The last two and a half years have been about constantly learning; there's so much to take in.  Terry has unfortunately had lots of bowel issues so I was on the phone to the bowel nurse at Stoke Mandeville every fortnight, looking for new things to try as we were at the end of our tether.  I'd look at Terry and know I wanted our lives back.  I'd get the bit between my teeth and find the inner strength to tackle the next challenge, of which there have been many.

We're currently spending our third winter sleeping in our conservatory.  The house isn't accessible, initially I was upstairs and Terry downstairs but that's not what we wanted; we're used to sleeping together and so we got a profiling double bed and we both sleep there.  We put a wetroom pod into the garage - there's no window in there so Terry calls it the 'dungeon' - and with that loss of storage our conservatory is also full of off-road wheels and other stuff.  It is hard to fit everything in.  We had to give away a lot of our furniture and ended up using Terry's physiotherapy couch for Christmas lunch last year - we put a tablecloth and candles on it and we all sat around as best we could.  Between the lack of space, and the fact that our clothes are all still upstairs, our living arrangements are a real fag.  You can go a couple of weeks and everything is OK and then you have a low day and it gets to you, but you have a scream and a cry you pick yourself up and you get on with it.

I wanted our lives back

This is hopefully our last winter living like this as we've recently settled Terry's Personal Injury case and so we can finally start to think about living somewhere suitable.  The whole claims process has been difficult, you're made to relive the injury over and over.  It's been and gone and it's part of your old life and you want to move on but you just can't.  The whole process is overwhelming.  Terry has been seen by more than 15 experts since the process started, we've been lucky compared to some of our friends as our claim has been settled quickly.

Prior to his accident Terry was always very active; he was a black run snowboarder and he'd always had motorbikes, he was always off doing active things.  Since his injury, I've kind of pushed him into doing stuff; there's been a bit of a confidence issue for him at times so I take charge, I like to think I'm the boss so I make the arrangements.  I'll see an opportunity, email the organisers and then say, 'oh, by the way Terry, you're white water rafting next week'.  A charity, The Bike Experience, helped him get back on a motorbike again and he had a track day last summer at Brands Hatch; watching him out there on two wheels again, I was a blubbering wreck!  He's learning to sit ski at the moment, and that's meant I am learning to snowboard.  I'd tried it before and was rubbish, but Terry will need support when he goes away now and so it felt like something I should give another go.

There's plenty on the new bucket list that we are working on - go on a sit ski holiday, scuba dive, visit Australia, do some voluntary work; basically, we just keep adding to it.  Life would be boring if we didn't.

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