World CP games Nottingham
So after much preparation and admittedly some extensive research I went to volunteer as a chiropractor at the Cerebral Palsy (CP) World Games in Nottingham. And it was like nothing that I have ever experienced. I have worked with the GB T36 and T37 sprinters for 4 years down at Bath training village so I have some experience of CP sport. T36 and T37 is a category of CP that means they are able to run with varying mild restrictions to certain limbs. (I won’t go into the details of classification for CP athletes. To say it’s a minefield and extensively complicated in an understatement. I’m not sure anybody understands it!) I naively thought that most of the athletes would be similar to my CP friends that I have come to know down at the track in Bath. Boy was I in for a shock!
The whole games started with an impressive opening ceremony welcoming all of the athletes from around the world. The England team, who were by far the largest, were given the honour of entering the arena last and I was asked to be among them. This was a lovely treat that wasn’t even afforded to me and most of the rest of medical staff at the Olympics. I was struck by the size, scale and professionalism of the games which was far greater than I had expected. After the usual speeches, appropriately a disability drama group came to the central stage and put on an array of impressive performances. One young lady swung and spun from the ceiling from an all too fragile looking trapeze (which was impressive enough for me to feel the need to say to my friend that “I could do that with my eyes closed”). When they let her down from the 10-meter height she was led away by her guide and it became clear that she was blind…“oops” I said as I cringed and got some sharpish looks from those around me.
The next morning, we were up early and I was busying myself finding a place to work and set up shop for the week. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I found myself an abandoned squash court in the Harvey Haddon facility where we were based: perfect. After a few minutes my first patient walked in. A young T36 sprinter. Just what I am used to, so it was an easy start but I had forgotten how much new CP athletes love the style of sports chiropractic treatment. Before too long I was showing him how much speed, power and flexibility he could achieve after even a short treatment with chiropractic. This type of treatment is fantastic for all athletes looking to enhance performance but with CP athletes because they are often naturally so restricted, they seem to get such huge benefits immediately. So it wasn’t long before the word spread and that first day I began to see a queue outside my little squash court treatment room. I quickly began to realise quite how challenging this week would be. To put it into context, if I were to see 5 or 6 new patients in an afternoon back home in Cleve Chiropractic, Mangotsfield by the end of the day I would be feeling a bit fatigued from the extra energy needed. Now at the games, all of the patients were new, they all were athletes who had events in the coming days that they needed to be ready for, they all had varying degrees of CP (some had Multiple Sclerosis as well), some could not communicate properly and needed their helper to affectively translate, some were wheelchair bound, some had multiple histories of major head trauma or just trauma generally and so on. Thus by the time I made it back to the hotel I mused over a pint of their finest ale about how I felt after the 20 new patients on my first day. The answer firstly was on a high, I was exhausted but that was nothing compared to the elation that I felt from helping so many people who really needed my help. It was so satisfying on so many levels. Firstly, many of the athletes had never had chiropractic treatment before and didn’t even realise that it could help them, with that barrier quickly overcome, chiropractic really did help them with regard not only to any injuries but even with some of their CP issues regarding stiffness, aches and strength. The icing on the cake was how delightful it was to get to know this group of people that society often overlooks and treat them as athletes. They were just the same as any other group of sports people that I have looked after in the past, a mixture of excited, nervous, confident and shy, depending of the individual. And that is how all human beings should be treated, as individuals.
So by the third day of working on the athletes as a one-man team doing chiropractic, massage, strapping, taping, stretching and rehab, I was treating virtually all of the guys involved including the athletics team, swim team, coaches, managers and even the helpers and volunteers. Next time I will have to bring a team with me!
On the last day they took me with the whole team to watch the England vs Brazil CP football match. Brazil won by a couple of goals but England played really well and it was closer than expected. It was a lovely finish to a great few days and on my return I watched the results come in and saw our England athletes, my patients achieve medal after medal and personal best after personal best. I couldn’t ask for any more satisfaction in my work week than that. I love my job, I really do.
