It has been truly amazing to work with Sarah. She came to me in Jan 2016. She was in a place of massive frustration of where to go. The route that she had found available to her was constantly giving her the excuse that of course she was finding balance difficult – she had MS (Multiple Sclerosis – Click here to find out more about MS)
We decided to take the approach that Sarah was a client who had essentially had bed rest for a number of years and so had lost strength. She had had hip surgery to add to the complications and had not been given proper rehabilitation because there was always a concern of her MS – A confusion as to what was caused by the MS and what was from the surgery. We have worked together with regular training sessions often twice a week to regain strength and to rewire the neurology and firing order of her muscles. We have broken down every day moves into tiny bite sized pieces and have then built it all back up again. In 2016 Sarah would use a wheel chair if any sort of distance was to be covered. Now … I don’t think she even knows where her wheel chair is. We have gone back to two sticks to encourage her to be straighter and to stand tall and weight bear more evenly. She was getting all sorts of aches and pains in her lower back and we don’t seem to get that any more. Her neck has grumbled a bit lately, but that is something we are working on because she is still not functioning quite straight enough and is still not as mobile in rotation and as stable in her hip as we would like.
I am sharing a video here of her progress over the last few years. If you look at the walking style you will see the improvement.
Diseases like MS are not to be bowed down to. We need to fight and stay strong physically and mentally. Sarah’s strength is herself, and her resilience and her determination to be constantly improving. She practices and practices what we work on – she is the one who does all the work I am just the guide.
