Small steps - or big steps?

Stroke rehabilitation is mainly about taking small steps; indeed, one person who frequents a stroke-survivor Facebook group I use wrote a book about their experience and called it 'Small Steps."

Sometimes, though, a small step can feel like a big one - being able to move a finger for the first time; being able to use a knife and fork, to actually take a step (I recall the first time I walked on sticks from my bed in hospital 20 yards down the corridor to the physio's room - it felt like doing the London Marathon)

And sometimes, very rarely, you do something which feels like a giant step. I've done one of those this week.

I was going to use this post to mention the first week of my counselling skills course. But what happened last Tuesday was so important to my recovery that this post will be twice as long as usual - and classroom affairs will have to wait.

Earlier this month, I went as usual to a business networking meeting in Lichfield; As I always do, I made a concerted effort to speak to people in the room I had never met before. It makes them feel welcome and it is good networking practice - you never know what they have to offer you, or you have to offer them.

On this occasion, the only newcomer was a lady who looked as if she had cycled to the meeting (she hadn't) and who was drinking an interesting green concoction. We started up a conversation (having walking sticks IS a great conversation-starter) had a one-to-one chat during the meeting and agreed to get together again afterwards.

In fact, she's a therapist from Derby called Emily Smedley. I was so interested (if a little nonplussed) by what she said that I agreed to travel from Tamworth for an initial consultation with her. We were together for about an hour, during which she poked and prodded (sometimes slightly painfully) around my legs and feet, all the time talking about the importance of restarting the neural pathways in the body.

Now as I said in my last post, I've learnt a lot during the past year about the neural pathways in the brain and how they reconfigure after a stroke, but I knew nothing about how they work in the rest of the body. So it was all a bit 'over my head' as I listened to her talking while she did her work (her worst?).

But at the end of our session, I did know that my legs felt somehow different; more connected to the rest of my body than they had since that awful day in December 2013. Not only did I feel more able to walk without support, but I could do so while holding my head up (I am notorious for staring at the floor while I walk - always have been) and while walking straight. I have been able to get about sans sticks for a while, but only indoors where I could grab on to something if I became unsteady; outdoors, I have been too nervous. But now, I felt that I could.

When I got back to Tamworth, I tried to walk without my sticks. And not only did I find that I could, but that I could sustain it. Gathering confidence, I picked up my sticks, put them under my arm and walked from Tamworth railway station to Warrillow Towers (which Mrs W tells me is an eight-minute walk at normal speed) without using them, or without feeling unsteady.

I did that walk again on Wednesday morning and almost (almost!!!) broke out into a run as I went to catch a train that afternoon. I refuse to get carried away (sorry) and I've arranged to meet Emily again next week for more poking and prodding. She feels as if we've only just started. I feel as if a big hurdle has been overcome (sorry again!).

Emily Smedley can be contacted via breathebalancebeactivated.com and on 07813 798643.