Is It Possible for a Disable Person to Walk Again and Why

At the age of ten, Lara Masters was struck down by a rare spinal disorder - arterial venal malformation.

She made a full recovery but at 14 was struck down again and has spent much of the past 14 years in a wheelchair. Doctors said her condition would continue to deteriorate.

Four months ago, Lara, 28, the daughter of Debbie Moore, founder of Pineapple Dance Studios, started treatment with a new therapist.

Now, incredibly, she is walking. This is the emotional story of her journey to recovery.

Last week, I was able to stand up and hug my mum for the first time in six years. She burst into tears - her beautiful, wheelchair-bound daughter was walking again. It was an incredibly emotional moment.

It's a dream come true - I have battled so long and so hard to get here. Over the years, there have been moments when I've lost all hope. I've felt suicidal and have even been admitted to a clinic for depression.

I think I found being disabled particularly hard because, until the age of ten, I'd been so healthy. Then, quite suddenly, I'd been struck down with excruciating pain in my shoulders.

A couple of days later, I started losing movement and sensation in my left arm and leg.

Doctors carried out an exploratory operation and found a spinal haemorrhage. They diagnosed a rare disease called Arterial Venal Malformation (AVM).

It seemed a faulty artery at the top of my spine had ruptured, causing damage to the spinal cord and nerves.

My mother spent a lot of her energy and fortune exploring every avenue - both conventional and alternative - but no doctor could explain why my condition continued to deteriorate.

By the age of 24, I was almost completely paralysed. I was told there was nothing more doctors could do for me.

Then, last September, I recieved a letter from a man called Hratch Ogali, who said he was a Mind Instructor. He'd read my story in a magazine and decided to contact me.

I didn't contact him until February this year, when I was feeling particularly low. He said he'd come round to my house straight away.

Hratch describes himself as a little man from Armenia - but to me he seemed the answer to my prayers.

He explained the philosophy behind Mind Instruction is simple: the mind controls the body and our emotional responses.

Emotions can have a constructive or destructive effect on our physical body, depending how we reach to them. By learning to deal with emotional stress and by telling my mind what I want it to do, I would start to get movement back, he said.

Hratch said that I was like a deflated balloon, with no energy. Because everyone treated me as though I was paralysed, cared for me and did everything for me, they'd projected onto me a weak energy that was making me lazier and lazier. I was giving up.

What he said rang true. He also said he would project strength onto me. I determined to let him.

Although thinking postively sounds like a simple concept, it was a lot more difficult

than I expected.

I worked with Hratch for six hours, six days a week. While we talked, he made observations about what was blocking my emotions.

For example, he believed that I resented my body because it had let me down, and because of that I'd become disconnected from it. Instead of attending to my own needs, I'd shifted my focus away from myself and started involving myself in other people's lives and problems.

If I ever wanted to walk again, he said, I had to become reattached to my body and give it the focus and energy that would get me up and walking.

Hratch also observed that my breaths were very shallow and that I wasn't allowing oxygen to breathe life into my body.

He explained that without breathing properly, the blood vessels in my paralysed arms couldn't get a sufficient blood supply. So we did deep breathing exercises.

A month later, I made the decision to cut out all of the people in my life except my partner Yul, whom I live with, and my PA Shannon.

For Hratch's Mind Therapy to really take off, you have to make it a lifestyle. As it was, I'd do my three hours with him and then I'd be on the phone to all my friends, see my mum and completely shut off from the work we'd done.

Hratch agreed with my decision. He felt I gave my friends too much of my time and that a break would be good.

I wrote a letter to my friends and family - even Mum - saying that I would not be having any contact with them for six months. I explained that I loved them but that I was unhappy and felt I was spending too much of my energy on everyone else.

I noticed the difference after just a few days. I hadn't realised how much energy I'd given to my friends and how much of a sense of reponsibility I felt for all of them.

I also realised how much I had been neglecting myself. I felt freer and began to really focus on changing myself.

Hratch continued coming to my house for five or six hours of work on thought patterns and breathing - getting my brain back to the instinct of walking, rather than having to think about it.

Gradually, I got stronger, and in April I walked for the first time. I could only manage two steps, with two people supporting me, but after a few weeks I was walking with just a little support from someone holding my right arm.

My left arm even started to move by my side as I walked. I couldn't believe it. I was over the moon.

We still work six days a week. Although I still need help, every day my walking is stronger and my posture is better. It's exhausting, both physically and mentally - but it's worth all the effort.

I used to dream about walking again, and Mum always told me that one day I would . Now, finally, it seems like that day has arrived.

For more information about Hratch Ogali, contact The Ability Centre, 020 79357115, info@mindinstructor.com.

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Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-133149/After-14-years-stuck-wheelchair-Ive-learnt-walk-again.html

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