Dave’s a miracle man
Published: May 12, 2006
DAVID Garvie should be dead.
In has been seven months since he fell 12 metres while lopping a tree at Maison Dieu.
He can remember part of the fall and being hit in the face with a branch but that’s about it.
He lay in a coma for two weeks, doctors not holding much hope for his survival.
Wife, Kerri knew differently.
“It was touch and go that first night but when he survived that I knew he’d get through it,” Kerri said this week.
He was in the John Hunter for 36 days and moved to Rankin Park for rehabilitation for about another month and Kerri couldn’t wait to get him home.
Doctors didn’t think Dave would ever walk again, but then again some in the medical profession didn’t think he would survive.
Sitting in his kitchen in his family’s home at The Retreat, and Dave is the first to joke about his situation.
He is blind and uses a walker to get around his home.
He has a minor brain injury that is healing well and has not affected his memory or his sense of humour.
Frustrating, certainly but this is one family very thankful for Dave’s life.
Kerri cannot walk past her husband without giving him a cuddle.
She’s a busy woman and between sorting out four-year-old Lachlan’s massive loungeroom lego construction and helping 14-year-old Kimberley sort out homework on the computer, she’s cooking tea.
Dave said without Kerri, he doesn’t think he would have survived.
“That’s what they keep telling me, she’s the one,” Dave said while Kerri tells him he had a fair bit to do with it himself.
There’s not much sympathy around the house for the man who can’t see.
Losing his sight has been very difficult for Dave to come to terms with and while he is winning his battle with his mobility, hope that he will regain his eyesight is less optimistic.
“When I fell all the optic nerves were smashed up, I can’t see anything, nothing at all,” Dave said.
Blindness in a person who was once sighted can trigger Charles Bonnet Syndrome - a condition Dave developed which was frightening for the family when it first happened but now they know what is happening, they are less concerned.
“It is a state of mind where you experience visual hallucinations and become confused about where you are,” Kerri said.
“I woke up one night and thought I was rocking around on an iceberg and when Kerri came to bed I was giving her all the safety instructions,” Dave said.
“Every night I challenge Charles Bonnet to a fight, come-on Charles where are you? I’m gonna knock your head off.”
Charles Bonnet’s visits to Dave will eventually stop.
His words show signs of the determination he has in overcoming the disabilities the fall has left him with.
He now goes to Newcastle twice a week for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.
He is looking forward to soon moving to gym sessions to the Singleton Gym and Swim under gym guru Loretta Mellowes.
“They call her Madam Lash, I’ve only had one session with her just to assess my fitness and that was enough, I think she has that name for a reason,” Dave said.
Somehow whips were brought up in the conversation and Dave declared he had a whip somewhere in the shed.
“I know where it is,” Kerri said.
“Good, where is it, I want that whip,” Dave said.
One who knows Dave Garvie, knows it’s best not to ask what he intends using that whip for.
Dave’s sense of humour, as wicked as it is, has certainly kept a smile on the faces of those around him.
Once he becomes a gym junkie, his sister-in-law has told him she intends getting him a T-shirt which says ‘Blind, busted up tree surgeons do it better.’
He is hopeless with names, and these days terrible with faces, but remembers his former clients by their addresses and the jobs he did on their properties.
“He loves coming down town with me because people are always coming up to him to have a chat, he has a great social life, better than mine,” Kerri said.
With the support of Vision Australia and the Guide Dogs, Dave is learning to adjust to life without sight.
His immediate goals are to get stronger and fitter.
He wants to be able to get back into his shed and tinker with the wood he once did before the accident.Vision Australia will help him do that.
He would also like to get himself a staffie-bull-terrier cross.
This is one wish that can be granted but another may not be so forthcoming.
“I would like to see again, that would make me very happy,” Dave said.
Kerri gently reminds him that this may not happen and that in the meantime, he has plenty of people to support him and help him learn to live with the fact that he cannot see.
“As Dave’s wife, I am so proud of how far he has come and what he has achieved,” Kerri said.
“We all realise that there is a long road still to travel but it is a road that we will travel together.
“I would again like to say a huge thank you to all the friends that have continued to come out for a visit as Dave enjoys every one and looks forward to the next.
“Thank you again to everyone for all the well wishes, cards, thoughts and prayers and cooking.
“It has all been greatly appreciated and too numerous to individually thank but I know who you all are and thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Kerri said.
Ditto from Dave who has been equally overwhelmed by the widespread community support he and his family have had.
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