Walking through fire
Julie McCabe
Julie McCabe’s life changed utterly when her husband Al had a sporting accident that left him quadriplegic. With a six-year-old daughter and another on the way, this kindergarten teacher needed to call on all her natural optimism and energy to rebuild a life for her family and find joy again.
This story is for anyone needing the courage to make the most of the hand they’ve been dealt, no matter how difficult or unfair.
THE NOMINATION
Family lawyer, community advocate and artist Heather McKinnon is one tough cookie. When asked whose courage inspires her, Heather names Julie McCabe, for her courage in tackling life after her husband Al was left a quadriplegic.
Julie and Al met and fell in love in high school. He was the Coffs Harbour town athlete. She went to teacher's college up in Lismore, came back, married Al and had their first child, Gabby.
Julie was pregnant with their second child and Gabby was in kindergarten when Al had the rugby accident that left him a quadriplegic.
So many marriages fail when a catastrophic accident like that happens. Imagine the upheaval in Julie’s life. She has a tiny little one. She’s pregnant. And she’s got to support her husband through that first year of rehabilitation in Sydney. When Bethany was born, they wheeled Al over from rehab to be present at the birth and now Julie had two children to manage.
So many marriages fail when a catastrophic accident like that happens.
Eventually, the family came back to a wheelchair-accessible Housing Commission unit. Julie was managing the demands of small children and her husband’s frustration and grief.
She stayed completely focused and started to solve the family’s short and long-term needs. The wellspring of energy she has is unbelievable because she never lost it; never showed any sign that she couldn’t do it.
She was able to marshal huge support from the Coffs Harbour community to raise funds to build a special home fitted out for them.
…she never lost sight of keeping her family together…
Over twenty years she never lost sight of keeping her family together and still somehow had the energy to help others. She has thrown herself into helping others with disabilities: sharing their story to give hope, endlessly making herself available for interviews, and travelling to assist families struggling with quadriplegia.
Even in the weeks leading up to Al’s death, Julie was making sure everyone else was comfortable: marshalling people coming to say their goodbyes and bearing witness to all those farewells.
Julie has shown us how to do it. How not just to survive, but to move forward when everything about you is falling. We all must deal with what’s thrown at us, but the courageous ones are those who walk through the fire.
JULIE
I got the phone call just after 11 on a Saturday morning. My sister was having a baby that day, so I was looking after her 6-year-old and mine. I’d been teaching kindergarten all week, as well as being six months pregnant, so I was wiped out.
The accident was serious and the messages were mixed.
The airport rang at 5:00 to say there was a plane ready to take me to Sydney and I sat through that flight wondering what I was going to find.
What I saw first was big bolts drilled into Al’s head, with bags of water hanging off the back to try and straighten his spine and take pressure off the spinal cord. And I think I just said, “Why?”
And then Al said something to me that I didn’t remember again for 8 years. He said, “Take Gabby and go and never come back.”
Obviously, I didn’t do that and so then the journey began.
Al’s life was touch and go. He could aspirate on nothing. I learned how to clear him. The skin on his feet and hands started to die and smelled terrible. I sat there for days and manicured his skin. The hospital needed to know if Al and I wanted more children, and I had to make that decision on my own, which haunted me because Al had always wanted lots of kids.
Every day was just getting the best results for the next minute and then the next minute.
Every day was just getting the best result for the next minute and then the next minute after that. My Mum was in tears all the time and kept saying, “Please remember, you’re pregnant.” But I figured the baby was safe in there. I had to put the baby aside for the time being and focus on accepting and dealing with the next decision or bit of information.
Al was in ICU for 3? weeks, in the spinal unit at North Shore for another 3 months[SH1] and then the spinal rehab hospital in Ryde for 2 years.
Before Al was released from Ryde, I came home to find a house that could accommodate our needs, which was almost impossible. At one point they were talking about putting Al in an aged care facility. Over my dead body!
Finally, someone we knew at the Department of Housing helped us find a unit. It was supposed to be a disability unit, but it was very small for a family and a big wheelchair. Everyone was on top of each other. It made us dig deep, living in that little space. Still, we were grateful because we could all live together.
Julie and Al in the early days after his return home.
I’m not going to say it wasn’t hard. It was damn hard. There were moments when I thought, “What about me?” I was a tired mum, a full-time carer, wife of a quadriplegic who couldn’t even pick his nose.
It was Allan, Allan, Allan…then the baby, then Gabby, then me.
There was a pecking order in the house. It was Allan, Allan, Allan, then the baby, then Gabby, then me. That’s how it had to be. Al had to be first. His needs were so great.
Our home was always busy with strangers. Carers would arrive at 6am, roll my bed out of the way (often with me still in it) and begin the 3-4 hour process of getting Al into his chair. We had another carer at lunchtime and another in the evening to put Al to bed. It was a revolving door.
I remember my little brother ringing up and asking about our financial plan and I said, “I just want to get to the end of the day alive, with everyone happy and fed.”
At the start Al wanted alone time. He wanted to sit there all day and reflect. After a couple of years I said, “Your accident happened to all of us. You can have your morning to do what you want but come lunchtime, we’re going out somewhere as a family.” And that’s how we worked from then on in. We’d go down the street with Beth on the footplates of Al’s wheelchair and Gabby behind on her skateboard.
At no point do you want to become a carer instead of a wife, it just happens in such high-level quadriplegia. But a higher order of love comes into play. Love on his part as well as mine. Al was still a man: it was only his body that didn’t work.
And Al could make a shitty time funny. He just had that. And he always brought life into perspective. I broke my thumb a few weeks ago and it really did hurt. But I knew that Al would have said, “I’ll swap you.”
Al was so good, so I had to be better.
Al was so good, so I had to be better. That’s what made me get up each day and be the best person I could be.
Julie & Al
I tried to look after myself: I walked and ate properly, but as far as looking after my own grief…. there wasn’t time for that. But I believe that if you honour the situation, you grieve as you live through it. You don’t sit there and feel sorry for yourself, but you acknowledge it and grieve as you go.
Like when Al was passing. Each day Al would lose something and each day the girls and I had to accept that loss together.
Grief may come when I’m on my own.
But I do acknowledge that grief may come when I’m on my own. I’m going off in a motor home. I’ve never been on my own, ever. It will be terrifying, but it will be a time to honour our journey. I’d like to write our story: Al’s and mine.
Photographs provided by Julie McCabe and Stephanie Hunt.
Husband in a handbag
Before Al died he told friends, “I don’t want to go in the ground. I want to go in Julie’s handbag and stalk her every day of her life.” So when he died, those friends turned up with a handbag… and therein Al rests. He never misses a major family event. His travel papers are in order. Julie will always have Al with her - in her handbag and in her heart.