Deans' stroke musings: What Works For Me: 'Running Gives Me Freedom After Doctors Said I'd Never Walk Again'

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

What Works For Me: 'Running Gives Me Freedom After Doctors Said I'd Never Walk Again'

Does your doctor even allow you a goal of running? Or has your doctor dumbed down your goals to walking with a cane? Does s/he even know of and recommend the book, 'Teaching Me to Run' by Tommye-K. Mayer?
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/what-works-for-me-stroke-survivor-running_uk_5ac49da6e4b093a1eb208cd7

Nine years after a debilitating stroke, Rachel Farrant finds running - whether a short-distance park run or this year's London Marathon - helps remind her how far she's come.

By Natasha Hinde

In ‘What Works For Me’ - a new series of articles considering how we can find balance in our lives - we talk to people about their self-care strategies. If you’d like to contribute your story, email us.

When Rachel Farrant tightens her trainers and races through her local park, the sense of freedom lifts her. “I really like the nature - the trees, the horses,” she says. “I’m running through the woods and it’s all enclosed, and then suddenly I come out into this wide open space and I feel like I’m flying. It’s the best.”

While a lot of people take the ability to run and the liberty that comes with it for granted, Farrant, 27, is very aware of how lucky she is to be able to do such things. At the age of 18 she suffered a stroke which left her unable to see, walk or feed herself. The university student forgot everything about her life, including who her parents were, and doctors said she probably wouldn’t walk or study again.

Fast forward nine years and Farrant, from Brentwood, Essex, has defied the odds: she’s made a full recovery, is back at university and is set to run the London Marathon this year, which will be her second marathon event.

While short-distance park runs are her forte, 26-mile marathons are a powerful reminder to herself of how far she’s come. “When you’ve been unable to go out or just walk around when you want to, to then be able to go running, the sense of freedom is amazing,” she says. “You’re just absolutely free.”