Meningococcal survivor: Mike Rolls releases book Ditch The Dead Weight and signs on with Interplast

THIS Port Melbourne golfer, speaker and author says choosing to chop off his last remaining leg was one of the best things he ever did. Now he’s determined to help others “ditch the dead weight”.

When he was young, Mike Rolls saw amputees as peglegs and pirates.

Growing up in Sandringham, he was fit, carefree and looking forward to a life of footy, golf and whatever else caught his eye.

He rarely thought twice about people with disabilities, and when he did, it was marred by stereotypes.

Now the Port Melbourne athlete and motivational speaker is far too familiar with the glances, stares and insensitive questions.

It’s the first thing people ask him — what happened to your legs?

MIKE ROLLS TO SHARE HIS STORY

GOVERNMENT URGES TEENS TO GET MENINGOCOCCAL VACCINE

And for him, it’s a story he remembers all too well.

“I’d turned 18 in March and in September that year (2001) we decided to go to Hobart for an end-of-season football trip,” he said.

“Maybe because I was a bit run down or potentially hungover, somewhere along the line I breathed in at the wrong time or maybe shared someone’s drink and contracted a very fast acting, very dangerous bacterial meningitis.”

Mike Rolls on the day he was taken home from hospital, six months after contracting Meningococcal.

The Meningococcal Septicaemia infection entered his bloodstream, before the bacteria multiplied rapidly and began to coagulate his blood.

It happened quickly and without compromise.

“All your extremities are affected and your internal organs shut down completely,” Rolls said.
“The only thing left working was my heart.

“I never made the flight home, and mum received a phone call saying, ‘get down to Hobart, Mike has one hour to live’.”

The 35-year-old said it was then “all hell broke loose” — the septicaemia had caused major swelling, he was given a five per cent chance of survival, and he spent five and a half weeks in a coma with bleeding on the brain.

He woke in intense pain, had lost his right leg, contracted a lung infection, and almost suffocated when they first took out the breathing tube in his neck.

He made it to The Alfred in Melbourne on a “puddle jumper”, before going to rehab to start the long journey forward.

Mike Rolls took on the Eureka Tower Run and is pictured with Inspire the Community’s Doug Hartmann. Picture: Valeriu Campan

“I’ll always remember being wheeled into the shower and I had this skinny 47kg body, had lost my right leg below my knee, lost a couple of fingers on my right hand,” he said.

“I just looked at myself and was in awe of how something could be so violent and so horrific.

“It’s probably not a good word, but it’s an impressive thing, how fast it can happen, and I just think how lucky I was.”

Meningococcal is rare — there were only 262 cases in 2016, with a 10 per cent chance of getting seriously ill, losing limbs or dying.

And while Rolls’ other leg had survived the six-month ordeal, half of his left foot had been removed and a skin graft had been attached to the bone.

For eight years, the keen sportsman dressed it every second day, and lived with the agony it caused. It would often break down as his body tried to heal something he knew it never properly could.

The keen golfer has a shorter handicap than before he lost his legs.

“It was affecting my ability to socialise, my confidence levels, my pain levels and ability to have a career rather than just a job,” he said.

And then, one day, he told surgeon Associate Professor Michael Leung to chop it off.

Of course, there were doubts — especially as the day approached — but Rolls now knows it was the best decision of his life, and he’s written a book Ditch The Dead Weight about the lessons he learnt.

“Everyone told me, once the leg is gone, it’s gone but … all I knew was that leg was the bane of my existence and I didn’t even know what was on the other side,” he said. “It was always the process I was scared of, rather than the thought of not having it.

Inspirational double amputee, author and athlete Mike Rolls is on a mission to help others. Picture: Josie Hayden

“And I think that’s the same with any change, whether it’s a bad job, bad relationship or a friendship that’s soured.”

Not only has he written a book, he has mastered a golf handicap of five, speaks to teens at schools, and has partnered up with friend Ben Pettingill, who lost 98 per cent of his eyesight at 16, for their ‘Legless and Blind’ workshops.

The double amputee has also been named Interplast’s newest ambassador and tackled 1800 stairs at the MCG on Sunday to raise money for the charity.

Mike Rolls outside his Port Melbourne home. Picture: Josie Hayden

It’s something close to his heart, with all of his surgeons — Dr Frank Kimble, Professor Wayne Morrison, Dr Chris Coombs and Dr Leung — volunteering for the charity to offer reconstructive surgery to those in the Asia Pacific.

“People are always asking me what I would be doing if I didn’t get sick and I don’t ever really think about that. I don’t think it’s relevant and I don’t care how I caught it,” Rolls said.

All he cares about is planning a family with partner Andrea, helping others build resilience, being there for people at the coalface of serious injuries, and breaking down stigmas about disability.

“I used to think, ‘who is ever going to love me?’ I had all these horrible ideas and visions of what I would look like, because I was ignorant and I’d only seen the old man with no legs and the straps.

“I thought amputees were weird peglegs and pirates... but it’s simply not like that. Disability is nothing to be feared, and we’re just people.

“Understanding that can go a long way to breaking down a few rather large walls for the disabled community.”

MORE NEWS: WOOLWORTHS PLAN UNDER FIRE

LIVE MUSIC MUTED BY RED TAPE