Julie Milne - Pegasus Cyclist - sent me this note :-
It’s been a long time. I hope you are doing well.
You might have heard that I had a back operation a couple of years ago. I’ve recovered well now but when I was waiting for this operation my right side which was my stroke side really stiffened up and I lost so much balance that I ended up walking with a stick.
To cut a long story short after this operation I went to physio at Bruce Milne’s every two weeks for two years so now I’ve got limited movement back in my shoulder but if I work at it there is no pain when riding my bike. A huge first.
I am now working on a trip-On the 12th February 2018, to raise the profile of strokes asI am starting to improve again. I want to get that point across to stroke survivors that had their stroke years ago and feel stuck. Maybe improvement hasn’t happened for a while and maybe they feel that it’s been so long that they feel it’s not going to happen. I know that this improvement can happen, not only for individual stroke survivors but give their families hope also. I also have the support of the Stroke Foundation.
I basically want to give people with stroke hope, that no matter where you start or restart, if you believe in yourself enough improvement can be made.
Therefore I am going to bike from Bluff then up on the top of the North Island. I’ve got a bog going via Facebook
Please have a look https://www.facebook.com/Stroke-awareness-105116083308258/?skip_nax_wizard=true
I started this blog mid-November last year with the intention of telling my story from my two strokes (at age six ) - informing people of the changes that have happened to me while training for this ride. Two years ago I was terrified of riding as I had no balance so I started to walk. It is amazing what you can do just by taking one small step at a time.
I was wondering if you could place a link from the Pegasus site to this blog. Hopefully people will be interested to know that cycling has improved my mobility and changed my life for the better.