While having my weeks in hospital and wishing I could have my old life back I started to think about what elements were important to me and I could try and bring into my new life as something to build on.

I’ve mentioned in body image (link here) that I used to really enjoy the gym from a physical perspective I looked better, i found it a good way to work out frustrations and an hour a day I could be on my own with headphones on, losing myself in movement and activity without any real thought process needed.

I thought I can’t be the only person disabled, whether temporary or for life who still wanted a gym and some google searching got me a good result. In the next city there was a “disability awareness gym” with modified equipment and specialist PT staff, I made contact and followed up on my discharge too. I was invited to go for a look around and meet the man behind it, Dad drove me and him there on a Friday morning, to a prettty bog standard, well externally anyway, leisure centre, we went in and were told to jump in the lift and meet Stephen up there. We did as instructed, got out of the lift, me with my hiking pole and walked into what I can only describe as a ‘normal’ gym, rows of bikes and treadmills for cardio, lots of resistance machines and then benches and dumbbells with squat racks and smith machines, my heart did a little ping of being frustrated I couldn’t just dive on a bench and chest press but was also happy to be in a familiar environment.

Stephen walked us round the gym floor then to the changing rooms, there was a large disabled shower and toilet space with a shower seat; I had just begun stand up showers again at home and aside from every now and then needing to touch something for balance I had been pretty much fine. But it was nice to know it was an option: the main changing room had lowered height lockers which were huge too,

Stephen explained he had had an. Above knee amputation years beforehand and while in a wheelchair became frustrated at the lack of exercise options available, he pushed his local MP and somehow got this place built to the standard he wanted while in a wheelchair; he demonstrated that on some resistance machines like the chest fly the seats could drop out of the way or rotate away so wheelchairs could get in.

He then took my hiking stick off me and said in the gym I didn’t need it. He then decided he wanted a better idea of what I could do, we did some leg press and hamstring curls which I’d already done before at my rehab centre with a physio. he then put my on a treadmill, on the lowest speed possible, but still I was on a treadmill!

He had asked through the time we were there about my stroke and what had happened, he told me his story and showed me his prosthetic blade.

He then watched me walk down a corridor and said I was using my hip too much on my affected leg to walk and to slow it down and take smaller steps, he’d apparently done the same when he started walking again and still had a bad hip from it,

We then went back in the lift to the ground floor where there was a cafe we had a tea and he explained the pricing and sign up process, actually very very cheap. He did say I might need some adaptive equipment but he had loads and not to purchase anything

We returned on the Monday, this time me and mum having a stresssul drive as she’s not a confident driver and we ended up / bit lost.

Stephen met us again, we went up to the gym, we used most of the resistance equipment one by one and he noted what position I was in and what weight I could do so if I went and he wasn’t there another PT could help me

After doing leg stuff again, Stephen asked if I wanted to try chest, apparently my smile was super wide so we went to the chest press where he showed me sn adaption he’d thought of for me, a leather mitten style glove but the flap that goes over the fingers can be tightened and pulled; using that we could make my hand grip the chest press, pec fly and then lat pull down. It turned out my chest, shoulders and back had retained some muscle usage through this which was incredible to see. After a 15 min cycle he declared the session done.

We took the lift downstairs again and he took my stick off me again and said let’s do the small steps he’d mentioned in Friday : really concentrate on keeping my left foot in a line and only going half a foot length forward each step. We walked to the door where my mum was, who said the walking she had just seen looked the most natural.

I think I’ve found my place of fitness and progression with a great motivator to aid me who has a similar lived experience.