Back Up
In 1991 I supported a Spinal Cord Injury charity called Back Up https://www.backuptrust.org.uk/ I didn’t raise money, or indeed collected any but I gave my time to an organisation who stretched newly spinally injured men and women to experience sports outside their comfort zones. That year I was one of the nurse team who helped take paraplegic and quadraplegic patients skiing in Switzerland. Our job was to help the most paralysed patients in activities of daily living and help get them ready for the slopes, which usually meant a hard mornings’ work until 10.30 or so. The patients were then handed over to the ski instructors with their adapted ski, poles and seats and buggies until teatime when help was needed again to sort out bladders and bowels and to check skin etc before dinner and the usual evening where a great deal of serious drinking apres ski style, was achieved before bed. Most of our charges were under the age of thirty. And all had something ...