“Do it your bloody self!”
That was pretty much the catchphrase from my childhood.
Can you tell me how to spell this word?
“Look it up in the dictionary.”
I don’t think I can fix this.
“You haven’t tried hard enough then.”

Resilience.
That’s what they called it.
While I may have grown up ahead of my peers in problem solving, abstract thinking, and a ridiculous amount of independence, I was also way ahead of them in hypervigilance, social anxiety, and a belief that to ask for help was shameful and bound in obligation and ridicule. I didn’t mind other people asking for help, and I gladly help others, but they seemed somehow different from me, and able to ask for what they needed it. I’d just soldier on alone.

Life has this gorgeous way of correcting our ill learned behaviours though, doesn’t it? Not only did mine manifest in illness, I was often repeating the same cycle, pondering the lesson over and over again but never quite making the connection. I got pretty good at dodging and weaving, making excuses; somehow managing not to ask for any help, and begrudgingly accepting any that was forced upon me. Until, . . .  you knew that was coming right?

Until a lesson came unexpectedly and intrusively, without a thread of costuming so I couldn’t see it as anything else.Unsurprisingly for me, it started with a seed.
A palm seed.

Oh, who am I kidding?
There were LOTS of them.
Palm seeds everywhere! 

Stew and I were trekking through the rainforest near our home. The previous week’s rain had dried and settled into the rammed earth track, making it flat and hard. So when I stepped on some seeds, they rolled like marbles under my feet, twisting my ankle and sending it straight into the base of a nearby palm. I told myself the crack I heard/felt must’ve been from one of the roots protruding from the bottom of the palm.

Stew helped me up and when I felt faint, manoeuvred me to rest on a nearby rock. I knew the look he was giving me, but I was determined.

“I just need to rest and catch my breath for a moment.”

He waited a bit. “Okay, you ready now?”

“Yep.” I stood and took a step on the uneven ground. “Nope” and sat back down on the rock.

Other hikers passed us, asking if we were okay. “Yes, we’re fine, just having a rest.” I was trying to assure myself as much as them. We watched them disappear into the jungle.

“So, you can’t walk on it at all?”
“Maybe a little…. nope. How about I hop?” 

I clung to Stew’s backpack and hopped behind him for a few metres over roots, rocks, and puddles. “Nope, that won’t work either.”

“I could call emergency services.”

“No, it’s okay. We’ll find our way out of this.”

Stew crossed him arms and sighed, finding something interesting in the tree tops to keep him occupied. He knows forcing me into decision just makes life bad for everyone!

“We could just hop a little at a time,” I suggested.

“We could. Only it’s 3pm and you need to think about what’s ahead.”

Ugh.
We still a way to go, and then the track climbs steeply out of the gully. Not one of my favourite sections even with two functioning legs. Then I had a brainstorm! We could stay overnight and find our way out in the morning. I watched Stew swatting mosquitoes and knew he would never agree to that. I had to admit defeat.

I sighed. “Fine.” I mumbled, and Stewart had his phone to his ear before I added, “Call for help.”

The ambos arrived first, assessing the situation and hopping me to a clearing for added safety. They passed radio messages with the fireys and discussed a plan of action and whether a stretcher lift would work on the narrow track and if there was too much cover to use a helicopter winch.

Oh please God, don’t let it be a helicopter. I didn’t want to be THAT person; you know, the one on the news being winched to safety.

They decided on a lift where team members formed a ‘chain’ around the stretcher. Once the stretcher had been passed out of their reach, they then ran back to the front to continue the process. It seemed the only way to move me out of the gully along narrow tracks with eight foot cliffs one side and the same drop on the other. In places, they held each other from falling by holding each other’s braces while they sweated in the heat and afternoon sun. And I lay there doing nothing, cringing, apologising, and not helping at all.

I listened to their banter, some technical, some instructive, but mostly joking comraderie about how they all pulled up after a recent party. They were a team happily getting the job done and doing what they had trained for.

They loved puting their skills to work and were happy to pose as Stew recorded the moment for us. They look like they’ve done this pose before! My rescuers!

The following day, while chatting with the doctor as he back-plastered my broken ankle, he laughed out loud. 

“That was YOU?”
I was on the mountain yesterday and saw the fire trucks and the ambulance, and wondered what was going on.”

Yes, that was me, along with some palm seeds and an inescapable lesson about asking for help.