invalid sitting in front of you. Bitter, distraught, angry, jealous, and inert, I was everything I despised: the opposite of the active, happy person I had always been. Paralysed from the chest down, the active life she’d led before seemed lost, leaving her deeply depressed at the prospect of a bleak future. I was so consumed with anger and regret after my accident that almost nothing positive got through to me. Of course, any activity you enjoy doing is good for you, and the more effort and concentration it involves the better. It’s one of those stunning cloudless summer days the morning I … I wish with all my heart that I’d never seen that beautiful view. To those reading this who are just beginning a nightmare process of recovery and rehabilitation like that which I have been through, I know there is little I can say that will mean very much to you right now. An accident, during a family vacation in Thailand, left her paralysed below the chest. An accident, during a family vacation in. Boredom is our number‐one enemy – when your mind has nothing to do but focus on your discomfort and how angry you are about what has happened to you, then it can become terribly destructive. It was 2013, on a family holiday in Thailand after a morning swim, the Bloom family took freshly squeezed juices to their hotel observation deck to check out the view. But though this was helpful, I found that nothing is better than saying things out loud. I had absolutely no idea how important she would become to all of us, and to me especially. Sam Bloom experienced a life-shattering injury on holiday in Thailand and was paralysed from the chest down. 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