Cerebral Palsy Physio Appointments. They started from early but I recall them from about the age of 5/6 onwards….
So picking up around 1991/2…8am. Another appointment at The General. Missing the start of school. Month after month. Assessment after assessment.
Stretching, pulling this way & that.
Checks. Measurements.
More checks.
This was a monthly (sometimes weekly) occurrence throughout my childhood. A seemingly never-ending route through corridors to a cold basement-like physio room to check my progress. It was relentless, yet rather normal in someways, much as I’ve said before, I grew with cerebral palsy, so in some ways that helped.
As irritating as it would become, it had become a routine, something I instinctively knew I had to get use too. Practices / Exercises put into place to take home with me to work on – long before I was set anything from school – then to come back and see if things were going in the right direction, along with a host of splints on both hand and leg.
However, somewhere lessons from these were emerging, seeds planted to help me later…
This was a literal long haul pursuit of the right growth pattern. The theory being that if anything seemed out of synch, (that being my hand or leg growing in the wrong direction) it could be picked up early, corrected and set back on the right track, month after month.
I know full well, approaching mid life, that had it not been for those early practices and disciplines, there’s a strong chance I’d be in even more greater pain now had it not been for the constant requirement to hammer home the importance of stretching, discipline of wearing often painful splints day and night and ensuring I knew how to work around and with my disability. It was not going away. I had to get used to that.
Looking back, a daily practice had been installed so early, that it built an internal resilience strong enough to withstand my adolescent stubbornness and gift me some lessons to take into adulthood.
So when I get asked questions about the “madness” of my early get ups, or fitness routines & habits, its helped me push on knowing a tweak here and there, to pick up and correct a path I want and need to be on, knowing that it’s a marathon not a sprint and making those corrections to ensure you’re as ready as you can be for what life will throw your way, one that may not give you everything you want straight away, but that pursuit will develop you as a person and provide strength
At some point, I will delve deeper in those early days as writing has helped bring some of those memories bring further meaning in how that set some courses in my life at the time.
Keep tweaking, keep stretching and take care.
DisabilityBodybuilding.com 