A year ago today a woman drove into the back of my car while I was stopped at traffic lights.

The resulting injuries I was left with have seen me have two discs replaced with artificial ones in my neck, my participation in competitive sport is over and I live with chronic pain and severe limitations to normal life.

I had hoped that surgery and the physio rehab program would see me recover sufficiently to resume work full-time but I did not recover at the expected rate so I lost my job. The explanation had been until now that the failure to recover was probably due to the length of time and amount of pressure key nerves were put under as I waited for a diagnosis and surgery, nerves do not have much of a blood supply so they take a long time to bounce back; however, my surgeon has just informed me that my latest x-ray shows that one of the new discs is not sitting quite where it should be.

At this point he wants to review me with another x-ray in 6 weeks. What precisely he is hoping will change in 6 weeks, I am not sure, but it sounds like more surgery could be on the cards.

The amount of compensation ACC will make available for me to make up for the fact I cannot, under New Zealand law, sue the woman who did this to me looks set to be less than $4,000 NZD - I am sure the leftys who want to keep accident compensation in the hands of the state think this will make me "wealthy" and I should be more than happy.

It is official.

I have lost my job; termination due to medical incapacity.

This happened last week, the same day I got my news about my recovery setback, but due to the details needing to be sorted I couldn't say anything til it was official.

Yesterday was my goodbye morning tea, Matt and I cleared out my office and I have my final pay ... so I guess it is official now. I am unemployed.

Given I had the coolest job ever, I have been grieving quite a bit but it is the best decision. Work had held my place since the car accident back in March 08 and had had temp after temp - none of whom could do my legal role, they had to learn the ropes then they would leave then a new temp would come in... none of them were full time (temp rates) so I am amazed that work held the position for me as long as they did; it is the kind of company they are, though, really supportive and caring about their employees. (Legally an employer does not have to hold your job for you if you are off due to an accident at all under New Zealand law.)

I knew the stress my incapacity was putting my managers and the business under and I felt guilty for letting them down, even though I knew it was not my fault, so I don't blame them at all. They have been really supportive and nice and kind and like my 8 year old daughter said to me, "don't be sad Mum, if you had done something bad and been fired they wouldn't be giving you a goodbye party."

The morning tea was really nice. The whole office, not just my team were there, even some of the managers I knew from the factory. They put on an amazing spread and made speeches, gave me a card and a gift and even let me out of my bonding agreement with no penalty. They were so nice it was hard not to cry. I came home really sore, far too much standing and sitting, but I wanted to make my peace with saying good-bye so it was worth it.

So dawns a new chapter in my life.

The scary part now for us now is that my job was our main source of income. I was the bread winner.

Matt has spent nearly 3 years trying to find permanent, full-time employment as a lecturer to no avail. There just are not that many vacancies out there; such is the nature of the field. He is either under qualified, in that, he has not had several years of full-time lecturing under his belt or they assume that his PhD and his PhD level capabilities mean he cannot speak to or teach lay people or first-years - frustrating because his substantial 11 years experience teaching part-time has mostly been to first-years and lay people.

Ironically, he has had approaches from the secondary school sector to train as a high school teacher and teach teenagers philosophy and religious studies. This came off the back of a high school head of department inviting him to and actually seeing him teach a classroom of teenagers.

It's nuts really. This blog is a working example of Matt's range. Sure he can go way over the average lay person's head (Philosphy is a complex discipline and he does hold a PhD in it) but then so too can he dial it down (because he has met a few people without PhD's in philosophy and it has occurred to him that they don't speak his language). His references, from highly respected members of his field, specifically highlight his ability to explain complex philosophical concepts to lay people in simple language and that his patience and teaching style with those not philosophically trained is excellent. They go out of their way to state that he is exceptional in this area. One is a current ethics adviser to the New Zealand government and the other is the former head of the Evangelical Theological Society. Both have actually seen him teach.

As you can probably tell this really peeves me. Matt is brilliant, definately one of the best Christian Philosophers in the country. [Objective, non-nepotistic statement - why does the wife always get accused of that?] However, on Monday, Matt is heading to teachers training college to get a diploma to pursue a second-choice career and we are going to spend a very scary year living on ACC (80% of my income - not nearly enough to live on with my medical expenses that ACC do NOT cover). This income will end the minute I recover and plunge us into a financial hole - the odds of me landing and beginning a new job the minute I am better are not huge... Matt does not qualify for student allowance, we are extremely reluctant to look at welfare anyway given our worldviews.

He could flag the teaching diploma in favour of a low skilled job (his qualifications are in Philsophy after all) but then what would he do - stack supermarket shelves? Pump gas? For how long? If the secondary sector are falling over themselves to nab him and there is nothing on offer by way of permanent, roof-overhead-food-on-table tertiary sector employment it is a no brainer.

So it is going to be a year of living by faith and a path away from where Matt really wants to be, should be, unless something gives.

I am clear on the correct Christian approach to this situation; I have peace and I trust in God's providence come what may. However, I also have a duty before God to play the hand I have been dealt to the best of my ability; as such, if you are looking for a Philosophy or Theology Lecturer who can teach Theology, Ethics, Apologetics, Critical Thinking, History of Philosophy; we will relocate anywhere in the world. Email Matt for his CV, Transcripts and References and, of course, peruse the blog for writing samples.
[Delete the NOSPAM in the email address before sending]

I saw my surgeon this week and had confirmed what we expected; my recovery is outside the norm, I am not doing as well as expected. This means an extra month off work, at least, and no time frame as to when I can expect to return to work. Most people are back at work by now and fast working towards resuming full-time duties and are barely on any pain medication.

On the bright side the surgeon is not yet worried about my long term recovery prospects. There is still hope I can improve.

This is very frustrating for Matt and I as I am still fairly useless in terms of my ability to work, parent, blog, run the house and function in general and I still need a lot of care and support and drugs which screw with my brain. Living with ongoing pain and numbness and the limits that causes is very hard to take some days too - not to mention the financial implications.

We have been digesting this for a few days, hence the silence on the blog, but I am determined to get back to as close to normal as possible so Matt should have a few blogs up over the next day or so and I will keep working on doing the same too.

After a rather intense 10 days or so following my surgery I am today going to attempt a return to the blogosphere.

Thanks everyone who left messages, sent emails and prayed for us and those who didn't because they don't but like PC, sent well wishes instead; the support was really appreciated. Matt read me your comments when I was in hospital and it was really cool.


My head feels a lot clearer now but it is still not 100%. I am still in a lot of pain though and I think that's going to take a while but the drugs do their thing so it is manageable. Apparently I am supposed to feel well enough to return to full time work in 3 weeks time. It seems hard to believe but if I could be pain free soon that would be great.

I picked Madeleine up from hospital this morning. She is doing ok but has had severe migraines from a combination of the drugs and the stiffness in her neck.

Her neck wound is healing well and appears to be smaller than we thought it would be which is good. None-the-less she wants to send me scarf shopping anyway (she wants to cover up the dressing/scar on her neck from the surgery) .... where does a man go scarf shopping without anyone noticing?

Madeleine has had her surgery. It appears to have gone well though we don’t see the surgeon until latter today to hear the official verdict. Thanks for all the supportive comments and e-mails.

UPDATE: The surgeon informed us yesturday that the proceedure was 'text book' Madeleine is already feeling some improvement in her neck. She is however very tired and will be in hospital recovering for the next couple of days.

This is my last post before Cervical Arthroplasty surgery tomorrow to remove two discs in my neck and replace them with artificial metal ones. My surgeon says it is a straight-forward procedure and there is nothing to worry about; he also said "We make an incision in the front of your neck and we cut the damaged discs away from your spinal cord, possible side effects include death, nerve damage and paralysis." Easy for him to say don't worry.

Whilst I am not looking forward to tomorrow at all I am looking forward to the hope that by this time tomorrow the corner will have been turned on the pain, the drugs and all the hassles I have lived with since my car accident back in March; I will finally be able to begin moving forward.

Going on the log flume ride at Rainbow's end last week and being struck with pain and feeling like bone was scraping on bone in my neck, as the boat jerked after the ride pulled it up to the next level (I was fine on the slides), reinforced that I have to do this; the log flume ride is hardly adventurous and yet when I got off it I was shaken, I had an instant headache and my neck was mad at me.

I do not know when I will be up to blogging again, it will all depend on the success of the surgery and my pain levels post-op. I do intend to take the laptop with me into hospital but it has no internet connection and who knows if I will be able to type or think - mostly I am taking it to be able to watch DVD's.

I do not know how much blogging Matt will be able to do since I won't be able to edit his posts (he has a typing impairment) and he will be holding the fort at home but rest assured we will be back.

I finally got a date for my impending cervical disc replacement surgery:

9 December 2008.

I promptly changed my hair and went blonde - its one thing I get to control I guess.

And no, I won't be arguing the case for the rationality of changing one's hair when faced with life changing events!

Got a letter from ACC this morning:

"ACC has approved an application to fund your treatment as follows:
Cervical Disc Replacement (Arthoplasty)"

They have been sitting on this application for ages despite me being classified as "high priority." Anyhow, now the hospital has to grant me a surgery date within 4 weeks.

Needless to say I am pretty freaked. It's really happening.