Resilience
If I was in charge, then the next Young Australian of the Year would be Sophie Delezio. It is impossible to imagine what the recent years have been like for Sophie Delezio and her friend Molly Wood.
Sophie and Molly are the two little girls who suffered dreadful burns when a car crashed into their day care centre, just before Christmas 2003. It caught fire and incinerated the children. Seven children were injured with Sophie, then two and a half years of age, sustaining the most significant injuries. Third degree burns covered 85% of her body. She lost both her feet, the fingers on her right hand and her right ear. She will continue to need surgery until she is an adult.
Then, while in a stroller pushed by a carer on a Pedestrian Crossing near her home, she was hit by a car again in 2006 and was left with a brain injury, punctured lungs, nine broken ribs, a broken jaw, broken collarbone and spinal fractures. Once again she was in intensive care for many months.
Somehow she has recovered and continues with her rehabilitation and recovery. Resilience.
My interest in her recovery began just after the original accident. I had some years earlier, while Superintendent of Wesley Mission Sydney, set up a nursing service known as Noakes Nursing Service. The service had several hundred nurses and carers that were hired to hospitals, nursing homes and injured and disabled individuals who needed specialist care. We were contracted to provide Sophie’s nursing needs for the next ten years.
It was Wesley nurses and community support workers that provided Sophie and her family with 24-hour care, seven days a week. The nine nurses and support workers provided a diverse range of support and nursing services to the family: bathing Sophie, changing her dressings, putting sorbolene cream on her scars, ensuring that her dietary needs were met; through to making meals, washing, cooking, ironing and ensuring that Sophie completed her physiotherapy.
“When Sophie came home, physiotherapy was the first priority and then keeping us functioning as a family,” Sophie’s mother, Carolyn said to a member of my staff at the time, Graeme Cole, who wrote an account of what Carolyn said for “Impact” the Wesley Mission Sydney magazine.
“Sophie had to learn not to look to me for all her medical needs and to accept that this was the responsibility of the nurses. I needed to just be mum even though I still co-ordinated her requirements. Along with nursing care for Sophie also came help with her young brother Mitchell as well.
“There was no time for the normal chores of running a household. I needed to care for Mitchell along with washing, ironing, shopping and cooking so the nurses had to fill that void as well, said Carolyn.
“Along with dietary requirements for Sophie, the nurses would look after morning tea and lunch. There was no way Ron and I would have been able to cope by ourselves.”
As Sophie adapted, the nurses and support workers became her friends and playmates. “Life became like a pre-school,” Carolyn said. “She became more independent and mobile. We developed a daily planner around burns and baths.”
An account of how the nurses worked with Sophie is found in “Sophie’s Journey” a very moving book by Sally Collings. (Harper and Collins).
Registered Wesley nurses are with her every night because of Sophie’s medical requirements. Sophie could wake up to six times a night itching or from suffering a muscular spasm. The nurse is there ready to care for her.
The nurses have all had hospital training and have been trained by the physiotherapists. They respect the privacy of the family but are there when needed.
The deep optimism and hope embodied in Ron and Carolyn Delezio is anchored in their faith in God. From the day of the ill-fated accident, through to the agonising life and death decisions and living for six months at the hospital and waiting to see what each day would bring, faith has upheld this family.
“It would have been so hard to go through this without faith, to cope on our own,” Carolyn said. “You have to believe there is a higher purpose in the things that happen to us.
“It’s been really tough to know if Sophie would get through each operation and we didn’t think she’d survive in the early days. We thanked God for each half hour we had with her. As she goes into each operation she carries a little bag of prayers that people have sent her.
“From the beginning we wanted something good to come out of the event itself, knowing that we can make a difference for others and raise awareness of burn injuries, disabilities and people who are different.”
To this end Ron and Carolyn Delezio established the Day of Difference Foundation to raise funds for the burns unit at the Children’s Hospital, Westmead, and to change public attitudes towards disabled people.
“The Day of Difference Foundation is a paediatric charity established to provide funding for specialised medical treatment, ongoing medical research, outpatient rehabilitation and education in the community. “ They have Gala Balls and other fundraising events in the community.
Earlier this year Sophie and her brother, Mitchell were driven in a Chevrolet Convertible, accompanied by 200 motorcyclists, from Sydney Showground at Homebush Bay to Harbord Diggers Club to support the Day of Difference Foundation.
In the last three years Day of Difference Foundation has raised $1,458,837.68 for the direct purchase of “Wish list” equipment for the children’s hospitals in Sydney.”
Website: http://www.dayofdifference.org.au/index.php
Her survival both times was miraculous. The family attributes her survival to their faith and prayers. Sophie’s resilient and extrovert personality seems to be the key to her survival, and all the support from the community has helped.
Sophie and her family are 2008 Ambassadors for World Youth Day, Sydney.
Rev Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.
