Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / A Concussion, A Wedding and What Matters Most

Transcript

A Concussion, A Wedding and What Matters Most · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: In today's I'll Do Better Tomorrow on The Happy Family's podcast,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: My near death experience. How I'm even breathing, talking and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: recording this podcast is beyond me and miss Happy Families
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: on the edge as we prepare for our daughter's wedding today,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: that's all happening. Today's about as real as it gets.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Stay with us. It's next. Hello and welcome to The
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Happy Family podcast, where you get real parenting solutions every
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: single day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. On Friday,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: as we talk about the week that was, the stuff
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that we've learned, how we can be better tomorrow. It's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: called I'll Do Better Tomorrow, Kylie, I'm going to go first.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The week began with a cataclysmic thud. Would that be
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the right word for it. I don't really have any
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: recollection of what happened, but essentially I was found on
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the side of the road, unconscious, underneath my bicycle had
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a crash, landed face first. My bike computer says that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I was going seventy kilometers an hour on my bike
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: when I hit the ground. For those who are listening
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: for the first time, the bike that I'm riding is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: not one of those ones where you wear leather jackets
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and full face helmets. It's one of those ones where
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you pedal yourself, no motor added, and you wear less
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: than a millimeter of lycra and a little bicycle helmet.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So I hit the deck going down a hill. I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: don't remember going for a ride that day. I don't
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: remember anything at all. I'd stopped at the top of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: a hill and done a radio interview, I do know that,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And suddenly I was apparently ringing you for the third
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: time to tell you that I had a crash. I
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: don't really know much more.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: There's something really disconcerting that happens when you're talking to
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a loved one and they sound normal, but they're not normal.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give a massive shout out to Garment.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Actually this is being huge. I received an incident report
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the moment you hit.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: The deck, so from my bike computer, it sent a
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: critical incident SMS to you.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and gives me a pinpoint location of where you are.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: So I got the message. I actually wasn't even going
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: to message you because I figured it was just I
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: don't know, but I just did not think that anything
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: serious about it. In the moment, but I decided to
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: just scand you a quick text to say, is everything okay?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And I got a message back, no one word no, which.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think I sent. I don't know that I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: sent it. I was unconscious.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you did it or not. But
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I then picked up the phone and I rang you,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and you did answer the phone, but there was somebody
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: with you, and you sounded completely normal. You sounded coherent.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: But as you continued to talk, you told me that
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: you knew who I was. You knew who you were,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: but you had no recollection of going for a ride
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: that morning. You had no recollection or knowledge of where
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: you were. You didn't know how you got there. You
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: just told me you were on the side of the road,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: sitting in your lycra and you were sore, and the
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: lady in the background kind of shared with me what
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: was going on and just told me that she would
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: stay with you, and then we hung up the phone.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I threw on some clothes and jumped in the car,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and I hadn't even made it down the street when
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: you rang again to inform me that you'd had an accident.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And at that point I realized that you had no
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: idea that you had spoken to me previously, and when
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I told you that you were, it just confused you
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: even more. In the time frame it took me to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: get from to hang up the phone from that conversation
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: and get to you as about twenty minutes, and the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: ladies that were sitting with you told me that you
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: tried an extra two or three times to call me
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: because you were worried that I didn't know where you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: were or what had happened.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So I was sitting here and I almost crying just
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: hearing you say it, because I still don't know. I
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: have no recollection of any of this. I'm sitting here. Also,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I might add, with my face swollen, I've got black eyes,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I've got stitches in my forehead. My right jaw is
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: twice the size it normally would be. I'm amazed that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I can speak. It must be the oxy codone that's
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: cursing through my veins and my blood. Huge hit out
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to Sally and orso Manina, two ladies who stopped on
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the side of the road to help a cyclist who cling.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Don't know what was going on. Like I said, I'm
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: pretty sure that I was unconscious when they found me,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and also a couple of ambos who scraped me off
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the side of the road with the help of the ladies,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Declan and Mark with their names, and they took me
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: down to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. And this week
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: has just been a week of trying to recover from
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a really severe concussion. It's been an absolutely monstrous week.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: How are you going with that?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I've been struggling with it. It's been really really hard.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: The week has gone by in a blur like I
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: don't understand how it's happened so fast. It feels like
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it's gone so fast, like it's been like a day,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: but it's been an entire week. And yeah, just lots
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: of soreness and and sore head and all that kind
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of thing. So my odd a Better Tomorrow wanted to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: share had a bad accident. At this point, I still
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: owned the bike. I'm not selling my bicycles or anything
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: like that, although I've had a number of people tell
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: me that I really need to. But really just a
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: just a reminder, if you're doing anything, make sure that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: people know where you're going, make sure that your loved
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: ones are able to contact you. And I don't know
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I've got that Roan and keating, so I think it's
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a cover somebody else did it before him, But that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: song if Tomorrow never comes. A couple of times this week,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I've really had a sense of my own mortality. It's
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: really made me wear. Recently, on the podcast, we talked
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: about the Last Time meditation, and I'm going to do
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: a full length podcast about it in a couple of weeks.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But this idea that we should really embrace each moment
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: as if it's our last time that we're going to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: be doing it, last time, that we're going to hug
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the kids, last time, that we're going to have our
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: evening meal together, last time we're going to do X,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Y or Z. Because what if it actually is you
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: want to be present, You want to live in that moment,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: soak it up, get the most out of it, but
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: also make sure that people who you're with absolutely know
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that you love them and you were present for them
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: in that moment. So that's my older better Tomorrow. It's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a fairly short one bit of a morbid one, but
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: also one where I'm just I'm feeling miraculously saved. We
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: have a faith background, and I feel like I have
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: had a watchful heavenly hand over my life this week,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: particularly on Monday morning somewhere between seven and seven thirty
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: when it all came undone for me. It's seventy kilo
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and it is an hour descending Keels Mountain Road. Big
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: day for us today, Kylie, our daughter gets married today.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So we're going to keep the rest of this podcast
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: really short. After the break, You're Older Better Tomorrow, including
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: what it's like to be the mother of the bride
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: for the second time. Stay with us. We're back at
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Stappy Family's podcast, Kylie, You're Older Better Tomorrow. A big
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: week of preparation for a very big day for our
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: second daughter.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: If I'm perfectly honest, everything that's started our week has
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: really overshadowed so much of I guess the emotion mainly
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: around farewelling another daughter. She moved out on Wednesday. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: don't think I've really even processed that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: No nursing me.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel a little bit numb, if I'm really honest,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And today today we're going to go and give her away,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: walk down.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: The aisle, say congratulations and good luck.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: I think the thing that's really stood out to me
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: through this process, this is our second time round. And
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I've been really grateful for both of our girls who
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: have gone through this is that they just have been
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: really easy brides to deal with. They have recognized just
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: the immense joy that comes from making this lifetime commitment
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: to the person that they've chosen, and that has actually
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: been the priority. And while baby number one had a
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: very clear vision of what she wanted, she was a
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: no way Bridezeialer and she she kind of just shared
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: a concept with me and allowed me the freedom to
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: bring that to fruition for her Baby number two, Abby,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: she couldn't care less about the details.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I'm getting married. This all the matters just so lot married.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: That's all down to the fact that there was not
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a dress. There was no dress two weeks ago, and
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I was panicking. We'd ordered it six months ago. It
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: should have been here and it wasn't. And I came
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: to her and I just said, I think we need
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: to have a plan be just in case. And I'd
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: been around to a few of her friends who'd been
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: married recently to kind of just make sure there was something,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: you know, in the background, just in case. And she's like, Mum,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: it's fine, I'll just wear my engagement dress snoopig deal.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my goodness. So I have been
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: really really grateful for that. And I think the thing
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that stands out to me the most is just I
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: love that there recognition of what's most important is at
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: the very forefront of everything that we've been doing. And
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: so while there's lots of details, and there's been you know,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: kind of lots of little things that have had to
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: be pulled together and orchestrated, at the end of the day,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: it's actually been quite stress free compared to a lot
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: of other experiences that I have heard about or been
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: privy to. And I'm really grateful for that. So today
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: we get to go and spend some time with our daughter,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to cry. It's been really really beautiful
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: seeing each of the girls come together to celebrate with
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: their sister, and I just yeah, it's times like this
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: you just recognize how important good family relationships are.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Well, let's go celebrate. I'm going to put an ice
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: pack on my face until we get there. See if
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I get this swelling to go down a little bit more.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm thinking I'm taking up pottery once we please
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: get over this concussion.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I'll pay for this subscription now that sons like a deal.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know how we got through this one without
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: a big sob fest, but it's been quite a week.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening and joining us on this
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: journey of crazy family life. Have a great weekend. We're
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: looking forward to what will hopefully be a wonderful celebration
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: today and we will be back next week, hopefully with
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: my brain working the way that's supposed to and with
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: some stories about the father and mother of the bride, speeches,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and a.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Whole lot more.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Bridge Medium. Imhamments provides our additional support for information about
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: making your family happier. Visit us at happy families dot com.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Do you