My Journey to Fitness after Stroke

After my discharge from rehab, I continued to receive physio from the community rehab team, which included both home visits and me visiting the gym at Colman Rehab centre. At the same time, I joined the university Gym and swimming pool. Getting my strength back was vital not only for me but for my family as well. I have seven grandchildren and I want to have fun with them, i.e. play on the floor, play on the trampoline, swim with them, plus by then I knew that I would be carrying the Olympic torch in July of 2012.

Thanks to my rehab team and Karen for the work they did getting me prepared for carrying the Olympic torch and for all the work they did with me, but, after a year I was discharged and I was on my own this is when I began to lose interest in exercising and became very bored with the UEA gym I would make all kinds of excuses to myself not to go even swimming became an effort but I have my daughter Louise to thank for pushing me, I believe I started to lose interest because my gym programme never changed and the people who use the UEA are mainly students doing their own thing and not interested in communicating with anyone as was the staff, but, I must take some responsibility for my own negative attitude at the time.

As I have mentioned before, I suffer from chronic pain in the back when on my feet, I was walking with two sticks or a four-wheeled walker, and my posture was very poor, i.e. I walked with a stoop and zombie style. Acupuncture hadn’t worked to relieve the pain, which was knocking my will to get on my feet, nor would I go on the floor, as I was too weak to drag myself back into my chair. This too depressed me, as my grandchildren would often take my hand and ask me to play with them.

During this time my wife Jeannie and children would be nagging me to go to a chiropractor which I flatly refused to do as I have read that it’s linked to stroke then one day Louise told me that she is seeing a Sports Injury Physiotherapist and he has being successfully working with a Stroke Survivor for two years she also told me that he would be interested in assessing me to see if he could help, again I refused, don’t ask me why, then I realised that I was beginning to like being “disabled” and the attention of being so, crazy I know but this is where I was at that moment so I had to give in and do something about it and stop being an pitiful invalid which I am not.

My first assessment at the Phoenix Gym in Norwich Mark examined me and told me that he believed that my back pain was a symptom from the wastage of my calf, pelvic and bum muscles his remedy is to “wake them up” for the first two sessions Mark would massage my thigh right into the groin and my it was painful really painful but Mark told me that it has to be done otherwise it won’t work, he then introduce me to the gym and concentrated on specific exercises that would wake the muscles up, I could feel the benefit of the treatment almost straight away, I began to walk a bit straighter, but the pain is still there, my strength improved and within two weeks I gained enough confidence to play with my grandchildren on the floor. a

I even found that I had enough strength to drag myself onto my easy chair.