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NEW ZEALAND SPINAL TRUST 18<br />
“The Phone Call that<br />
Changed My Life”<br />
We caught up with Peer Supporter Henry Matthews and his good<br />
mate Terry Fage to talk about how important it is to connect.<br />
GREAT MATES—Henry Matthews (left) and Terry Fage (right) share a friendship that is like a brotherhood. Credit: Graeme Brown.<br />
Over the past two years, the NZ Spinal Trust<br />
and Spinal Support NZ have been delivering<br />
the Peer and Whānau Support programme on a<br />
nationwide scale. The ACC-funded programme<br />
is making a huge difference. We caught up with<br />
Peer Supporter Henry Matthews and his good<br />
mate Terry Fage to talk about how important it<br />
is to look out for one another.<br />
When Terry Fage talks about what Henry Matthews’<br />
friendship means to him Henry is very emotional. It’s a<br />
beautiful moment of raw feeling that captures and<br />
personifies the power of Peer and Whānau Support.<br />
Terry and Henry have become great mates and Terry says<br />
it’s not going too far to say the help that Henry has offered<br />
him has changed his life.<br />
It was so good to know<br />
that someone cared, and<br />
they were interested in<br />
how I was doing.<br />
—Terry Fage<br />
For five years (2018–2022), Terry, a 62-year-old tetraplegic,<br />
didn’t leave his home in Palmerston North. He was lonely<br />
and isolated. It was the darkest time in his life. “It was soul<br />
destroying,” he says. “I felt like I was on a treadmill, and I<br />
couldn’t get off. I wasn’t making any progress with the<br />
issues and pain I was having, and I felt completely alone.”
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