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Hello.
Who have we got here?
Well this is the Telly Tubby.
Telly Tubby.
Tell Tubby because he’s a bit fat. This is Jocelyn’s favourite horse Alex.
So what’s the plan, are you going to take him out for a bit of a workout?
Yeah we’ll just pop him into this little paddock over here to give him a spin around
to see how he’s going to behave and then I might do some work on the tracks just to
ease him into it and just get him back into work.
She rides but even that is different from the old days. When she was based in South
Africa she won state and national titles in dressage and show jumping. In New Zealand
she regularly competed at the Horse of the Year Shows.
Not going too bad Lizzy?
No he’s actually pretty good. Does he have shoes on or not?
He’s got two at the back.
I don’t think two at the back is much use.
Now she limits herself to a gentle trot in the paddock with a trusted horse.
Before the injury I could ride a horse all day, lots of horses not a problem I wouldn’t
blink an eye and just kept on trucking through with our eventing horses that we had in South
Africa it was all on and now it’s very exciting if I’m allowed to have 10 minutes for a
ride before I start getting sick. I get a sort of vertigo and nausea especially if I’m
cantering so that’s not really going to happen so it’s just being really careful
when I get on, it’s got to be a horse that I can trust.
I’ll just get you to help me get off. Even getting off I can’t jump off and I’ve
got to carefully slither down
the side.
When I got mum to untack the horse and wash it we’ve learnt from the past that I can’t
help with that because when I’ve gotten off the horse and I’m dizzy, nauseous and
feeling faint that is not the ideal time to go around the horse because I’m going to
get bumped so I look like the little Waikato princess that mummy helps do everything but
we’ve just learnt through trial and error to work the way we do work. It’s just a
thrill just to get to go for a ride…the old hat hair - it’s worth the price though
isn’t it?
She knows it looks ridiculous but even an hour of riding has wiped her out. In an accident
in 2005 I blew out the ligaments in my knee so that’s aching, my lower back is aching,
just the general fatigue – I want to throw up, I’m getting shooting pains through my
skull which are just blinding pains…yeah this is how it’s affecting me now but the
rest of the afternoon I just have to take it easy so it’s a big deal to go for a ten
minute ride these days. It’s pathetic…thank goodness for mum.
I mustn’t say it’s a disappointment, that’s not fair to Lizzy because she didn’t wish
to be hurt – it’s a sad thing to see this beautiful girl out there being Lizzy and then
I know what she’s got to put up with for the rest of her days.
She’s in her little room over there and I’ll probably take her over some dinner
because she won’t eat, she won’t make herself a meal.
In the early stages of the head injury my big thing was that I wanted my old life back,
I was very resentful that I was confined to a certain life and lifestyle and actually
a friends mother, that girl had had an injury herself and the mothers comment to me was
that “you’ve just got to forget about your old life, forget about it and move on”
and I wouldn’t, I wanted elements of my old life back and I think I’ve worked and
fought pretty hard to bring some of those elements into life now.
The Internet has been a lifeline, a connection to the world even on the bleakest days.
Lizzy has not been content just to hide out on the farm, she figured one thing she could
do was get involved in supporting others. She walked in the doors of Waikato Head Injury
Society and threw herself behind an awareness campaign. Part of that has been creating a facebook
page to reach out to younger people.
It’s very new, it’s two months since we’ve gone on to facebook but it’s taken off like
a rocket and so that in itself has been amazing, people have actually been contacting facebook
and we’re just amazed how that’s grown and Lizzy has done all of that.
They’ve got a lot of horse people on it but it’s starting to creep in with sporting
people, there are names here that I don’t know but really good feedback.
When I first met Lizzy just soon after her accident she was in denial at that stage and
she was actually not doing anything at all for Head Injury Society because she was still
trying to compete and she was still modeling but in fact it was not working very well because
she couldn’t understand why she was so fatigued and so tired and it’s only in the last 18
months that Lizzy has finally realized that she really can’t do the things that she
used to be able to do.
Everything links back to the Waikato Head Injury Society because that’s a subsidiary
of Head Injury Society.
There are so many people that you look at them and you don’t think they’ve got a
head injury until you actually know them after a while or they may mention it or maybe in
their speech and in Lizzy’s case when she gets very tired her speech is affected and
unfortunately she closes right down so it does happen to other people as well because
whatever they do even if it’s a little bit they do find that they are so tired and they
can’t take it in, their communication goes then.
Her next step was to set about signing up saddlery stores to offer discounts on their
range of helmets. If years of modeling have taught her anything it’s how to work her
contacts.
Hello, so lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for supporting me with this project
for Head Injury Awareness week.
Absolute pleasure.
Today she’s convinced the Olympian Sir John Walker and his daughter Elizabeth Metcalf
to front up for a shoot at their family owned business Stirrups.
Sir John is not an easy man to pin down so it says much about her skills that Lizzy has
persuaded him to get on the bandwagon.
This is the first year we’re doing it so hopefully we can do it again next year and
the year after that so it’s just growth, education, awareness.
This is the GPA helmet, it’s designed in France, it was designed by a guy who was a
racing car driver.
I know that they cost a little bit more but with the discount that you’re offering for
Head Injury Awareness Week it’s worth getting one because you only get one head don’t
you?
If we can prevent just even a handful of people going through and experiencing what I’ve
had because you wouldn’t wish it upon your worst enemy, it’s not a fun way to live
so if we could just educate from young to old … because there is an attitude in New
Zealand of she’ll be right and you don’t have to wear a hat… it’s not true.
Every so often Lizzy revisits the life she used to have – going out, meeting friends,
socializing but it always comes at a cost.
She finds someone to drive her to Auckland and goes out on the town with a girlfriend,
the sort of outing most 30 somethings count as routine but Lizzy can only handle so much…as
we found out in the course of filming the story.
What we can show you is that during the lunch break she hit the wall, she disappeared from
the café and broke down in floods of tears.
So it’s been a bit of a long day.
Well I really enjoyed it coming out and playing in the city but the wheels came off at lunch…
What happened?
Well I excused myself but I just ended up in the alley way balling my eyes out and when
the director came out and asked how I was going… it’s just the way it is, it’s
too much, there’s too much stimulation and too much noise and me talking for so long
because as you can tell I like to talk but it just gets too much for me but I don’t
usually let…. It’s embarrassing, very embarrassing because I don’t portray myself
as being the person that gets upset and cries and I don’t like people seeing that.
No one would pick that you had that little cry during the day, how do you bounce back
so quickly?
Wasn’t a little cry it was the ugly cry. I give myself a pep talk, it’s like I’m
committed to this project with filming today so I’ve got to get through it because I
knew that we had a couple more scenes to do and just focus, the getting home is the goal
and then I’ve got the rest of the week to hide and recover.
Lizzy sees a future for herself but like the thousands of other head injury survivors it’s
a different path from the one she had planned.
I want to participate in life but to do that I’ve learnt now that there are boundaries,
that’s why I’m trying to speak up about head injury awareness because I’m not the
only person in New Zealand that is going through this.
It was a big ask to get Lizzy to spend some time with us, as you can see she tires easily.
Check out the “Think” facebook page, Lizzy started it to help others with brain injuries.