James O'Brien

I woke in the middle of the night to the 1980s hit song “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), and for a moment, I wondered if Annie Lennox was appearing on stage at nearby Moore Park for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.

I live close enough to the area to be able to listen in to some of the major events. A couple of weeks ago I heard most of the concert by Pink, and before that it was Paul McCartney. Years ago I remember a concert by Michael Jackson where it was loud and clear enough to feel like he was performing on my balcony.

I don’t THINK she appeared on stage last night, but you never know.

My early morning wake up followed a few hours of intense sleep after marching in the Mardi Gras parade.

Less than a year since my lower right limb amputation, this has been something I’ve been planning for and working up to for months. As I’ve written here previously, my phsyiotherapist thought it was within my capacity, and has been helping with advice since the start of the year.

We’ve also done two actual training sessions on the parade route. The training sessions were great, but they didn’t prepare me fully for the intensity of marching last night. The physical exhaustion was one thing, but so too was the stimulation of marching in front of several hundred thousand people.

Throughout the evening I also received supportive messages from friends, saying how proud they were of me being able to participate. This made me cry a little bit, as I thought about where I was, and where I am now.

Along the parade route, colleagues were always checking in with me to make sure I was okay, that I wasn’t about to collapse from exhaustion. This meant so much to me.

Thankfully, I didnt collapse from exhaustion. But fatigue was an issue, and by the end I was pretty exhausted.

I started near the front of our marching group, but ended the parade at the back, alongside someone participating in a wheelchair. What brought me to the back was a stop at the half-way point when I saw a friend in the crowd and went over to hug her.

Along the way lots of people in the crowd wanted to high-five me, but I had to politely say no. It wasn’t a fear of COVID or anything like that, it was more the fear of an uneven roadway, and a high-five possibly resulting in me falling over.

The other unexpected thing was having to keep an eye on the people marching/dancing in front of me. Due to the stop-start nature of the parade, there were times when they started marching/dancing backwards. There were a couple of close-calls.

But I made it, and we then headed off to the pub for a beer.

On the way to the pub, I did a brief cross to ABC Radio’s coverage of Mardi Gras. Here’s the audio/transcript.

Suzanne : You’re listening to Nightlife with Suzanne Hill on ABC radio and on the ABC Listen app. Heading back to the Mardi Gras parade. Now the ABC’s James O’Brien, one of my colleagues has been on the ABC float and joins me now. Hey, James.

James : Is is and I’m not sure if you didn’t hear much noise in the background, but I’m right at the end of the parade route.

Suzanne: Okay, is this right? You’ve actually headed off for a beer?

James: Maybe, maybe, maybe. Look at the last few hours I think a beer is actually going to be something that’s going to be welcomed by a lot of us.

Suzanne: Well tell us why the ABC flight had to offer this year.

James: So we had, we did a piece to the song by Daft Punk, “All Around The World. And it’s very much about the ABC broadcasting around the world and all those sorts of things. We had about 60 people marching. We had lots of laser lights, and we had lots of dayglo makeup and all of those sorts of thing. Probably the best known person on our float was Nate Byrne from the Breakfast Show and he was fantastic. He gave us a good forecast about whether or not we could expect rain yesterday when a briefing so that was almost one, but mostly it was just ordinary staff from all over New South Wales. There was quite a contingent from ABC Radio Newcastle, in fact. And then obviously, some people will Sydney and other parts and Brisbane and other parts of the countryside.

Suzanne: James it’s been a big year for you and walking in the parade has turned out to be quite a feat that you wouldn’t have been expecting this time a year ago. Tell us what happened?

James: So halfway through last year, I lost the lower half of my right leg. So I’m now walking with a prosthetic limb. I was in a wheelchair for a few months. I was in hospital for a few months. And so maybe late last year, I said to my physiotherapist, I said, do you think it’s reasonable that I could match in Mardi Gras? And she said, How long is it? And I told her to 1.7 kilometres? And she said yeah, that’s probably reasonable. Um, so over the last couple of months, we’ve been seeing, building up strength and so on. So that in fact, I could walk out tonight in the Mardi Gras with a prosthetic limb.

Suzanne: And how tiring has there been James now? I mean, you said you were and you definitely needed to head off for a beer. Was it was a challenging?

James: Look, it was it was we sort of started up the front and eventually ended up at the back. It was sometimes a little bit hard to keep up with everyone else. So one of the issues too, is that people kind of were walking backwards and just checking on me. Are you okay? Yeah, just keep walking. Keep walking in. I’m fine. So yeah, that was the one of the challenging things. Look, the other thing too, is the challenge of actually trying to walk and dance and do hand movements. So the choreography, but I think that might have been a challenge even before.

Suzanne: Yeah, okay, but did you master a few dance moves?

James: Yeah, not too bad. Yeah. And we had lots of fun dancing and participating beforehand. Along with myself with the prosthetic limb, we also had another staff member who has mobility needs, so she walked through his crutches. And we also had someone who is in a wheelchair, so it was really great thing to say that, you know, just because you have a physical disability doesn’t mean you can’t participate in Mardi Gras. And that’s what I was really mad about doing tonight. I got a couple of text messages from friends and it might make me cry, but they were so proud of you know, yeah. And well, somewhere I am. So that was really, really interesting.

Suzanne: James just finally, did you actually deck the leg out? Did you give it in some special costume?

James: Oh, it’s got a few little rainbow flags.

Suzanne: James, good to talk to you. You go off and enjoy that beer.

All in all, I probably would have enjoyed it more without having the fear of falling over, but it was a great thing to do. It was heaps of fun, and I felt so incredibly supported by friends, colleagues and family.