Introduction
June 25th 2000, was the day our lives changed forever, my son Josh (18 ½ y) was about to become a professional snowboarder based in the USA, he suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury while attempting a road jump on his snowboard, in the Victorian Alps (Australia)…
He was medevacked to Melbourne, and admitted to one of Australia’s most prestigious spinal hospitals. Within 9 hours his doctors had given us the worst news – Josh was a complete quadriplegic C5/ T1, his chances of any recovery, if he lived, was less than 3%.
So began our journey!
Once Josh was medically stable, his surgery completed, understanding the attitude of his medical team, we quickly realised, Josh’s healing would be up to us. We created a tight group of trusted alternative health practitioners / healers, who worked on Josh tirelessly behind closed curtains, within the hospital. It was without knowledge of his medical team, my attitude was simply, I’m fighting for my son’s life, so we will take control of his recovery!
Josh walked out of hospital 4 ½ months later, Josh was not “cured;” this early therapy and his ongoing commitment to his recovery has seen him continue to make improvement / gains over nearly 21 years. We now understand he has re-trained his neural pathways, in Josh’s words “he drives a manual body!”
In 2011 Josh and I travelled to the USA, where we introduced to ACTIVITY BASED RESTORATIVE THERAPY (ABRT), this is “bespoke therapy” for below injury recovery and rehabilitation, this type of therapy is not covered by traditional health Insurance in most countries, including Australia and the USA. Both Josh and I became passionate advocates for ABRT. Intensive ABRT also assists those with neurological diseases, illnesses and injuries…
In 2012, I moved from Australia to Carlsbad CA to work for the facility. I was there until 2013.
On September 22nd, 2017, I took my first steps from Carlsbad CA, in what was to be an epic, extremely challenging walk across the USA, finishing in Washington DC.
I walked for 172 days, in all weather conditions, finally taking my last steps March 9th 2018, joined by my son, 2 sisters and team of Warrior Momz, in Washington DC, where together we walked to Capitol Hill, on a freezing cold morning.
The journey was 3102 ½ miles (4993 KM) I took in excess of 6,250,000 steps.
Since returning to Australia I felt there was a need to complete another walk, but, because of the Global Pandemic it was not realistic. In my heart I knew the first Warrior Momz Walk was a beginning not an end!