SCI Care: What Really Matters
SCI Care: What Really Matters
Challenges and Triumphs: Robert Buren in conversation with ISCoS 2023 Keynote speaker Claire Lomas MBE
Claire Lomas MBE welcomed over 900 participants to the recent 62nd ISCoS meeting in Edinburgh. She shared her moving story from her life before a spinal cord injury to the difficulties she faced immediately after to the triumphs she enjoys since she grieved the life she lost and accepted the life she now has, ultimately changing her future. In this episode. Rober Buren shares his own challenges and triumphs as Canada's first paraplegic Iron Man and continues the conversation with Claire.
We hope you enjoy listening.
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The SCI Care: What Really Matters podcast aims to provide valuable insights and the most up-to-date information for those providing care to people with spinal cord injury (SCI) worldwide. The vision of the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS) is to "facilitate healthy and inclusive lives for people with spinal cord injury or dysfunction globally".
Contact us directly with any questions or comments at iscos@associationsltd.co.uk
Welcome to our bonus episode of SCI Care. What really matters the Edinburgh Conversations. I am Dr Ali Jumous, the President of the International Spine Court Society. You are about to hear a selection of interviews recorded live in Edinburgh during the course of the 60 seconds ESCO scientific meeting. Each bonus track will have discussions with speakers, delegates, partners, ESCO's committee chairs and teams attending the ESCO's 2023. Join us to find out what the hot topics of the day are within SCI Care. We hope you enjoy listening.
Speaker 2:Alright, so nice to meet you. My name is Robert Peer and I'm from Canada. I'm here as part of a grant winner for the SRI. It's really nice to meet you and I enjoyed your talk today.
Speaker 3:Thank you. It's brilliant to join everyone and I've looked up your story and it's pretty impressive. So no thanks. A lot in common.
Speaker 2:I mean, you were in extreme sports, you were an inventor.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's kind of the triathlon of the horse world?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, that's how I had my accident. I was riding horses and just reached the top level in my sport and it was my passion. It left a massive gap in my life, a hard one to fill, and I tried riding again. But when you've been doing it in the way, I did it at the highest levels, going back to the lowest of levels which was really all I was capable of. I think nothing made me feel more disabled, so I had to try and find new things, and that's what I've done.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's been my experience as well. So when you look at the new things, what's giving you that rush of adrenaline as much as the riding did?
Speaker 3:I never thought I'd get anything that got anywhere close. But actually I have, but in a different way, because when I was doing the horses it was like I had clear plans of where I wanted to go for the future and it represented Great Britain if I could and got the right horse and things like that. What I do now is like lots of different things. I'm a jack of all trades master of none.
Speaker 3:So I've found lots of different things, but the main reason is because I like fundraising, so that's my goal is to find things that I can do to push myself out my comfort zone whilst raising money to help your fallacies.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, and you've raised a lot of money, I believe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and getting close to a million pounds. I've done it through it. The kind of thing that gave me the platform to then go on was walking the London marathon in a barnick suit, so an exoskeleton, and it took me 17 days. It was a hard work mentally and physically, but it was an incredible feeling to reach the finish line. But it wasn't just about the walking.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:You know, my life had moved on. I've got two daughters. I met my husband a year after my accident and it was more about finding the ways of raising money, and that's what I did with the suit, and I did quite a few events. Okay, I'll see you in the next video on the 11 September. Thanks everyone, but then, since then, I've found other things to do.
Speaker 2:Moving on. Yeah, hand cycling is another thing. Yeah, exactly, so I started hand cycling again.
Speaker 3:You know, not like those guys racing and amazing. I do it in a way that I hand cycle 400 miles on parts of England and visited schools, so it's really that was again my goal and I hand cycle most days when I'm at home. I'm out there because it's fresh air and exercise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm starting one of the best forums of exercise. Have you tried adaptive mountain biking?
Speaker 3:So now I haven't done that.
Speaker 2:No, I imagine that is a adrenaline sport yeah in Canada we did downhill racing.
Speaker 3:I've seen videos of it and yeah, I'm better.
Speaker 2:I've been looking at all your videos up now.
Speaker 3:See what you've been up to.
Speaker 2:Just like the riding right, the adaptive mountain bike gets you back on the forest. It's that one piece of equipment that lets you go back to where you used to be Exactly and what you loved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's a pretty parallel I found the skiing. I mono ski and took me a while to learn. I found it would be in a T4, complete injury, my balance, yeah, basically. But I stuck with that and that gave me immense freedom. But also it was more than that. I'm just a sport. I get to sit with my family. I get to sit with my mum and dad, who love the skiing, as well as my children so three generations out there enjoying the slopes.
Speaker 2:Okay, is there a lot of skiing around here?
Speaker 3:No, not yet. There was some in Scotland, abinmore, but we tend to go over to France, harski and French. Rostria.
Speaker 2:Okay, good for you, because that's a big commitment too. The chair is a lot of work. The traversing, getting on the upper lifts, that's a tough sport. It's a master? Yeah, no, exactly, especially if you're a high level, it's like you're sitting on a ball right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You've got all this the thing is what's hardest with.
Speaker 3:Skiing is like riding the bike or anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Going slow is the hardest, because of the balance.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Speed helps keep you upright, and yet when you're learning it, you're not quite ready to go fast. So learning it is tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be good if you stuck it out. Now you can enjoy it with everybody.
Speaker 3:Oh, amazing and like when I got married. That was in 2010. I went to my Hendo I went with, like friends I had for my event in life. And you're no different, you're not disadvantaged on the slope. You can ski with them somewhat faster, somewhat slower, you know, I was about mid-level. It's such a great thing to be able to do the sport with people. I would have done before maxed them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really special. That's good when you look at from your injury to today. You've accomplished so much. What do you think is the most difficult thing you've done?
Speaker 3:Getting out of bed when I had no reason to get up and everything was taken off me. My career as a chiropractor yeah, the sport that I love, my relationship fell apart. What's the have to get up for? And getting through those days has been the biggest challenge. In terms of the sports and the fundraising challenges. They're also different. I've just qualified as a pilot. I've loved doing that and then riding motorbikes out on track days again. That's new to me. And yeah, they're all different. Like London marathon soup, it's kind of resilient. Coming out every day and Putting in immense effort to go so slowly. It was frustrating. And then the other things are like tested my bravery and In other ways, and actually the motorbiking which you know about. Yeah, I find it really physically tiring, I think, because I have don't have any core strength, so everything goes through my arms and my neck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's tough, you find it. Yeah, I used to race motorcycles, yeah, and so getting back on good in this track and you go from 250 kilometers to nothing. Yeah, it's, everything is on the rest exactly yeah it's all trying to balance the bike, to try to steer the bike and then control everything. It's incredibly taxing. Yeah, but you're right going slow is the hardest part.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly yeah. So when you're learning again, yeah when I was on the motorbike it was launching, so I can't believe you learn After your injury. It wasn't a bit daunting just knowing you can't put your legs down there. Bit of Velcro on my knee. Yeah, yeah and sure being like someone was down behind the bike and I pull off and often I get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard and that was the hardest bit without the speed and they told me early on speed keeps you up right, but actually you are. Once you're out on the track I feel part of the bike. It's an incredible feeling, but the learning was a bit. That's impressive, I got there in the end and got my race license, I could go on the track, yeah that's really really great.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because you said you know the hardest thing you did was get out of bed of those days that were the darkest, right, you didn't say it's you know, learning to live without the legs. It's like all those SCI things, yeah yeah. It's something which applies to everybody. Yeah and so was there one trigger that you said you know I'm getting out of bed for this reason today, or what was it that?
Speaker 3:No, you obviously got lots to come to terms with. Like he said, you have a spinal injury, that's lose the use of your legs, the bowel and bladder, all those things. I think the biggest thing is the mental aspect to the injury. Yeah, how you get around, how you get your confidence back, and you know I felt embarrassed and all those things. And I think in those early days just getting out of bed for me, I did the rehab. So that's why I discharged myself from the hospital because I wasn't getting much rehab. It gave me something to focus on.
Speaker 3:It wasn't the fact that I thought, if I do this, I'm definitely gonna walk. I knew my injury was severe, right, but I knew that it had to help keep me fit and healthy and prevent pressure soles and circulation problems and stuff like that. So I didn't get anything back neurologically but it has kept me fit and healthy. So it felt like the right choice. But it was that thing that, even though I really didn't feel like it, I'd make myself go up out of bed and do something. And you always feel better for doing something than nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I once heard it said don't wait to be motivated to do something. Do something and then the motivation will come. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And it's something that I feel grateful, that I learned from having horses. Yeah, because with horses they need doing every day of the year, even Christmas day. You can't say you can't be motivated.
Speaker 2:Take a day off?
Speaker 3:Yeah, isn't it? It wasn't an option as a child, it was my commitment and it taught me discipline. And it was exactly the same in the early days after my accident. Yeah, I really didn't feel like doing stuff and that discipline would kick in. I'd get up and make myself, and that's led me on to doing more exciting things after years on.
Speaker 2:Good for you, impressive. So what's next for you? What are your goals?
Speaker 3:Let's try and get good at something.
Speaker 2:Do all these things.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so I'm a newly qualified pilot, so I'm going to build up my experience, fly to different airfields and just building that and find ways of raising money. So I've done quite a few things. Actually, my day chair, I pushed a London marathon dressed in full motorcycling gear and that was hard work to be, about six hours, 40, 17 days, though.
Speaker 3:So, getting quicker and then I've done other things out of the great North Run in the wheelchair, not racing chair, just do it as a fundraiser, get a group of people to raise money. So that's the way, finding different things that I can do to help keep funding the amazing research.
Speaker 2:That's really good, awesome. So nice to meet you.
Speaker 3:Oh no, and you Congratulations. Good luck with everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Hopefully we're a puzzle across the year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, absolutely Thanks very much Thanks.
Speaker 1:We hope you have enjoyed listening to our bonus collection of Edinburgh conversation from Escors 2023. As always, you can listen to these episodes and all episodes from the podcast provider of your choice. You have any questions or suggestions? We would love to hear from you. Email them to admin at escorsorguk. Escors also invites you to the 63rd Escors Scientific Anyone Meeting from the 22nd to the 25th of September 2024. To save the date and more details will follow on the 2024 themes submitting an abstract and early birth registration. Thank you for listening.