Chris Cairns: I don’t know if I’ll walk again, but I’m lucky to be alive
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Former New Zealand player Chris Cairns does not know if he will ever walk again, but says he is lucky to be alive after being paralyzed at the waist by life-threatening surgeries.
The 51-year-old man suffered an aortic dissection – a rare and deadly heart disease – in August and had life support. He was rescued from four open-heart surgeries but suffered a spinal cord injury at the operating table. Four months later, he is living in a hospital at the University of Canberra in a special rehabilitation facility.
“I don’t know if I’m going to walk again and I’ve made peace with that,” he said. things.co.nz. “Now it’s time to dump her and move on.”
Cairns, who played 62 tests and 215 ODIs for New Zealand between 1989 and 2006, faces the possibility of spending his entire life in a wheelchair, but said he was “just lucky to still be here.”
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“It’s been 14 weeks since I had an injury and I feel for the rest of my life when I look back. I have no recollection that I had four open heart surgeries for eight or nine days. My wife, Mel, was with me all the time and I have to constantly refer her to what was going on. I was completely out of it. ‘
Explaining the tragic events of August, Cairns said: “I remember leaving my children at school that morning. But you are a clock bomb that works with an aortic dissection. Your artery tears are shedding blood and your blood pressure is dropping. You are in a fog. I remember when I got to the emergency room, I vomited and then I got tense and they rushed me.
“It simply came to our notice then. The next thing I remember was waking up in Sydney nine days later without knowing what was going on. “
Cairns believes he can help revive his sporting career as he hopes to be able to ride again. “I’m going to try to tighten everything I can in the next 12-24 months. With a six-week run of bones and muscles, there’s no timeline here. they atrophy, so it takes time to recover.It’s one thing to activate your nerves, but then you have to lift your muscles up so that you can stand up and then walk.
“I hope to return to the family vacation with the kids, but it may be tied to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. At least I can stay here and live a different life if that happens.”
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