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A Little About Me
I arrived
shortly beforer 11am in the Maternity Ward of the Boxhill Hospital
on Saturday, the 27th of May, 1972 and I'm the 3rd of 5 sons.
As a family of 7, we moved to Beechworth in October, 1976. I
started school in Beechworth in 1977 at the age of 4 & ˝ and
finished primary school in December 1984.. My Secondary School
education was gained at Galen Catholic College in Wangaratta
between 1985 and 1989, achieving my Year 11 Certificate..
Cycling was my main joy, and also a necessary
hobby. If I wanted to go anywhere, cycling was the way that
I got there. I loved the freedom that it gave me. Every sane
person with 4 brothers needs some form of escape, cycling was
mine. It was not out of the question to ride 9 kilometers up
hill just to go for a swim (my second favourite activity), the
road to Beechworth became overly familiar and over the years
I managed to do those 9 kilometers in a fraction over 20 minutes,
coming home was mostly down hill and took less than half that,
my record home was just a tick under 9 minutes. I would also
ride the 30 kilometers to Wangaratta on a regular basis, during
the last two year of school, i would often ride to school instead
of taking the bus. I've also ridden the roads to Albury, Yackandandah,
Myrtleford and Milawa, all nice scenic country roads. There
was nothing better than the open road and the fresh air. The
speed was always good too, the fastest I was clocked riding
was 92 km/h, which sounds scary when you think about it, especially
since I used to do anything to avoid wearing a bike helmet (such
as leave it in the mailbox at the bottom of the diveway), stack-hats,
as they were known back then were so totally "Uncool".
My favourite pastime ended as I was finishing
year 11. On the 28th of November, 1989. I was on the way to
my second last exam, after working at the vineyard that morning,
and then riding to wangaratta and knocking almost 5 minutes
off my previous best time, i had over an hour of free time up
my sleeve before I was due to sit the exam, I decided to go
for a refreshing swim. I chose a familiar swimming hole along
the Ovens River, which runs through Wangaratta and in one place
flows within walking distance behind the school. I parked and
locked my bike, wound my watch and put it with my keys, glasses
and my neatly folded, favourite, yet faded red shirt in my backpack.
I then I kicked off my shoes and ran down the sand bank towards
the water…
I slowly awoke to the sounds of machines, and
found myself in the Intensive Care Unit at the Austin Hospital.
While under heavy sedation from morphine, I found out that when
I dived into the river, I'd hit something submerged below the
surface of the water and had broken my neck. This break was
my first broken bone ever and caused a Spinal Chord Injury and
has made me a Quadriplegic.
While in the Austin, I resigned myself to swapping
my bicycle for a wheelchair. I spent 9 months in rehabilitation,
learning how to live again, and learning different ways of living..
With help from my family and friends, I worked my way through
Rehab I came home on the 15th of August, 1990 with a new attitude,
ready to start my new life.
I changed my hobbies of cycling and swimming
to music and computing. I got my first PC in November 1990 and
started two finger typing. The first thing I typed was the Journal
I had handwritten since 1986. I taught myself how to use the
computer through trial & error, making many mistakes and then
having to find out how to repair the end result and learn how
to not do it again. I started at TAFE in Wangaratta in 1991
and have continued to learn ever since, my study achievements
are listed below.
In February 2002, I gained my independence and
moved into a 2 bedroom house in Beechworth. The house is not
far from the centre of town, (about 15 minutes by motorized
wheelchair), and allows me the freedom to get out and about
whenever I wish to. It is a cozy little house and was renovated
to suit my special needs. (There is a photo of the house in
my photo album). What's also good is that the block where Mum
& Dad have built is only about 10 minutes away, not far
to travel for some of Mum's great cooking.
Living on my own has taught me to be more organized,
which didn't come easy for me, a self confessed procrastinator.
It means I can't always put things off 'til later (which is
a good thing really). It also means I can't get Mum to do all
the thing that I kept putting in the "Too Hard Basket".
I've been in my house for over for over 6 years now and apart
from a few reasonably lengthy hospital stays due to complications
with my spinal cord injury, there's been no real disasters.
I love the independence, and the social advantages of living
independently in town, and just being part of the community
too has many huge bonuses.
In 2003 I started working part-time with my
local shire council, and also doing a little "freelance".
This employment thing is a great chance for me to finally contribute
to my community. I'm really enjoying the whole "Work"
thing, it's a good brain workout, and being employed, even just
being employed part-time, is really great for one's self esteem.
On another topic, my Hobby site "John's
Aussie Falcon Cobra Site" which i started in 1997 as
soon as i had internet access, had gained a lot of interest
from the "Falcon Cobra Club Of Australia (Vic) Inc, and
through my work on my Cobra site, In February 2003, I was given
honorary membership to their club. I've built the club website
and continue to maintain it. This means i get first hand access
to all the stories and photos, and invitations to all the events,
how's that for a buzz... You will find their link on my links
page.
My next achieved goal was creating this domain
www.jfpresentations.com
and organising a host space to store my web creations on, this
mile stone has since allowed me to help out some friends with
webspace and that gives me a great ego boost, being greatly
appreciated for doing small voluntary websites in my spare time,
another rewarding community service.
In November 2004, The Falcon Cobra Club Of Australia
(Vic) Inc fulfilled my biggest dream, The Club brought five
"Blue Striped Coupes" up from Melbourne to Beechworth.
We did a few things together on that weekend, but biggest of
all was going for a cruise in a genuine cobra, the grumble of
a V8 and the sensation of being pushed back in your seat, and
most of all, no wheelchair... (there is a full write up on this
day in my feature pages section).
In December 2004, i was given another priviledged
opportunity, I was invited to show two of my recent paintings
at the ARMC's (Austin Repatriation Medical Centre) Art Exhibition
at the Royal Talbot campus of the Austin Hospital. On top of
that i was invited to be a Guest Speaker... So daunting for
some one who is not generally out-going and self-concious and
hates public speaking, I was nervous as all heck, but was able
to prepare and present a well received speech. This was rewarded
with a genuinely warm round of applause, personal thanks from
the organiser and another round of applause... it was so worth
while, but I was so releived to have finished it without stuttering.
In 2005 I was invited to co-exhibit some of
my artwork with two other artists that had also found Art Therapy
to be a great part of their lives. Again I was asked if I would
be a Guest Speaker at the opening of this exhibition. It was
held in a small public gallery and was the largest crowd I'd
ever talked to. Again the nerves set in and as it was something
very personal I was speaking about, I had to concentrate very
hard on swallowing the lump in my throat... again, it was an
experience hard to describe, and oh so rewarding to have been
offered such a priveledge.
The rest of 2005 was not a good time for me
with another long stint back in hospital, the one good thing
that came out of that was another completed painting and a catch
up with a few friends... but most of all it enriched my desire
to stay out of the place if at all possible. I got home just
before christmas and was able to enjoy some quality family time...
gee it was so good to be home and living by my own rules again.
In 2006 and beyond, I have been taken a new
approach to life as a quad, focussing on what is important,
and what is possible, and keeping out of hospital,. it's been
a mix-matched jumble of a life, a very small amount of quality
vertical family time and a large amount of horizontal healing
time. I've unfortunately spent most of this time horizontal
tapping at my keyboard with a mouth stick, but we are finally
seeing that the light at the end of the tunnel has once again
been switched on and 2008 is starting to look like a transitional
year... a year to take it very carefully and soon (hopefully)
make the horizontal time less and vertical time more...
All I can say is that without my support team
and my computer, I'd be a very difficult person to be around...
Anyway, enough about that, gotta do some
more work, and get the rest of this Website up to date.
Until Next time, Type 2 U Later,
Keep Smiling,
John! :-)
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