"Physio to recover from being unable to walk"

I was hospitalised in December 2024 with agonising pain from a condition called Caude Equina (my spinal nerve rubbing on the bone). Since I was already suffering from Parkinson's Disease, this was a double whammy. I came home in January 2025 and was unable to walk. I could only get around in a wheelchair pushed by me husband.

Laetitia started work with me at that point. She got me doing things that for most fit people are really simple but for me were a real challenge. I had to stand at my kitchen sink for 30 seconds, bend and straighten my knees, rise on to my toes as well as a number of other exercises. She set me targets to work towards and then came back every fortnight later to check how I was doing and to increase the challenges she was giving me. 

Equipment arrived to support my progress. We started with a Mo Lift, a transfer board for getting in and out of cars and a Commode. Over time, this has been supplemented with a perching stool, a Zimmer frame, a step to work on climbing stairs and, most recently, handholds at our back door and an additional bannister on our stairs.

Bit by bit with Laetitia's support I improved. Kuldeep joined up in April and started to work with me every week. I could do the standing exercises reasonably well by that point and was able to walk very short distances using the Zimmer. Then I found I could walk the length of the house using a rollator and after that I could use it to walk in the garden. I could also get in and out of our car unaided.

So now, while I still move around in a wheelchair quite a bit, I can transfer myself out of it into chairs and our sofa. I can walk a bit holding my husband's hand and today, for the first time since November last year, I walked up our stairs unaided.

I am more confident in myself and what I can do and gaining greater independence as I go along. I know I can never get back to what I was able to do before my two conditions worsened, but I haven't found my ceiling yet and that is down to the start that Laetitia and Kuldeep have given me.

Thanks to both of you and all the others in the NHS who you involved to help me get to where I am now.