Medical miracle
Published: December 4, 2006
“HOW is my little girl?” They were the first words bash victim Shane Dickerson said to his heavily pregnant partner Rachel Daley when he saw her for the first time after waking from more than three months in a coma. The doctors at the Townsville Hospital now call Shane their medical miracle. [Time - Can We Live Forever?: Medical Miracles of the Next Millennium]
“They can’t explain how I can remember being told that I was having a little girl when I was unconscious,” Shane said.
“But I remember.”
Rachel said the nurses who cared for Shane during his long hospital stay were amazed when he spoke those first words.
“They said to him, ‘Shane do you know who this is? ‘Yeah,’ he told them, ‘that is my missus and I’m going to marry her’,” Rachel said.
“I started to cry. Everyone was crying. The nurses were so excited. Everyone came rushing in to hear him talk.”
Rachel was only 19 weeks pregnant and barely showing when Shane was brutally bashed by a gang of men on Gollogly Lane, Condon, on State of Origin night (June 14).
His head injuries were so horrific that doctors had told Rachel to say her goodbyes.
Shane had major swelling on the brain and had been placed in a medically-induced coma.
He also had a badly shattered leg.
“I was scared. It was a horrible time. I can’t really explain how it felt,” Rachel said.
But even if he did manage to pull through, the prognosis wasn’t good, Rachel said.
“They told me he would probably never be the same again and would never remember us,” she said.
Although devastated with the news, Rachel’s biggest fears were for her unborn child, Tahlia.
“I didn’t care if he could never remember me but I wanted him to know that she was his daughter,” she said.
Rachel found out only days after Shane’s attack that the couple were expecting a little girl.
“I nearly didn’t go ahead with the ultrasound but the doctors advised me to have it done,” Rachel said.
As soon as Rachel found out the sex of the baby, she raced to Shane’s bedside to share the news with him. Shane said it was the only real memories he had of his time in a coma.
It was barely two weeks after Shane was finally released from hospital at the end of October that the couple became proud parents of a beautiful little girl.
Shane said his five-week-old daughter was now his inspiration to fully recover from his injuries.
But the road to recovery will be a long one. Every day Shane returns to the hospital for physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
“I have had to re-route my brain to learn to do everything again,” Shane said.
“I have had to re-learn to walk, eat, write, everything. Even remembering people’s names is hard. I find it hard to remember short-term issues. But I am getting there slowly. I can finally remember my phone number.
“It has been a great help to me having Rachel and having my daughter and a future to look forward to.”
Shane said doctors could not give him a timeline for recovery and could not rule out permanent brain damage.
“It is up to the individual. Who knows how long it is going to take? It could take 12 months or it could take five years. I don’t know. It is only a matter of how much determination I have and how quickly I can heal up. I know I do have some brain damage because my speech isn’t the same,” he said.
“But I am determined to get back to work one day. I have my little girl now to think about.”
The former plasterer said it was hard relying on social security payments.
The couple wanted to thank the hospital staff, family and friends who supported them through their ‘five months of hell’.
“I was astounded at the amount of support we have been offered,” Shane said.
He said even strangers had offered to help.
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