Retired NHS hero sees abilities, not disabilities, thanks to this National Lottery-funded gym
BEING diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t hold Kathy Porter back. This is someone who has reached the top of South Africa’s Table Mountain in her wheelchair.
“My husband Andrew and I realised putting mountain bike wheels on the chair makes it much easier to get around in,” says Kathy, 61, from Cheshire.
“I’ve been up the Palatine Hill in Rome too, with help from Andrew on some of the pushing.”
Kathy was diagnosed with MS in her late 30s. She had several symptoms including optic neuritis, a blurring in her eyes, and an area under her left breastbone which was numb to the touch.
“I was an NHS musculoskeletal physio, dealing with muscles, bones and soft tissues, so I’d pretty much worked out what was wrong,” Kathy remembers.
“The final confirmation was an MRI scan showing lesions in my lower neck and brain.”
Kathy slowly came to terms with the diagnosis, continuing to work and taking her time before telling the kids – Josh and Hannah, now 31 and 29.
“I accepted straight away that MS is a progressively deteriorating condition so my objective was – and still is – to try and minimise the deterioration,” Kathy says.
“Work was helpful there – I was demonstrating to patients exercises that also had benefits for me.”
However, aged 53, Kathy decided it was time to retire.
“I was getting really tired,” she says. “When I first stopped working, I was okay – out walking our much-missed chocolate lab Bryn.
“But I knew I had to do more. I wanted to join a gym but I lacked confidence to walk in with my stick.
“So Andrew googled gyms for people with neurological conditions and we were both gobsmacked to discover there was one just 15 minutes’ drive away. What a stroke of luck!”
That gym was Chester’s Neuro Therapy Centre, a charity offering people with neurological conditions like MS support with their physical and mental health. Kathy got a letter from her GP and made an appointment to visit.
“Walking in was like a warm embrace – people were so friendly,” she says. “A neurologically trained physio assessed me and we talked about what the centre could offer.
“I’ve been going twice weekly ever since – for an hour in the gym, with a therapy assistant, and then a Pilates class tailored to everybody’s abilities.”
Membership is peanuts – less than £30 a year with donations welcomed for classes. Andrew has run sponsored races and Kathy baked cakes for fairs to raise money for the charity.
And the centre benefits from National Lottery funding – it’s just been awarded £290,000 to support its Access to Exercise and Wellbeing programme, allowing it to offer emotional support and counselling to members and expand its range of exercise classes.
National Lottery players support health and wellbeing projects near you, like the Neuro Therapy Centre, delivering life-enhancing therapies to people like Kathy.
The National Lottery is also proud to sponsor The Sun’s Who Cares Wins awards, which shine a light on Britain’s healthcare heroes, from frontline NHS staff to ordinary people who go above and beyond.
National Lottery funds helped the centre buy a Functional Electrical Stimulation cycle, costing over £20,000, on which Kathy has just finished a six-week course.
“It’s the technology of the future and we’re helping with a research project into its benefits,” she says.
“It took a bit of getting used to – electrodes are placed on my legs and, as I cycle, there’s a strong electric current, like a pulse, going through them, contracting and stimulating the muscles. I can feel it working.”
Kathy often uses a wheelchair now but she credits the centre with her strong arms and continued quality of life.
And, she says, the benefits of regular exercise were really brought home to her during the Covid lockdowns.
“I noticed I was losing condition and flexibility in my daily activities,” she says. “Obviously I’m like anybody attending a gym – sometimes I have to force myself to go.
“But as soon as I walk through the door I’m laughing and chatting and having a cup of tea in the café. Time flies.”
Now, when newcomers arrive – a bit tentative, like Kathy was when she first walked through the doors – she welcomes them, extolling the centre’s virtues.
“The Neuro Therapy Centre keeps me focused on my abilities, not my disabilities,” she says. “It changes lives.”
The centre’s motto, and what it’s helping Kathy and hundreds like her achieve, is a future after diagnosis. And that’s a bright future where, as Kathy proves, any mountain can be climbed.
