Triumph in battle for independence (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

Triumph in battle for independence

3:35pm Monday 10th November 2003

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THE day Sandy Eifion-Jones gave birth should have been the happiest of her life, but she went to bed that night feeling strange and awoke the following morning unable to move.

When introduced to this bright, positive woman, it is hard to imagine she spent ten house-bound years in bleak, dark despair. "It’s impossible to really describe those years, they have all rolled into one big black hole. Everyday felt endless, like this dark tunnel with no light at the end."

Sandy, now 46, was 32 years old when she gave birth to her daughter and the doctors could give no explanation for the sudden inability to move her muscles.

"I felt funny but everyone said it was just a post-natal thing and I’d be fine. But I went to bed that night and knew something was wrong. When I awoke I couldn’t get out of bed.

"All the doctors could say was that I had developed a severe muscle weakness and when my daughter was about two years old, I remember a doctor sitting on my bed and saying there was absolutely nothing they could do for me."

As she has not actually suffered paralysis - inability to move or feel from a damaged nervous system - Sandy struggles to explain her condition: "From the start, I knew in the back of my mind I wasn’t totally paralysed. I could feel there was the possibility of moving - but I just couldn’t. It was like all my strength had gone."

The years that followed were "a horror story". Jonathan, Sandy’s husband, would photocopy books for her because she could not even turn the pages. Full-time care was needed for herself and her daughter Sabrina.

Prior to giving birth Sandy had been extremely active; she ran her own beauty salon and was a keen swimmer.

At school she had been captain of the swimming team and later competed at county level for Warwickshire.

She and her husband had moved to Twickenham in the early 1980s and, when tragedy hit, they lacked a strong support network around them: "We’d left all our friends and family in the Midlands and hadn’t been here long enough to make many new friends. So although I’ve always had support of my immediate family, we were really on our own at first."

Sandy eventually sought help from a homeopath and this decision changed her life.

"But it didn’t happen overnight, it was a long, slow struggle. I was so ill and every bit of progress was so small that it was almost invisible. One day I’d feel I was getting somewhere, then be right back again the next.

"When you’re still always bedridden it’s hard to feel like you’re progressing. But I totally believed in her [the homeopath]."

There was much opposition to this alternative practice, but Sandy felt adamant it was the right choice. She did not want to be in hospital, away from her daughter, and traditional doctors had admitted they had no solutions.

"Homeopathy is a totally different approach to healing," explains Sandy. "It doesn’t just look at your body, it studies everything about your life, your family, your work, everything. It’s a deep healing process and I’ve never had to take any drugs."

Treatment involves taking one tiny sugared pill, sometimes as infrequently as every six months.

Sandy attempted to explain how it works: "It’s complex, but basically the pill doesn’t actually do the healing - which is why you don’t need to take it very often. It kick starts your body, giving you the energy to heal it.

“Something has stopped working and the homeopath creates a natural remedy to help you overcome the problem. But it takes determination and positive emotions."

Over the last four years, Sandy has made dramatic developments: "The major turning point was being able to dress myself. Being so dependant on people for every little thing really strips you of dignity."

Not only did she progress to getting out of bed and leaving the house, she can now swim and horse-ride.

"I’ve resigned myself to probably always needing a wheelchair, but it’s incredible how far I have come. I’m now working as a freelance feature writer and wheelchair model."

A year ago Sandy decided to try a sporting activity: "Sport is part of people’s everyday lives and I wanted it to be part of mine again. Swimming has always been in my blood - I was doing 100 lengths a week at Teddington pool before I gave birth - so it was the natural choice.

"I swim once a week at the moment and have built up to 14 lengths of breast stroke with a rubber tyre.

“I’m not quite back to 100 lengths of butterfly stroke! But it’s amazing considering how I was a few years ago.

"I now like to think it’s possible for me to do anything I did before, but just slower or in a slightly different way."

After a 15 year absence from Teddington Pool and Fitness Centre, Sandy feels very nostalgic to be back and can not praise the pool enough. "The staff are so welcoming and they’re great with disabilities.

“In a wheelchair you can feel very vulnerable and frightened; you can feel isolated and alien from the rest of society. I want people to know that at Teddington Pool there’s a real personal touch and such a positive atmosphere. I feel like I’m a part of the fun and not viewed as a nuisance.

"There are others in that black despair that I went through and I know how easy it is to look negatively at everything. Any disability is hard to overcome, but I want to emphasise to everybody that they can lead a fulfilling life. It’s about using positive feelings to push through barriers of fears.

"I want to say to people: ‘come to Teddington Pool’ - even if you can just dip yourself in the water it’s a start. We have this pool in our community and it’s here to be used."

The centre now has a state of the art hydrotherapy pool for supported exercise as part of a rehabilitation programme. The temperature is higher than the normal leisure pool and accessible to all disabled users.

Hydrotherapy works by soothing the body with heat; the immune system is stimulated which invigorates the circulation and digestion, encouraging blood flow and lessening pain sensitivity.

The hydrotherapy pool is very beneficial to Sandy. Although her condition is vastly improved - even curling a toe used to be painful - she still suffers a great deal. When offering my hand at our meeting, she requested I not grasp too tightly, as this would cause pain.

"I hope to achieve a lot more in the future," she says. "It’s healthy to have ambition. But you have to be realistic too and not get your hopes up too much."

But she has already achieved so much: "I feel rejuvenated. It’s as if all that negative energy was enclosed over ten years and now I’ve redirected it, transformed it into positivity. Now I think I lead a more fulfilling life than many people on their feet do."

Sandy does not like the term ‘disabled’. "I have lots of ability, not disability. And I don’t think people ‘end up in a wheelchair’, that’s such a negative phrase. I am a wheelchair user.

"Society’s attitude still needs to change. I want people to see me, not the wheelchair. In supermarkets, I get strangers calling me ‘dear’ and patting me on the shoulder; I’m an intelligent individual but now spoken to like an idiot."

According to Sandy, people often assume that everyone in a wheelchair needs to be pitied. But she stresses: "I have never met a wheelchair user who is depressed or wants sympathy. There are many who are a lot more impaired than I am but still get out and about and lead fulfilling lives."

Being struck by such a debilitating condition overnight has made Sandy realise how fragile the human body is: "It’s incredible that one minor thing can go wrong and create such a major crisis."

Meeting Sandy Eifion-Jones has been a privilege and an inspiration. I hope I have now learnt to always see the person first and not the wheelchair.

I hope to always remember that life really is a precious thing, never to be taken for granted and to be utilised to its utmost potential.

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