I was born 70 years ago as a Spastic birth with both my feet twisted inwards, my mother was told I would never be able to walk.
My mother was devastated until a pioneering doctor called Dr James asked my mother if he could do a relatively unknown procedure which might enable me to walk. Of course she said yes and Dr James completed the first of several operations on my feet. The most important one being to wire together every single bones in my feet and then putting my feet in metal calipers.
I will not bore you with any more medical information but to say I had my last operation at 12 years of age and was able to walk “as normal”.
I was determined to make up for my lost childhood and at 15 I started my first weight training class in my school in the lunch break, I continued to be a personal trainer until ill health at the age of 60 made me stop the weight lifting.
My life was full to the brim what with the personal training, trained to be a masseuse, dog showing, dog judging and also training my local rugby youth team on fitness, incidentally I played my last game of competitive rugby at the age of 50.
So as you can see I was totally engrossed in all things to do with fitness and participation so on August 13th 2018 when I had my stroke my whole world fell apart, how could this have happened to me, I was so fit I did not drink or smoke I was still as strong as a lion, this should not have happened.
I was one of the very lucky stroke survivors in that physically only my speech was affected but the worst effect was on my mental instability, I was experiencing floods of tears one minute and then bursts of rage directed at the one person who was trying to help me, my wife.
Once discharged from the hospital I had no further help, my own doctor to this day has still not seen me to see how I have coped with my stroke. That is until Jason paid me a visit, this was truly helpful for me as I thought that no one else was interested.
In hindsight I should have listed to Jason from the beginning when he asked me to attend the Stroke group meetings. I was dead against going somewhere where everybody could see this miserable shell that once held my spirit.
How wrong was I. My wife eventually persuaded me to go along to see what was being done at the group.
I was amazed at the courage and spirit of all the Group Survivors most of them in a far worst condition than myself. It made me feel quite humble.
Since my first visit I have not missed a session and now with lockdown in place we have found a way of keeping in touch with our Zoom meetings.
My life is once again filled with laughter, even though I still have moments of deep depression, I feel as if I have an extended family and made friends for life.
I love you all, please stay safe and I cannot wait until our meetings start back up again.
Philip Thomas.
