My name is Angela and I’m from Aberdare, so I’m from South Wales. I’ve been a resident in this spinal unit for the last six weeks. It’s been life-changing.
This is my third hospital, and I was really blessed to get a place here. Mine isn’t a spinal injury as people think. I haven’t fallen, I haven’t been in a car accident. Mine is something that’s autoimmune, that still results in an injury. To get a place here and to have a chance at rehabilitation is amazing and the garden makes it even more special.
It takes an hour for my husband to come to visit me each way, so it’s quite a commitment. He comes to visit me as often as he can, but there are periods of time when you are on your own. There are people here who live even further away than me. There are people here from West Wales, so their families take even longer to get here.
My consultant just said to my husband “take her outside.” I had my wheelchair for the first time then, as up until that point I’d been in bed. He just said, “you need to take her outside” and we went out and there was this amazing space.
All we could think was ‘how have they built this on the rooftop?!’ You have this walkway and it’s like the bridge into Narnia, because it’s not what you expect. Then you go around the corner, and you’ve got this garden room that you can use. It’s just an incredible place, and you know, some nights it’s just my husband and I sitting out there. It’s a space that can be private, but it’s a space where you can meet people and chat with other people, and you wait to hear their stories when they’re ready to talk about. It’s just like Narnia! It’s a secret garden!
I’m a people person. I like to engage with people and sometimes it’s hard when you’re a people person to not have stimulus, so I like engaging in anything that’s going on. I’m the type of person who will pull my wheelchair up to anybody and go “hi, I’m Angela!”
I also love sometimes being able to switch off, so I do enjoy my quiet time out there. I’ll take my Bible and my study guide out there. I’ve had communion in the garden with the chaplaincy here. I also enjoy doing arts and crafts, so last week I learned watercolours. I didn’t have any confidence in doing it, but two of my cards are out there! It was just nice switching off mentally and doing the watercolours, but actually, because I was doing the watercolours in there, other people came in. It was so good.
We’ve had some fantastic music afternoons and singing too. I didn’t realise that when I had this injury, that my ability to breathe was constricted as well. So, when I first started to sing out there, I was thinking ‘oh, hang on a minute, this doesn’t feel the same.’ So, the more we do the singing, the more our breathing is getting better as well. If somebody’s playing, we’ll join in – whether they want us to or not!
My favourite thing about the garden is the fact that it’s ever-changing, which is a bit like my recovery. There are days when I’ll go out and sit and contemplate and there might be a new flower. The tulips are outstanding at the moment. The wallflowers were out before them. The clematis is now coming back from something that looked completely dead. The blossoms out there on the trees are just amazing. But sometimes, you might go out there and something that’s blossomed has died back a little bit and you’ve got to wait for the next thing to come. I think that’s helped me to reflect on this journey at the moment, because you lose some things, you gain some things, you have bad days, and you have good days. But there’s space for all of it in the garden.
It’s given me, my family and friends a normal place to meet. This is now my tenth week in three different hospitals, and you do become institutionalised in a way, as I’m separate from my family and what they’re doing wherever they are. Having a common place that doesn’t look like a hospital, that’s not the inside of the ward, that’s got tea, coffee and hospitality, where I can play Jenga with my grandchildren, or cards with my husband. It just gives us a place that feels like a coffee shop. It feels like normality. I forget that I’m sitting in a new mode of transport, which is my wheelchair, because I just feel normal. I think that’s really important and helps with your recovery, because that’s the idea of being here – that you’re going towards whatever normal is going to be. It gives us a place to grow and develop what that normal looks like.
My grandchildren are seven, five and one. They love to wander around the garden and I know for them, it’s a safe place. If we need to have some ‘adult talk’ about the future, I know I can let them just wander around hand-in-hand. I also go around with them. I’ve got an identification app for the flowers, so we’ll go around together establishing what the flowers are. I can also say to them “right, no picking, but go and find Nana a yellow flower” and I’ll send them off and they bring me back a picture of a yellow flower. So they’re engaging as well and it’s not that they’ve got to sit there and do nothing. It’s important and it’s safe.
I’ve got so many memories of the garden, but the thing I’ll always remember is the progress I’ve seen in people. Quite often, the first time you’ll see somebody in the garden might be in a bed. But the next time you see them, they might be sitting up in the bed. Then you might see them in a wheelchair. Then you might see them in a self-propelling wheelchair. So, I think I have a progression of memories as you see people recovering. It’s that journey and the garden plays a part in that.
I’ve even seen people sitting out in the rain and they’re going “you need to come in because it’s raining!” and the person replies “no, I’m okay, I’m fine. Just leave me here. I’m under the shelter and it’s only a little shower!” It’s lovely.
