Hi, I’m fifteen years old and come from Nürnberg. At the 17th of December 2000 I had an accident. I fell from ten metres height to the ground. I lay on the ground. Everything hurt, my arm was broken and I couldn’t move or feel my legs. I was brought to the „Nürnberg Süd“ Hospital and I was operated immediately. I felt better after the operation. I was brought to a room by two nice nurses. My parents were at the corridor with my at that time three years old son and my twelve years old brother. My mother was crying. I slept again. At the next day a physiotherapist arrived. She provided me with corset. (my third lumbar vertebra was totally smashed and I could only reach 45 centimetres height without a corset). She helped me to put it on and I sat on the edge of the bed for the first time. It was great and it was my first step to get better. I felt dizzy and she brought my back to my bed.
At the next day, during the doctor’s round the doctor said that my arm had to be operated. The operation turned out well and after a few days I was fit again.
Life wasn’t boring, because often people came to visit me. That was my day: At 7am the nurse came, she washed me and cleaned my teeth, then several doctors came and did examinations (for example x-ray). Then they inserted a catheter in the abdomen.
Then I was operated at the back again. I had four screws in my back and one of them was not straight and they had to straighten it during another operation. When I felt better after the operation, the doctor said that I would be brought to Bayreuth in order to learn how to walk again. I was very happy, but I knew that my mother couldn’t visit me very often. It’s certainly not very easy to travel by public transport with a little baby.
But hope was bigger than sacrifice. At the next day I was brought - accompanied by my father - to the hospital „Hohe Warte Bayreuth“ by an ambulance
In my room there were three other girls, but the best thing was the TV-set. But after a while it wasn’t interesting any longer, because I was thinking more about my accident and because I took part in intensive walking exercises. One of the girls became my friend. She is two years younger than me and I call her Pippi. Together with her it is much easier to endure being in hospital. We’ve got a lot of fun, we tease the nurses a bit and we can talk about our feelings, which is also very important.
We’ve got a very strict timetable. At 7am the nurse arrives, wakes me up in order to help me with the catheter (I insert a tube, which is fastened at a bag into the urethra, in order to let out the urine, because the function of the bladder was also reduced by the accident). On Tuesday and Thursday I go swimming at 8am, I try to stand in the water and I also try to do a few steps. I’m very happy, because I’m sometimes successful. After this at 8:30am is my favourite therapy „computers“, where I play mystery-games most of the time. I really like this and it’s relaxing. At 9:30am I do exercises with dumb bells in order to strengthen my arm muscles. This is necessary for using my wheel chair and for standing in the parallel bars.
At 10am I have an appointment with my physiotherapist, she moves my legs and I try to do as much as possible to increase physical strength. Than she stretches my toes and by doing so, she tries to prevent that they become stiff. This has happened a bit already. At 10.30am my friend Pippi and I have school lessons and we learn maths, English and German. I have written this story during the lessons. We also have a lot of fun. Every day I for example try to frighten both of them, by approaching them silently. At 12 o’ clock school is over and we have lunch. The meal is so awful that I can’t eat all of it. That’s why I let my mother bring better food from home (for example lasagne or pasta squares filled with meat or cheese). After lunch I go to my room to relax, because power training starts at 14:00. I sit on a special chair and my legs are fastened at a machine, which moves my legs, and I try to take part in the exercise as much as possible. Then at 14:30 we do crafts-work, there you can do many nice things (I made for example a nice basket for mothers-day and silk scarves). At 3 o’ clock I go to the wheelchair training to learn how to deal with the traffic in towns.
Finally do physiotherapy at 15:30 - where I stand between parallel bars and try to do some steps. Or I have training at the treadmill where I’m fixed with belts to reduce half of my weight. Then the physiotherapist helps me to move my legs in the treadmill. At 4pm the therapies are finally over. Then I can do what ever I want for the rest of my free time. Then I go to the balcony with my friend Pippi or I read or draw or do whatever I like. It’s hard to stand all of this. But I believe in this and I give all my strength and sometime I will walk out of the hospital with my own legs. Then I can look after my small son and give him all my love. This would really be a dream!!!