Lives can be changed in an instant. For Tracy Todd, that moment came in April 1998. She had walked out of her home with her husband, holding their baby on her hip and dragging a suitcase packed with beach clothes. Seven weeks later, she was pushed through their front door in a wheelchair, unable to move anything except her head.
Everything had changed.
In her memoir Tracy reconstructs the horrifying moments of the accident, and her memory of the split second when she realised that her neck had broken and that from this moment on, everything would be different. We follow her through the first awful days and weeks of her rehabilitation, when she began to learn that everything she’d taken for granted before was now beyond her reach: she couldn’t, at least initially, breathe without assistance, talk, or eat, or evacuate her bowels. When, at her own insistence, she was put in a wheelchair, she fainted repeatedly. She hoped to die.
But eventually she went home. Ramps were built. Showers were adapted. Her one-year-old son learned that his mother was different. And her husband at first rejected and then abandoned her.
Against all odds Tracy chose to live, and to do so independently. Divorced, and living on her own with helpers, Tracy learned to turn what had appeared to be a life of humiliation and victim-hood into one in which she took charge of her choices and learned what options were available.
Tracy lives in Mbombela and has become an accomplished and much-sought-after public speaker, inspiring many with her story. She has played a significant and critical role in raising her son. And most significantly, she has found love and emotional fulfilment.
Her story, written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, is engrossing, emotionally engaging, humorous and sometimes frustrating, but it never fails to inspire.
Brave Lotus Flower Rides the Dragon is an honest and intimate memoir that looks into the life of a South African quadriplegic. Many people have never met a quadriplegic and have no idea how to respond when they do. Tracy’s candid details of how she has coped, physically and emotionally, with various day-to-day activities like eating, reading, writing, communicating, bathing and going to the toilet, as well as her romantic and sexual experiences, lays it all bare.
She is a woman who will touch your heart.
In order to publish the book Tracy Todd, and Tracey McDonald of I Love Books, have initiated a crowdfunding campaign through Thundafund. To support this initiative go to https://thundafund.com/project/bravelotusflowerridesthedragon.
a feast of tales 