Opening up for the first time on TV’s Sunday Night about John’s tragic fall at Bonville Golf Resort, an emotional Kerri-Anne, below, says her life as she knew it has changed forever.
“Life as we knew it, just being able to, you know, walk in the park and just go out to parties – no, that’s gone, it’s over – it just doesn’t exist anymore,” the popular TV host told interviewer Mike Willisee.
“This is now a new life, because he is my priority and getting him back home would be the best thing since sliced bread – but that’s way in the future.”
John has so far been diagnosed with incomplete quadriplegia. He remains paralysed with no use of his arms and he cannot breathe for himself after slipping from a deck and into a hedge at the Coffs Harbour, NSW, resort on March 6.
His communication skills are slowing progressing, from pointing to letters on an alphabet chart to being able to mouth words.
But Kerri-Anne has been told it will be up to a year before doctors know the full extent of John’s injuries and what quality of life he will have when he’s finally back home.
“I want him to actually be as happy and have the creativity that he’s always loved and enjoyed,” says Kerri-Anne.
“But watching him be sad, it’s like I’m inside my head, screaming, that it’s not real. But it is,” she cried.
“He’s trapped in his mind, he’s trapped in his body. He can’t speak. He can’t touch me. All I can do is ever so gently hold his head and one shoulder – he’s even torn a ligament in one shoulder – and kiss him.”
Despite the difficulties he is currently facing, Kerri-Anne says John has vowed to recover from the neck injury for her sake, saying: “He said, ‘the only reason I’m trying is for you’.”
