An excellent story of achievement from Helena
A story of courage, perseverance and a ‘can-do’ attitude to life
My name is Helena, I am 20 years old and from London. I developed CRPS in my right leg as a result of a kayaking accident in 2013. My CRPS deteriorated very rapidly and suddenly in February 2016 leaving me in a wheelchair.
I missed kayaking a lot and I was bored of being stuck in the house. So I started researching Paralympic sports which is when I came across para or adaptive rowing. So in September I had a taster session at the Royal Docks, I enjoyed it so much that I was introduced to the Royal Dolphins and London Youth Rowing (LYR). The Royal Dolphins are a very small disability rowing group coached by LYR. Over the coming months my condition slowly started to improve and within a few of months of starting rowing I was waking unaided although still in pain.
The Royal Dolphins compete in the Great River Race every year and I was quickly asked if I wanted to join the crew for this years race. I was in two minds my head was saying no my heart was saying yes. After deliberating the idea I said yes.
So on the 9th of September I completed the Great River Race. The race is London’s river marathon and is 21.6miles down the Thames from Millwall Dock to Ham in Surrey.
We started at Greenwich pier where our boat (called a Cutter) was docked. The river was very rough and we were towed by our safety boat to near Millwall Dock, this is where we started our journey, passing a large ship which marked the start line. The bridge count began, there was 29 bridges between us and the finish.
The first big landmark was Tower Bridge and it was amazing to go under such a historic bridge. We rowed at a steady pace and soon enough we were going past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.
Battersea Bridge marked the halfway mark and by this point my CRPS leg was starting to complain. I kept moving my leg trying to get comfortable. I was determined that this was not going to stop me, there was no way I was letting my crew down. Knowing we were halfway the adrenaline started pumping through my body and I had a burst of energy.
This burst of energy got me all the way to Chiswick Bridge, we had been rained on and we were now starting to tire. My CRPS leg was going all kinds of colours, my foot was swelling slightly and my lower back was killing. We kept up the steady pace as we needed to get as close to Ham as we could before the tide changed.
Unfortunately the tide changed a few miles from the finish, the water all of a sudden felt heavy and we we were having to row harder to keep the boat moving. By this point the surroundings were very rural and there were not many people around.
There was a sigh of relief when we eventually went under Richmond Bridge, the last Bridge! We all came together and rowed the best we have ever done, over-taking several crews who had gone out too fast. We could hear the tannoy at the finish party and the gun went, we had finished!
It was the hardest but most amazing thing I have ever done. It has only just sunk in what I achieved. If you are a CRPS sufferer reading this, if you take one thing from it, let it be this, you can do anything with CRPS, you’ve just got to adapt!
You can follow Helena on Twitter here and her blog here.
understand pain 