My daughter didn't know me: The heartbreaking chapters of Chris Lawrence's diary

From an Auckland hospital bed 19 months ago, an unrecognisable Chris Lawrence began logging the agonising details of his 100-day recovery following one of the most horrific injuries in the history of rugby league.

"I thought, 'nah, this is it, I don’t wan’t to do this any more'," Lawrence wrote. "I don’t want to put my family through this every time I get injured or get surgery. I can't keep doing this to them. For the first 10 to 15 minutes, all I was thinking was 'this is it, I won’t play again'."Waiting for his wife Kathryn to land in New Zealand, Lawrence was struggling with blurry and double vision.

"I decided not to send the photo to Kathryn in case she got upset by seeing me, I didn’t want her being stressed on the flight. However, before Kathryn got on the plane I spoke to her and warned her that she would get a shock once she saw me, that I was nearly unrecognisable. When she walked into the room by herself, as soon as she saw me she started crying. It made me really upset seeing her like that as I did not want her to have to see me looking like that or in pain.

Chris Lawrence was heartbroken when he returned home from New Zealand and his daughter Emme didn't recognise him."She then looked up at me and wasn’t really sure who I was. Eventually she threw her arms up. It was great to pick her up and hug her after being away for so long. She knew something wasn’t right because she just stared at my face and played with my beard. I don't think she thought it was me.

Wests Tigers players celebrate after Robbie Farah's match-sealing try in the opening round of the 2019 season, which Lawrence watched from home."As happy as I was that we were going to get the win, seeing all the boys running in and congratulating Robbie really made me jealous. It's what you play footy for, celebrating the triumphs with your teammates who you work so hard with all pre-season. I really felt like I was missing out, like I should have been there in that moment.

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