Three years ago an accident left Tim Rushby-Smith facing sudden disability – just as he was about to become a father for the first time. He explains how he learned to face the future head on and build a new life – as a man, a husband and a father.

On 1 April (no, really!) 2005, while working as a tree surgeon, I fell from a tree and broke my spine. The resulting spinal cord injury left me paraplegic. At the time of my accident, my wife Penny was five months pregnant. Many people thought this added an extra level of tragedy to our story but, after the initial shock, it gave us extra strength and determination – the clock was ticking.

The first 24 hours were very grim; being told the diagnosis and having to tell family and friends, along with the forced separation of the hospital environment. Penny and I ran a successful garden design and construction business. As well as having been married for eight years, we spent every working day together so the feeling of isolation we both felt was hard to cope with.

Two weeks later I was sent to the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville to begin my rehabilitation. After the chaos of a large general hospital, Stoke Mandeville felt calm and well organised. The staff were really supportive from the word go, saying: “Even if we have to push your bed to the maternity unit, we’ll make sure you’re at the birth!”

My rehabilitation was hard work, but I had a deadline. Determined to be completely self-caring, I pushed through the pain and made sure to find out as much information as I could. Learning the physical skills I would need was a good focus for my energy, although the psychological issues around coming to terms with my disability were much more difficult to deal with. To this day, I’m still not sure whether I’ve fully accepted the change in my life.

With the clock ticking, I stuck to my task. I was discharged from hospital on 22 July 2005 – exactly one week before our daughter was born. I was there at the birth and, because I experience almost constant neurological pain, it was a very long night for us both. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world; the sense of relief and joy I felt when Rosalie was born was utterly overwhelming.

The next challenge was the long journey home. We had to find our way through the maze of bureaucracy that goes with the Disabled Facilities Grant and organise the building work that was needed. We kept a close eye on the details, as I was determined that our home shouldn’t look like a hospital.

We finally returned home 18 months after my accident and, two weeks later, we went to Australia to catch up with Penny’s family and to show off our new addition. The flights were relatively straightforward, especially as we were ushered to the front of every queue in the airports. I think the staff assumed we were ‘secret shoppers’ – after all, who in their right mind would travel with a baby and a wheelchair user?

The trip went a long way in helping me to rebuild my life in my head. I was finding out that all sorts of things could still be done – not just the long-haul flights, but going kayaking, getting on to beaches, feeding our passion for the great outdoors and simply hanging out with friends on the other side of the world.

Back home, I started to put together all my emails and a diary that I kept through my rehabilitation, with the idea of perhaps writing the book that so many friends had told me I should write. I managed to get a few thousand words together and was offered a contract by a publisher, which certainly helped my confidence!

I made a point of writing about all aspects of spinal cord injury, as I think there is a lack of understanding about what is involved, and I could sense a lot of questions around me that were never asked for fear of offending or being seen as insensitive.

The process of writing the book about our experiences – Looking Up – was cathartic for me. Some of it was very difficult to revisit, but it also enabled me to see how far I’d come in such a short time. Penny has been incredibly supportive throughout, and having her and Rosalie in my life makes me feel lucky every day. Now I hope that I can take my writing forward as a new career. Between that and being a dad, I’m pretty busy.

Fatherhood from a wheelchair has been a challenge, but as Rosalie has only ever known me in a wheelchair, we are learning together. It can be difficult watching her running around sometimes as I feel unable to move fast enough to catch her if she falls. But she’s pretty cautious, and I think every new parent has to go through something similar.

I spend a lot of time on the floor playing on her level, which is really rewarding and makes me practice getting back into my wheelchair regularly – something I worked hard on in hospital. My attitude is: “Figure out a way to do it and then decide if it’s worth the effort.” Most things can be achieved with enough practice. I have remained very active since my accident, playing wheelchair basketball and more recently tennis, as well as going to the Ability gym in Bow which is fully wheelchair accessible.

Having come this far, I would describe myself as “mostly happy”, and that’s a good thing to be able to say.

Looking Up: A Humorous and Unflinching Account of Learning to Live Again with Sudden Disability is published by Virgin Books at £7.99. ISBN-13: 978-0753513866

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