Mum?s heartbreak

Sonia Boyd ? mother of 158 foster children ? wants to run away home to her family. There is a husband and precious children there to love and their big house of little miracles to paint.
But Sonia, who broke almost every limb in a near fatal road crash last year, cannot yet even walk.
Her seven-bedroom Colombo Road home is just around the corner, beyond the windows of her Wairarapa Hospital room and the fence outside that seems to her like prison bars mocking her condition.
"I'm trapped. I'm only 44 years old. I should be out there with my children, painting our home, active, doing things. But I'm trapped in this?this broken body. I've spent my life looking after others, and now I feel like I'm being punished."
Two weeks ago Sonia called a taxi to the hospital and wheeled herself to the front doors in a tear-streaked attempt to flee home to husband Robert Boyd and foster children Dallas, 10, and Shannon, 8.
Her pain and utter frustration began when she woke from an induced coma six weeks after almost dying in a head-on crash on the Pahiatua Track road in October.
Family were called and told she would not make it through the night.
Sonia had been riding a brand new motorcycle only two hours off the showroom floor. The road was wet and treacherous. Her bike slid and careered into an oncoming car.
Sonia was slammed into the windscreen before being thrown 3m into the air, crashing back down on the car bonnet and falling unconscious and terribly injured onto the road.
The horrific list of injuries included multiple fractures of almost every limb and serious internal damage.
Sonia was "bolted back together" in a series of painful surgeries in Palmerston North and Auckland and is yet to stay a night in her own home since the terrible "split second that changed my life".
Sonia began fostering children in 1982. In that time she has nurtured the children who have passed through her life, sacrificing herself for those in her care.
The move to Featherston was inspired by her role as a foster parent and to make home more comfortable for her children, she slept in a walk-in wardrobe before meeting and marrying Robert "and realising I couldn't make my new husband sleep in a closet with me".
"I got the house in Featherston because I was fostering and it was at a time when there were a lot of kids dying around Wairarapa.
"I thought there's a lot more we could be doing, so we bought the house in Masterton, " Sonia said.
The couple moved into the two-storey home trailing miracles in their wake but facing more challenges on the way.
Robert was born with spina bifida and walks with the use of crutches and their late foster son Owen was wheelchair-bound before his death at their side in Masterton after 17 years with Sonia.
Nicholas Keenan, her only natural son, wrote My Brother Owen, a small book that has since been reprinted and translated into several other languages.
Robert ? who has beaten a medical prognosis of death by several decades ? now has a mobility scooter fitted with a seat for their foster daughter Shannon, 8, who suffers cerebral palsy and their foster son Dallas, who is autistic but thriving and "really missing Mum".
Sonia laughs and chats easily through the interview, almost casually talking of her near death and torturous recovery.
She was told early it would take up to 18 months before she could return home and her distress heightens when she recalls that all four in her family "including myself" celebrate their birthdays next month.
Tears come quickly though when she talks of her powerlessness and dependence on others.
"For years it's been me that did for others when they couldn't themselves ? I was the boss, I was in charge. Now it's me that can't, and that'll take a lot of getting used to."
Her greatest need today is to paint their home ? a call that her son Nicholas shared with Palmerston North Hospital nurse Mary Morison, who cared for Sonia through her coma though they have never actually spoken.
Ms Morison is to run The Great Wall of China Marathon this month and will be using the 42km event on 19 May to fundraise the painting of the Boyd home through sponsorship.
"She had planned to paint it herself and will now never be able to do this, as with so many other things in her life," Ms Morison said.
"In training for the marathon I have often thought how difficult the challenge is that she faces and this has made me more determined to succeed. Sonia has contributed to many peoples' lives and now deserves support herself."
Sonia is astonished at the fundraising plans and the promise it represents.
"I've been blown away. To get a telephone call from Mary seven months after I was admitted to intensive care telling me what she planned was amazing. I didn't think people would still remember me."
The couple is grateful as well to the Oasis Trust in Masterton that arranged for the building of a small shed to house Mr Boyd's scooter and the building of a new gate and laying of concrete.