#DoingItForDani

This will be a fairly short update this week and the focus will largely be on someone who needs support far more than I do, but before we get to that I’ll give you a brief update on my week……..

………. It’s been pants.

For some reason I’ve been feeling rough as the proverbial badger with little or no energy. Here's a pic of a rough badger - 

My coughing has been really bad when I’m lying down which has made sleeping difficult, which creates the vicious circle of lack of energy, and so on. My stomach has also been having a bit of fun and games this week, possibly down to the excessive amount of air that is now getting in. Quite glad my sense of smell is still shot to pieces. I’ve got one advantage though, and that’s that I know where I am in my recovery. Unless the bastard C comes for another play with me then it’s likely that I’ll slowly but surely start to recover, get my energy back, get back to “Normal”, learn to cope with the inability to speak properly. My future is pretty well mapped out. Others aren’t so lucky.

On Sunday 8^th October I was at Old Bath Road, home of Redingensians Rams Rugby Club. Now me being at the rugby club on a Sunday isn’t anything out of the norm, I’ve probably spent 90% of my Sundays there in the season since Max was 6 years old. What was different about this Sunday was that the Sirens, the latest team to represent Rams, were about to make their home League debut against local rival Bracknell Ladies RFC. This was a massive day for the club, the players, the coaches and all who came up to OBR to support the ladies. The game itself was a tight affair all the way through. Sirens had the superior skill set, Bracknell were more physical. With about 10 minutes to go Sirens scored the first of two concerted tries to lead 14-0 with about 5 minutes to go. Then, with an innocuous looking ruck formed about 10 metres out from the Bracknell line, the world changed for one of the Sirens players. Dani Watts was playing flanker for Sirens and had, typically for her, got herself over the ball in the ruck looking to protect it and set up another attacking position. I’m not going to go into the details of what happened next other than to say Dani was left on the floor unable to move, or feel her legs. It was obvious from the look on the players faces that the injury was serious. The paramedics and ambulance arrived quickly, but Dani was still lying on the pitch over 90 minutes following the injury taking place. Dani was eventually moved to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where it was soon discovered she’d fractured and dislocated her spine causing spinal cord damage and paralysis from the waist down. Dani is still at John Radcliffe whilst she waits to be transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital where the specialist care can be provided to assist in Dani’s long term recovery. Dani is 28, a personal fitness trainer and has two young children.

Until she started training and playing with the Sirens Dani hadn’t had much to do with rugby, she was more of a footballer. However she threw herself fully into her new sport and quickly became one of the “Go to” players for the team, her natural strength and fitness easily transferred from one ball game to another.

Since her injury she has been totally overwhelmed by the love and support she’s received from the rugby world. The RFU Injured Players Foundation have been in close contact with Dani. She’s had messages of support far and wide from clubs, and players, including World Cup Winner Will Greenwood, she soon came to realise that once you’ve joined the rugby family it’s bloody difficult to leave it. Dani posts daily updates on her progress on her Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/dani.25.10/ in these posts it’s very rare for her to been seen wearing anything other than rugby kit, it’s also rare for her to be without a smile on her face, despite everything she’s been through.

Dani and her family are going to need support for a long time to come yet, again the rugby family has jumped in. A crowd funding page has been set up by her partner Peter, who just happens to be a player for Reading RFC,  https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/daniwatts?utm_id=62 , two of the Sirens players, Sarah Leicester and SJ Garside have set up their own blog https://doingitfordani.wordpress.com/  as they will be undertaking fundraising on behalf of Dani and the RFU Injured Players Foundation. Sarah has managed to get herself entered into the London Marathon and SJ will be taking part in a channel swim relay. Links to their fundraising pages are in their blog. Other members of the Sirens squad have committed to enter the Reading Half Marathon, as have a number of the senior Rams squad. I’ve volunteered to take publicity shots of any of the fundraising activities that are taking place, and give any help on the back of the #Soulder2Shoulder fundraising I’ve done in the last 18 months or so.

At 3am in the morning when I’m coughing and can’t sleep and I’m feeling pissed off with my lot I’m going to try and think that there are people in a far worse place than me. I’d imagine that at 3am in the morning when Dani’s in pain she’ll not be thinking of herself, she’ll be thinking of others in far worse place than she is. 

That’s it for this week, I’m not too sure when the next update will be at the moment.

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued………

#Shoulder2Shoulder