Tim Pickering went from fighting fires to fighting for life
If you’d told Tim Pickering 10 years ago that he’d be where he is today – working as a nurse at Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH), he’d have laughed at you.
Back then he was an aviation firefighter with the Royal Australian Airforce. That was until he found himself fighting for his life in the intensive care unit (ICU), diagnosed with a rare condition, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GB).
Tim spent the next nine months at Nepean Hospital, including 103 days in intensive care.
GB causes the body’s immune system to attack the peripheral nerves, causing ongoing weakness and paralysis. Only about one in 150,000 people contract the GB, which ended up being Tim in 2015. He thinks he developed it after contracting a virus from a mosquito bite and his illness progressed quickly from what he thought was a flu.
He ended up in the ICU and was paralysed up to his neck. “All I could do was move my head.
“I was a prisoner in my own body unable to talk, move or communicate except by blinking my eyes,” Tim recalls. “I had no control over anything and was fearful, terrified and in pain 24/7.”
When he left ICU, Tim spent five and a half months in rehabilitation learning to talk, use his hands and walk again.
He credits his recovery to the care of the nurses at Nepean Hospital. “I had great nurses,” says Tim. “The amazing medical staff were all brilliant, passionate people who literally saved my life.” He also says he has a very supportive partner.
However, the illness had left him with permanent bilateral foot drop, fatigue and chronic nerve pain. When he was officially discharged from his firefighting duties in 2019, Tim reassessed his future.
“Had someone said in 2014, ‘You’re going to be a nurse,’ I would’ve laughed because I hadn’t actually seen myself do that – until I actually had nurses look after me. So nursing was an easy decision after much reflection. After all, nurses not only cared for me but hand on heart, they absolutely saved my life.”
Tim graduated from Australian Catholic University with a Bachelor of Nursing in 2021 at the age of 47 and loves his work at RNSH.
Nursing, particularly in a busy emergency department, can be physically demanding for many, with long days and nights on your feet and the constant flow of people coming and going. It’s harder for Tim than most, but he takes it in his stride, choosing to live with pain because he loves caring for people.
“It’s all about perspective,” says Tim. “I just suck it up and do it.
“I have peripheral neuropathy, which is nerve pain in the feet and the legs 24/7, chronic fatigue and essential tremor, but that’s life. That’s just part of my life now – it’s the new normal.”
Tim turned tragedy into triumph
Tim was always active: he was a personal trainer for 13 years, and an accomplished triathlete who represented Australia in 2012 at the World Championships in New Zealand.
He manages his pain by training at the gym, taking ice baths, eating healthily and getting enough sleep, all crucial to Tim so he can care for others like he was cared for.
“I like making a difference,” says Tim, who lives in Castle Hill. “Just talking to people. I am a small cog in a big wheel – a small part of the overall health system, making a difference in someone’s care.
“I know even though I have struggles, I am very lucky and know there are people in worse situations and who are struggling more than me.
“My neurologist said at the beginning, ‘It’s not what happens to you in life, it’s how you respond to what happens to you,’ and I live by that.”
