Caught up today with a work colleague I hadn't seen in quite a while.

She said she'd taken a particular interest in what happened to me because her husband had a serious accident a few months ago and is now temporarily in a wheelchair.

She remarked on a radio interview I had done in which I spoke about the difficulties in suddenly going from being on two feet to being in a wheelchair.

My colleague's husband accidently slipped off a balcony and broke the heelbones in both feet. What made things harder was that they'd just had their first baby. He's self-employed and so doesn't enjoy the same company benefits that I did -- and yet the doctors say it might be 18 months before he's able to work.

It got me thinking hard about what happened to me.

Stepping on a landmine wasn't the cleverest thing I've ever done, for sure, but at least once the amputation was over I was able to start the rehab fairly quickly...and six months down the line I'm in good shape.

The future for my friend's hubby is still uncertain.

I was again struck by that unsettling sense of how life can change irrevocably in an instant. An explosion, a fall, a car crash, a stroke -- and things will never be the same again.