 Welcome to Pookie Ponders, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. I'm Dr. Pookie Nightsmith and I'm your host. Today I'm in conversation with Rachel Morris MBE, who is a British Paralympic sportswoman who's won Paralympic gold medals in both cycling and rowing. She originally dreamed of running in the Olympics, but she lost both her legs to complex regional pain syndrome as a teenager. In addition to her sporting prowess, Rachel also works with children with special educational needs and disabilities, inspiring them and empowering them to see strength as well as challenge in their lives. She's an all-round brilliant person who also happens to be my very good friend, so I was super excited to invite her onto the podcast. In today's episode, I posed the question, what do people see first, your Paralympic gold or your disability? Could you start off by introducing yourself please, Rachel? Hello, yeah, hi, I'm Rachel and I am a Paralympic champion in two sports, so in rowing and cycling and I do lots of other different things, tying in sports and now, yeah, being an athlete still and looking towards the future when I retire and go into a new phase in my life. And the question that I kind of suggested for today's episode was when people see you, do they first see your Paralympic gold or your disability? And I kind of, first of all, I wondered what you thought about that as a question. Yeah, I was really interested actually that that's where you started from in those ways. I think it caught my head as soon as I started thinking about it because it's something in some ways that comes up quite often, but without being asked as a direct question. And it's something that I struggle with a lot in some ways. Again, it's a very strange thing. And the world since 2012 has changed massively in what and how it sees people with disability and perhaps athletes, so Paralympic athletes. Great that I often am far more seen as an athlete on an equal, but equally at the same time, you're not at all yet. And society is very, very not there at all. So on the surface, everyone likes to think it's absolutely lovely and actually there's massive, massive struggles out there still every day. Every day, something will come up if I go out out of the house to speak. There'll always be something that comes up about my disability. So it's quite interesting as a point to start with. And I guess in a direct sense to answer that, I think that it depends who you're talking to. So and the scenario scenario scenario, sorry, that you're in at the time. So some of the time it's absolutely you are not an athlete. You are nothing other than a disabled person and not even a person with a disability, you are just disability. There's some people just cannot see past that still. And then other people are so excited about my sport and what I've done and so it's really interesting that there just seems to be a big, big difference in sort of where we are. There's a huge spectrum of knowledge and understanding and or lack of. That's that's there's a lot in there, isn't there? So in terms of you said, you know, every day, your disability is something that kind of comes up if you kind of go out and try and do stuff. Can you just explain a little bit about what do you mean by that? What does that look like? So some of it's some of it's I still find really shocking. I've been at the end of it for however many years, talking and I think looking at and watching new people coming in. I've got a friend who's become a wheelchair user and is really starting to sort of go into this world now. And I thought again, I thought things are so much better and actually a lot of the time they're not and he's really, really struggling that. So part of it's verbal is just the look that you get and it'll either be repatriationising or it will be pity. You're just going to get stabbed because you're different. And then it's the other side of it is sort of the verbal side of things or people actually being so rude, disgusting to you just because you've got a disability and. Yes, yeah. Wow, the thing I think I kind of struggle with most in that as someone who knows you well as a friend is the idea that people would have any kind of like pity or sorrow for you or think that you're in any way kind of weak because you're literally the strongest person I can think of. Like both mentally, but also physically. I always tell people, you know, when we when we went and walked whisper your door and, you know, trying to keep up with you when we're out in the woods, like off off track and you're there powering away in your wheelchair. And I'm like, how is this? My friend has no legs and I cannot keep up. Like, yeah, you're amazing. But how do you how do you respond to that? Do you respond to that by do you just get so used to it that you led it to pass you by or do you challenge it or what do you do? And again, some of it depends on the scenario. Some of it depends on the type of day. I think it's funny, again, is if you've got a disability, a lot of the time people just see that it's kind of it's like, as though you don't have any feelings as the person. That you know, I know it's all I also kind of feel like people think that you've had your sort of emotional stuff with your legs. There's no nothing left of, you know, you're not going to get bothered by somebody making a horrible comment. And there is a really that side of things, you know, it is, yeah, it's quite, I don't know, it's just so strange. And I just find it. I guess I would know I could never and would never have made a comment to somebody. I might have questioned, but I would never have made a comment to somebody about the fact that they're using a chair or they look different. Or I just wouldn't and it would never enter my head to have done it before I became disabled. And I guess I have a struggle with that understanding coming from the other way at times. Some of it, you know, you can understand and, you know, children are learning. That's different again. But again, often it's the adults reaction that becomes a problem. So often children will stare and there's each group, you know, roughly that you can work up until they understand they are learning. It's black and white and that some of the best comments, though, are from children because they are learning and it's black and white. And they just say some of the most amazing things. And then it's the adult that becomes embarrassed and tries to drag child away or sort of, yeah, reached out in a really stupid way and actually doesn't allow the child to get the answer. So I'll always answer a question. If it's meant in a questioning way, so to speak, then I'll always spend the time to answer question. I'm lucky I can verbalize. I can help somebody and stand, hopefully, how I'm feeling, what I'm seeing and how the world is from my point of view. And so I sort of try to. I guess, yeah, take the time to do it because there are a lot of people who can't or aren't confident enough or don't have speech and would get stared at who aren't seen as part of community. And so for me, I've tried to just to break down those little variations. It might be the one word conversation. Yeah, it is, but it's. Definitely depends on the day. I can't cope with this and go home and cry. And all the days it's just so to speak. So it's it's just that thing that suddenly you've got no legs, so you've got no feeling. Wow. And that feels like and I can understand why you would say some days you feel more able to kind of respond kind of proactively and possibly positively than others, because that sounds quite a big, like emotional load and responsibility to be carrying, saying that, you know, I am a strong disabled person ago. I need to reeducate others, you know, on behalf of many of us who might not be able to vocalize. And should that be your job? I mean, what what? How can other people help? It's funny, I think I'm in a position a lot of time that I can do that. So I also have a number of lines I can reach out through or to to make people understand or to make people at least just they can choose what they do, but at least listen, at least try and understand. And I think one of the big things is when I speak and I do something at school or a business, whatever it is, engagement wise, I'm very keen now to finish on sort of the note of saying, actually, all of us are going to get leave here tonight. And actually, one of you may not get home and start tomorrow the same as they started today, because none of us know we're going to have a car accident or if we are going to have a car accident or something else happens. You know, sadly meningitis, spinal injuries, amputees, because it's so many, so many things happen, but people is that way never happened to me type attitude. And which is great on one level, because you don't want to be morbid all the time about things, absolutely. But equally, if it changed for you tomorrow, you would want to be treated the same as you're being treated today. Yeah, I remember very, very clearly the day I had my first and second, particularly leg amputated and the I went off the ward the first time after the same, particularly the second time. And remembering just how differently I was spoken to, treated literally overnight. And yeah, those are the things. So then having got into sports, having the opportunity to go into schools, having the opportunity to speak to people like yourself and to doing all those things. That's how hopefully that's how we try as you're doing in your work, you know, in what you're trying to do in that sense of trying to get people to understand that it's just part of life. If you like, it's not an absolutely I will be there to help and support somebody. And that's what I'm starting to do more and more as well, which is what I really, really like, because you can make a difference to someone's life and say, you know, none of us know what's going to happen tomorrow. And there's a somebody who I used to row with at the moment who says his life turned upside down. But actually he is finding it very, very hard. But he's been really shocked by people's attitudes to him. And suddenly he's a chair user and they've not seen him as he was before as a multi Olympic medalist. And suddenly it's very, very different, very different world. That's really hard. Do you think that you get a different viewpoint on this because you used to be, I'm a rubbish at the time, aren't you? Able-bodied. When you had legs and then you didn't have legs, do you think that that means that you view your disability kind of differently because you know how you were treated before versus now or? Yes, I do massively so. I've got a friend again, a friend who was born with hers and her disability and is physically very disabled. But you would, I mean, phenomenal strength, a character and what she's done. But she finds and we've had the discussion between us a number of times over that because yes, she does see things differently because she's never had the chance, I guess, to be treated as able-bodied. And so between us, we really noticed some of those things and the way that people are with people, any person with a disability, any person with anything that is remotely different, as you know, hidden disabilities, exactly. It's the same thing if people treat you in different ways. And actually, sometimes it's harder, I think, with hidden disabilities because people just think they like that your normal thing. So that you look normal. So how can you be of anything that's different? How is there a challenge? Like you just look normal, like what's wrong? And so there is that side of things that is also very difficult and very different, I've noticed. And then schools and children and working with more and more is just sort of being aware of that side of things, the hidden side of it and getting people to understand that, actually, they can have a really positive effect on somebody, but they can also have a profoundly negative effect on somebody. Just by the way, they react to them the first time they see them. So what's that something we all need to maybe think about, isn't it? Like, how should we react? I mean, is it OK to ask questions or be curious? Or do we just pretend that there's no... Do you know what I mean? We all curious people and we all notice things around us. And if you're a wheelchair user and the next person isn't like, I'm going to notice that, like I'm going to notice the colour of someone's skin. It doesn't mean I'm judging. So what's the right way to interact with that? Yeah, I think you're so right on that. Yeah, I can't get away from the fact that I've obviously got no legs that I look different. I've got no balance that you can't escape that. And because I don't wear prosthetics, artificial legs and I don't walk, I can't even hide it under that sort of guys. What I do find really interesting, though, is if you start a meeting or you start working with a group in a business, and if I've made the point and I've done it on a number of occasions that I've come into a room before anyone else comes in, so I specifically go behind a table so they can't tell that I'm a wheelchair user. And then the moment you kind of, again, going for what you're saying, I would use the same language as I would do if I was able to. So if I step around and come round the table, then suddenly you can see this change in people's faces of, oh, my God, now I can't, I don't know how to talk to it. Now, how do I say anything? Yeah, absolutely fine. The moment for not an issue talking, but the moment you've got that physical difference. It's you can just see people freeze in and then there's really guards about what they say and I, I, yeah, if I don't know somebody, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't worry about what their words are in that sense. I think if people just are making the point of talking to me or talking to somebody that's a great starting point. Don't worry about the type of words, whether they're totally politically correct or not would be my answer. I think I hate that because it just makes me become a clinical object, in a sense, because people are trying to sort of, yes, step around making comments. Whereas in the, you know, there's quite a dark humor in the sense between other disabled people and there certainly is on squads where I train at the moment, particularly with some of the military guys as well. It's a there's a definite dark humor, but that's fine. And some people feel really embarrassed by it, who are able-bodied, which I understand. But equally, most people end up if you have become disabled or you have a challenge for whatever reason, actually, most people end up having that dark sense of humor as a way of coping. And part of it is just coping and part of it is also making sure that other people who are newly disabled, from my point of view, come into it and start feeling at ease about who they are, because if you can laugh at how you look in the sense of you don't have to. But that's not it's not nasty to laugh in that way at people if you're doing it with an authentic group, if somebody walks up to me in the street and has pointed out something. Oh, my God, you're disgusting. You've got no legs, which I've had a number of times. That makes you feel pretty rubbish. But, you know, if a comment within a group of friends is, I don't know, it's a figure of speech, for example, a bit like you're saying again about the figure of speech, there's so many, so many phrases about legs, about standing up, standing on one leg or there's loads of those phrases that just come up all the time. And I think the more people worry about the words they use, the more they come out and the more embarrassed they feel and then the more I'm trying to retract and get them to feel better. And going back to what you're saying about whether I have that duty, if you like, or that role, I guess I want to do it in the sense of making or helping somebody else to feel at ease again. So that if they're in a scenario with somebody else who doesn't have the confidence that I'm lucky enough to have now, that I'm X amount of years down the line, I think that's a really important part of it. It is, yes, that I do try and help. I also had the most amazing guy in my life. When I was first disabled and he I used to sail at the beginning and once I couldn't run anymore, I sailed and he wrote notes. He was paraplegic, which is that and he left a note on my car after one of the events and saying, you're no use to me at the moment. But when you've had your I hear you're going to have your leg amputated. When you've had your leg amputated, here's my number, give me a call. And on the face of it, that's not a great, you know, thing to say or to write whatever. But actually in this world, that's how it is. And actually, I'd much rather so in classifications, Paralympic sport, you want certain types of disability. So you weren't disabled enough for him. Exactly. I wasn't. However, once I'd had both legs amputated, I was really useful to him. And then we went on to win the World Championships. So actually, so, you know, measures, right? Extreme measures, you know, absolutely extreme. Wouldn't recommend. Oh, that's really I love that, though. I like, yeah, you're not you're not useful to me yet. Come back when you've got less legs. Exactly. Here you are. And what do you feel about like this drive towards kind of more inclusive language, like when people use the term differently able, for example, what do you think about that? I kind of cringe a bit. It I understand. And I can understand where people are coming from. But why can't I just be Rachel? Yeah, that's that's there's a bigger question there, isn't there? About, you know, my kind of opening gambit for this is, do people see your gold medals first or your disability? And actually, like, I kind of I felt inwardly awkward writing that because I don't think of either of those things. And I think of you, like, they're both important. And if I'm trying to like place you, so I have a lot of Rachel's in my life and say my children talking about Rachel, they have to be like, do you mean famous Rachel, the comedian or famous wrench Rachel, the gold medal winner or Rachel, who changes schools or, you know, and I have to clarify that way, but generally, I'm actually, I think of you more as like, I just think, well, you just write, you're just my friend. And and if there's one thing that comes to mind, it's not your various successes, which you have both kind of on and off the sports field, but like your love for whisper and the the impact that you have on the children that you work with and the whispers there in the background, I've got an upside down dog at the moment. Yeah, looks, yeah, upside down. See, when I when when I kind of come to you to mind, it's always walking in the woods with whisper alongside with a ridiculously large stick. So that's the one. Yes, you're absolutely. No, I think it's really important, I think, particularly for people as if they're starting, if you like to journey into having become disabled for whatever reason and however that is, that actually those are the things that, again, are really important because that person is still the same person. And it's one of the things I'm really sort of keen to speak about really now is and to get people to see that, yes, I understand. There's words and actually it's like tangent here. But same thing is in your podcast, the last one I listened to you were being interviewed. It was usually you were saying about labels and I kind of I'm with you on the labeling in the sense, I think actually there's a time and place for labels. Sometimes they're not helpful at all. And sometimes they are just downright awful and just not the right thing. And sometimes people react differently to them as well. Sometimes it's really helpful for somebody to have a label and sometimes it's not. And again, it depends on how clinicians react to them in medical settings. And if they just see that label, then that's when it becomes negative because they've lost that person and then they lose who they're actually working with. It's just the label. And again, as you know, there's a whole spectrum. Every label has a spectrum on it, starting at mild to severe, whichever or from light to dark, everything is just on a spectrum. And that's about humans as well, isn't it? Just anybody who is anybody as a human is on a spectrum. We're all so different, which what we all say is so good. And yet, actually the moment you are different, they don't like then the human race is terrified because you are different. And yet we're meant to be proud to be different. And so I think it's so differently able. I would go, actually, it's differently different because the people that's the things that people don't like is the differently different bit. They can't do that bit. Yeah, so I kind of cringe at some of the sort of ones that are meant to be politically correct that coming out. I personally don't think they're particularly helpful. And I think all you're doing is putting another label on exactly the same thing. And yeah, OK, it might. Yeah, not just not sure. But yeah, say, I know when you need to have labels for certain things and for understanding as well. But we also need to work with children, young people, adults who are given labels. So one of the things I'd love to be able to do is to work then with pick up in how you actually use that in a positive way. So the amount of people that get told they have a particularly mental health issue and then are labelled as. So you then get particularly some of the special needs children that I'm working with and have the amazing pleasure of working because this is absolutely brilliant. But they are often react negatively to it, particularly the diagnosis that we've autistic around 13, 14, which is the age where they often slip through the net as well. Don't get that diagnosis at the moment. If you do get it, they hate it so much and they don't know where they sit. Then they don't. So they're struggling with their identity anyway, as you are as a teenager for just anyway. But a lot of the girls really struggle with that as a diagnosis. And so it's about for my 100 years of I would love to work with people to try the clinicians and then the clients, patients, whoever you, however you sort that person, again, a label. But working with that person, you have to identify people. But to get people to see that actually you can use it in a positive way. So don't let it be negative. If it's not the right label, again, that's something that needs to be understood far better medically is that if it's not the right label, that actually when it changes, that it goes back through your notes and that label gets taken away and is taken back because people who have the wrong label attached also really, really struggle with that. And other than clinicians in the future, react potentially quite negatively towards a person. Again, just because of the label on their notes. So how was that? So that's something you'd like to do more on is helping people to understand their kind of strengths, I guess, and looking maybe embracing a label, but understanding what strengths it brings as well as what challenges does that? That's pretty good summary. Yeah. Good. I was listening well. Very good listening skills, by the way. Very attentive, leading in nicely nice smiles. So what would that look like? Because it doesn't, I mean, you do that anyway, don't you? Isn't that what you do every day with the kids that you're supporting? I hope so. I'd like to think that that's kind of what it ends up being. I think for me it's more about trying to push that further then. So trying to put it in a way that we can use it in a far greater way, so that it's not just that group, it becomes how ultimately, how clinicians see that label and what they do with it at the time. So the fact that that child should then, or young person, bit like somebody who's being diagnosed with MS multiple sclerosis or something like that, in my way of thinking, I'm working with some people with MS at the moment, and that's why that comes to my head, but to try and understand that, yes, it's a label that's very negative in some ways, and people have this immediate fear, obviously, of things like being diagnosed with cancer, you have that absolute fear of what that label actually means, but again, that label has this end and this end of it, and there's a spectrum, the average means you've got to have each end, and so you don't know which end you're necessarily going to go into at that point, but how you look at it and how you use your mind to then go into that journey has a massive impact on how you manage it, how you feel throughout what you can carry on achieving. If you give up straight away at the beginning, you may have lost 20 years of your life, you don't know at that point, and so being, to me, being positive about learning how to manage it, and again, it's about learning to manage that label really, and if you give people support at the beginning, then I am beginning to notice a massive difference in a group of people that I'm working with, than the people that aren't having that support at that point. That's interesting, and what do you do? Just explain a bit more about, because I have to remember that lots of people listening to us don't know you and haven't heard all about your work, so just explain a little bit more about what that actually kind of looks like and what could other people learn from that and maybe do themselves. So some of it is, I guess, again, it's a bit like me being my athlete head. I've got a bit of here and a bit of there and a bit of sort of... So it's not straight psychologist, it's not straight anything in that sense, but so part of it is support through sport. So using sport through CBT, so the cognitive paper therapies, the NLP, the Neural Linguistic Programming Type, different ways of thinking about things and using the techniques that we use in sport and bringing those across, so that they're not medicalising that label in the same way. So yes, what I'm doing is underpinned by that and by those ways of thinking, but it's also then about giving that person, so it's about not changing that person, but it's about giving them the tools to be able to keep who they are, I guess. So it's making them stronger when everything else around them is sort of changing and they don't know what's gonna happen over the next year to 10 years, whatever it is in that sense of a label and for the special needs children, the rest is about giving them the toolkit to be able to cope with scenarios that they're gonna find harder than perhaps their able-bodied compatriot in the classroom or the person who's just been diagnosed with their MES at 40 who suddenly thinks that they're gonna be in a wheelchair tomorrow and their lives over. And yes, you go through a phase of grieving if you like and I think you do as an amputee for your legs. Actually, there's a whole process that we do go through as humans, but equally there's a whole load of things that we can do, especially as an athlete, I've learned that I think are really, really valuable in the medical world and across into the mental health side of things that there are so many things that we can do to help how you think and I guess that's a big part of where I'm coming from. So again, that MS side of things, using sport to keep you fit for longer, to keep you as strong as possible, all of these things make so much difference to how you think about things as well. And then the special needs children, so send special education needs disability, the children that are, some of them have been through trauma, some of it's that they have had eating disorders at some of the early ages. Some of them, there's a whole complex reasons that they're at this particular school or that I end up working with them through other schools. And then the ones with disability, they might not have anything as a label other than the physical disability side of things, but it's about teaching them as a 10-year-old girl at the moment teaching her how to push her chair better, how to become independent in her chair and how to use a sports chair, but so that she can transfer into herself. She's paraplegic, so her legs don't work, and she doesn't have a lot of core, so it's about teaching her how to do those things that give her the independence now. So a lot of it's been shown that if you teach children from eight, nine to become those independent skills, particularly wheelchair users, then they will go on to be independent where they can, where and also if you don't get a child independent, but as a chair user or with mobility issues from the age of 16, so once they leave school, then they're not gonna become independent. So we've only got a few really short years really to get these kids, so they are that strong that they are seeing why it's so important and that actually they can do it because so often they get told they can't do it and actually they really can. You bumped that trend though, right? Because you lost your legs later, didn't you? And you are like remarkably, I love, and that's the thing, you know, we're going back to that conversation about like staring and looking, but every time I'm with you, I'm just amazed constantly by you and how you kind of move around and do everything and that sounds really condescending, but it's not, it's just I marvel at your body and how strong it is and the things that you're able to do. And yeah, but you learn later, right? Because you were able-bodied when you were a kid. Yeah, I was a runner and as an athlete, I wanted to be an Olympic athlete and that was what I wanted to do, but again, sport for me, I think that's why it's so important and that's why I really believe it has such a big place in mental health, but also with disability is that it gave me the strength physically and mentally to get through something which I know a lot of people don't, but also that was really, really hard, really hard and sport has had massive negative impacts on my life as well at times, but also incredibly, incredibly positive things. And so again, life's a bit of that balance, isn't it really? You get the good about every cloud has a silver lining cliche, but one of the biggest things I live by, I think, is definitely that saying. And you've been remarkable in that and maybe, I don't know, maybe other Paralympians have done this too, but you've just kind of shifted from one sport to another when your ability to continue with particular sports has shifted and changed as your disabilities sort of changed over time. So I know obviously you used to row, didn't you? And now because of the issues that you've had since with your shoulders, then you've a whole array of different sports you're trying out right now. I'd just be interested to explore that a little bit, like what enables you to just move on like that? And is that typical or? It's not typical yet. I certainly have a label of atypical on that one. I think a little bit different on that one. There are a couple of athletes out there doing multiple sports and there are a couple that have shifted, but it's not a big thing at all. But they're not even obvious shifts though, no? Because you've done like rowing, cycling, now what's going in tennis? I mean, yeah. Yeah, so it starts as a runner. Able-wanted wise and then was sailing a bit. Not to get it running now. Sweet rubbish, has to be said. It's just not my forte anymore. My spikes are still sitting. Try hard enough, you know. I just get that. That's my problem. And as I did sailing and offshore stuff and some big boat stuff, which I absolutely loved. And then I think that actually was one of the things I was lucky enough to have been doing when I had the amputations because I had a sport that I could go straight to. And for me, it was just so crucial that I carried on doing sport. And it wouldn't have got me back as easily and wouldn't have managed half of what I've done again without the amazing guy I ended up sailing with Eddie. He, yeah, I think so much of what I do now is based on what he did and helped me with. I wouldn't have the strengths. I wouldn't have the skills. I think that's the sad thing is that it makes me realise I wouldn't have the skills and which is why I get so frustrated by people who are working in wheelchair services and all these different services to do with disability. They don't have anyone working there nine times a day with a disability. And so they don't really understand the impact. So some of the little things they think are really little actually are the massive things. And if they're just, I know everyone, everywhere's stretched, everywhere's financially stretched. All these, that's not what I'm sort of talking about in that sense. Ideally I am, but obviously life's not that easy. But it is just about how you deal with those people, how you talk to that person the first time they come in to get a measure for a chair. The fact that actually you should be picking up that they're not doing this, they're not able to get out of the house. They don't know how to get out of their car into their chair and back. And vice versa, they don't have to put their chair in the car. I'm picking up people who are my age, so old in my eyes, but relatively young still, I think hopefully at 40. But they don't have the skills to be independent. And yet they are perfectly able to be independent. And if you go through spinal unit, you generally pick up those skills. But because that's part of the program. But if you don't go through that and you become an amputee but a chair user, I would still be sat in one of the old granny wheelchairs, not even able to push myself because I can't even sit upright in them. And yet my life would just be wasted and I could just sit at home and I've done a number of people I've kind of come across now who are just doing that at our age, sitting at home doing nothing because they either don't have the right equipment, they don't have the right chair, they don't know how to use their chair, they don't know they can drive, they don't know about hand patrols. All these things. And then I think I'm so lucky. I go wild camping with Wisps, so Chocolate Labrador. I go, I take my tent. I've got a rucksack that works on the back of my off-road chair. And I can manually push myself across the artwork to the middle of nowhere or in Scotland, wherever. Take a whisper and we, yeah, wild camp. Now, most people think that's nuts and that's fine. And most people wouldn't want to do it. That's also fine. But I did and that's why I was desperate to get back. And for me, that's part of who I am is trying to escape from everybody. I love that. And again, it's about kids. It's about having those skills and they're just so important. So that is what is so important. It sounds like that having good role models around you when you first were sort of transitioning to learning to kind of live differently was really important. And just, yeah, I don't know, almost like people who just sort of sat up and got on with it really and made you realise that maybe you could too. Yeah, absolutely. I, this guy, Eddie, who I, he just had the biggest impact on my life and everything I've done was since becoming a chair user is absolutely down to him. And then, yeah, like him and I were together 10 years and then I fought it in 2012. And so I sort of started the beginning, I felt like I was totally crushed or crumbled and I didn't have the skills to manage but actually he's taught me how to bash bearings out of my chair. I can then spoke. I can do all these ridiculous things. And so people give me a call like, Rachel, can you do this? Or can I do that? Or, and so I'm just putting some videos together in a moment actually on really short ones like how to manage to look off your chair and things like that because people don't know. If you know, you can't do it. That's fine. Worship service will ring if you get a puncture, you can ring and they'll come out and mend them. But they might not come out for three days. Now, if I'm in the middle of the woods, that's not a lot of use to me. So I really need to know how to mend my punctures and things. And yeah, as a cyclist I have always done it anyway. But again, I've just been helping somebody socially distanced to mend their tires because she'd gone over a nail and got it in her tire. And she didn't know what to do, didn't know how to mend it. And she'd taken it to a bike shop and they had said, oh no, we can't do wheelchair tires. I'm like, they're the same thing. You take them off the chair and then it's exactly the same. But apparently they couldn't do it because it was wheelchair or not a bike one. So I was like, okay, so I went and did it for her, a sat in her drive doing her tire. But it again, it just made me realise, because she's like, well, how do you know? Why do you know? And I was thinking, well, it's because Ed, but that's why everything I do now and that's why I want to base my future and what I give back and can do in all those things that we've talked about is basically through Ed. Do you think he knew what a kind of inspiration he was to you in that way or was he just one of those people that just did what he did and you just learnt from him? I think he, at the end, actually, just before he died, I think he really did realise what he'd done. And I think that was really lovely and I'm really pleased that he did know. I think, yeah, he was a really funny guy. He's a bit older than me and he was very borschty by nature. I think it's probably the only word. He used to get himself into so much trouble and everyone would be like, Rachel, you're just not like him, you're a proper sorry girl. And he just used to be so funny, but he just cared. He would just, and I know you'd have done anything for me. And yeah, okay, life had been different, but equally he gave me everything that I needed in that time to then be able to go and carry on my life and be independent despite not having him in it, which still hurts so much. But every time I get a puncture, every time I do something and I'm out and I get a flat on my hand bike or something and I'm out, I commend it and I always think of him and he always just makes me realise, I'm really lucky people look at me and go, how do you do it? I'm like, Ed. That's really like, yeah, I don't have the right words really. It's really beautiful when you have those kinds of friends and whatever it is exactly that they've done but the fact that he's kind of always there with you is, yeah, it's really nice because he's strength, I think, doesn't it? Yeah, there is a big thing behind it, I think, yeah, definitely. And do you think that some of the things that you have done and achieved and so much of how you live your life actually is kind of in some way linked to your disability. So the work that you do with children and young people and adults with disability and also winning your Paralympic medals. I mean, do you think, how do you imagine your life would have been if you had not become disabled? Would you have become an Olympic athlete or? I always wanted to be. So whether I would or not, I don't know, but yes, I would have absolutely tried. Yeah, doing nursing, I had a very different eye on my life, I guess. And it's that weird thing of, again, every cloud has a silver lining of actually, yes, it's been pretty hard at times. It's been some really hard years, particularly the first 10 years I was in that hospital. I was so ill on a number of occasions as my legs got reinfected and that was horrible. But actually, again, some of the people that I met through that time, like the physio, she was on my work, she was one of those amazing people and I was in the bath a lot of the time originally when I was trying to fight to save my legs and I was 17, I was away from home, hadn't lived away from home at that point at all. And I just felt so young, I guess, and didn't really know what doing. I was in a little right in the centre of Bath which was an amazing place, amazing, amazing chance for my legs. They did everything they could and I did to try and keep them, but also after they'd been amputated, the rehab at that point I got from them was just phenomenal because I'd had so much damage done to them around it because of the sepsis and so they were just phenomenal, but the physio, yeah, I've stayed in touch with her ever since. And yeah, she's a really important person in my life and I see somebody I would still ring and say, do you think I'm super doing this or what do you think? I guess she became a bit like my second mum and my parents felt really happy that even I was in hospital and really quite ill a lot of the time that she was there and she'd have rung them if she needed to and she as a friend was well as sort of clinically. So yeah, I think there's a number of friends I've got as well from that time that's absolutely their master part of my life. And so you do see things and you look at life differently, definitely. But we all look at things, don't we? In a sense, we all make memories and those memories have an impact on things that we then do in the future, subconsciously, even if we don't realise we're doing it. We know what makes us feel happy, we know what makes us feel good and if you're able to, you choose those things and you develop your life around that. But yeah, there's a number of people that I know, sadly, I mean, desperately, sadly, who are sat at home, who do nothing other than watch daytime television. And I just find it so tragic because they are able to do things and yet they're not able to because they can't and yet physically they could if they were taught skills and given the support mental health wise to be in a better place. So I think everyone like becoming paralysed, amputees, life changing, injuries or sort of head injuries, all these things have a massive impact on how you live your life. But actually, we still have a life and we can still live it and it's just about remembering who you are because again, I haven't changed. I might be slightly mad than I was before but I'm not anymore, totally. I'm still, I go back to what Zoe was saying at the beginning I'm still Rachel. And I used to love guides and did loads of camping when I was younger. I spent all my weekends out in field guide camping, loved it, had the most amazing time. And I've got friends from that still. My friends, they're my really good friends are based from guides still. And yeah, I guess, you know, you just have amazing things that structure what you do going forwards. And again, guides sport will what got me through when I was 17 having my legs amputated and they did. It was amazing. And now looking back on it, a bit hopefully slightly more wisely than I did initially is that you can look back on those things and take the really good things. And that's where my hashtag support through sport is gonna come from is learning what or taking what I learned and have used and putting that into medical context into clinical settings so that people can actually see you don't have to be an elite athlete. You don't have to be super sporty but actually the lessons that we can take from sport help people with the neurodiverse, physical, hidden, mental health, all of these challenges. There's so much, just going from walk really does help and people think it's just too easy to make a difference but actually it might be so hard for you to start doing that but having that set up in place so that we as a country can support people when things happen like that I think is what we need to be doing. So tell me about support through sport. You have a plan? I do, I think, I hope, yes. So again, trying to get people to see the benefits of sport. So again, going from clinical settings and working if you like in a room, sitting down and making people trying to make eye contact with them when that's the last thing they want to be doing especially teenagers anyway don't like doing that and so if you've got hidden disabilities, you've got to do all the different things that are often quite challenging. Why do we then put people into a scenario which is going to make them even more anxious to try and talk to them about anxiety? It just, some of it just, there's a time and a place for it as well but also a lot of what I'm going to be doing is and I've got a couple of people I'm working with now which has been amazing to see that start to take place but going out, being outside so I kayak quite a lot. I also do a lot skiing, Nordic skiing so cross-country skiing but being outside is just so important to how you feel. So going out and doing those sessions that you do inside so basically a bit like I guess in sense of forest school in the schooling system to try and get kids outside. It's about doing that really for the clinical side of things or the support side of things so people can enjoy. So doing mindfulness, learning things like that to a really D level in nature, being outside and doing it is far more applicable then to somebody's life than doing it in a white sided four room, cool room which doesn't actually replicate their life. And so a lot of it is again, working with kids who are really struggling with things and teaching things through using sports that they don't even realise then that they are having that support through and putting it through getting teamwork, putting them together so that they're actually, they are getting the support that they need but without it being counselling or without it being sort of things where they particularly teenagers where you have a negative sort of like, well, not doing that, not doing that, don't want to talk to you, don't want to talk to you. But actually if I give you a basketball and we go and play basketball on that court, you'll talk to me, okay, all right. And then I've had some amazing times working with some of these young people through sport. And so my idea is hopefully to get people and to Kayaks for mental health support and for using sessions. So using nature really, using nature to help mental health support but using it as a framework from sport. And where can people kind of find out more or is it early days at the moment? It's early days but nearly, nearly launching website level. So, and then I feel like I'm going forward. So I'm really excited, really, really excited. So thanks Vicki, because when I was in hospital a few years ago and our first conversations of both of us in probably, I'm sure you don't, I hope you don't mind me saying, not the best places. No, we weren't the best places, no. No, no, I think that's fair. And to be certainly having this conversation now, looking at a person who climbs, who does sport, who does amazing stuff academically and all the things that you're doing to, for me to be sat where I'm sat, as to say, yeah, having lost rowing, which I thought was my life falling apart at the time, as well as having both my shoulders rebuilt, which had gone wrong and all these things that just, yeah, weren't good. To, yeah, so start building that is pretty cool. Yeah, I'm really excited for you. And it's strange, it feels like a whole different person. And yeah, I mean, it was really tough times, really tough times, like for both of us. But I remember for you, I mean, you were in hospital so long and you've lost all your independence. And yeah, it was really hard. And I did everything I could to try and be a friend to you in that time. But it's actually quite difficult, you know? Like not, I mean, you didn't make it hard, but as in, you've got no legs and you've lost the use of your arms and you can't do the things that normally keep you healthy and well. Like, you know, there's only so much, they're like, hey, everything's gonna be all right. You know, I think often we just sat together, didn't we, and just were like, well, this is shit. Yeah. And I think in some ways, that was actually really helpful because there wasn't anything that anybody could do to change their scenario and situation at the time. And you're right, having, I guess, I think every class is sort of lining, but learning and seeing myself at that point and knowing that actually I felt desperate, I did, I felt desperate. I did not wanna wake up in the morning because I didn't wanna have to wake up to the fact that I might not be able to use my shoulders again, therefore not my arms, because it had gone so wrong at the one point. And that was excruciating. It was just so, so hard. But you're right, you know, having no legs and not a lot of arm working wasn't a good place to be. But, you know, I saw the best and worst of elite sport as well at that point. And it also, but going from that, it took, I spent a lot of time thinking about, because that's what I could do, but it took a lot of time on just structuring things about where I wanted it to go, since then I've done an awful lot of learning on different things as well as going back to elite sport. That, you know, I just, okay, I'm guessing, I'm getting there. I've still been an athlete for the moment. I'm still just an athlete. And as well as doing this now, which is what's really exciting, because for the first time as well, I feel like I could actually walk away from being an athlete. I metaphorically could hang my shoes up. There you go, that's a good one. And I can hang my shoes up and walk away from it and go, I have had the most amazing time as an athlete. I've experienced things that people would love to and I've had that experience. But actually also at the same time, there is a future for me. And it's very hard. A lot of athletes, it's a very known thing that athletes really, coming out of the military, people really struggle. They've lost their identity, labels, that thing of when there's a good one and a bad one. It's amazing having an elite athlete label. But then when that starts falling apart, I would go going maybe for injury, maybe you're just at the end of your program. There's time and place and actually how you use that label, again, is one of those things that are really critical. Yeah. Wow. We went deep there. The moment, that was scary. All good, all good. I'll ask you all the questions, but there are some questions that came in. So let's do like quick fire question on the question. So, okay, have you had any experiences with doctors or hospital staff because of your disability, any bad experiences with doctors or hospital staff because of your disability and how could they accommodate for you better? That's a really, really interesting one. I, yeah, I've had, and it's always one of these really strange things when you think that medically I became an amputee or through medical, I became an amputee and yeah, medically they can't cope with you. So I've had a lot of negative side of things. I come from a medical family. I was doing my nursing as well. My sister is an intense care nurse. My dad was a consultant. I'm a physio, so I'm very medically family-led and it is very interesting because they will say as well, they don't have the skills. If they were looking at somebody now, they see it very differently. My mum particularly is very much, well, I can see things completely differently and the impact of that person. I think so much we go so to treat that person as you would want to be treated yourself. That is the biggest thing to live by full stop, but medically don't see that person as a failure because medically if you're, it's funny if you're ill or if you've had an amputation, that in lots of ways that scene is a failure medically because they're like, we can't get you better now and that's what medicine's all about underneath it. It's a very simple view, but a lot of medics really struggle with it because we can't fix you. But it is so much, it's just about talking to a person about, again, about not attaching that label and going, well, that's all you can do. But, and also don't use ward disabled toilets as broom cupboards, that doesn't go well with me. Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, that's terrible. Like, yeah. You should, but yeah. Gosh, okay, okay. So see the person, see the person, look past the label. Is the, we've kind of maybe covered this a little bit, but your quick for answer on is the label of having a disability helpful? Yeah, we have kind of in some ways as well, but I get what you're saying. Yes and no, I think definitely. And again, it's how you use that and how you deliver that label initially is crucial and critical with that. The medic, the nurse, whoever it is that delivers that initial label can have an impact on that person for the rest of their life on how they do it and whether it has, whether they almost write that person off at the beginning. Yeah, so it's a huge responsibility actually. I think it does, I don't think people realise the responsibility they have as clinicians, whether that is mental or physical health, they do not understand what an impact they're going to have on that person, yeah. Yeah, we face this sort of similar thing with autism, when I got my diagnosis of autism and it feels like a life sentence when you first get it, you realise, well, I'm not getting better from that. Actually, I've come to understand that it's exactly like you said with everything else, really, there are real strengths there too, but it's about having those role models, having people around you who do see the strengths as well as the challenges and realising that yeah, there totally is a future here. It's just a fact that people want. It is and you can use that label to make yourself work with what you've got but to understand that, yes, I've got a wheelchair user, but I need to learn how to do it so then I can live as full of life and do whatever I want as I would have done if I was walking. Same for you with your diagnosis, because you've got it, yes, okay, you're not gonna get better as such for it, but you can make your life as you've done so much better by learning how to cope with it and then your life's so much easier because you're all, yeah. Yeah, so you need to build in like ramps and grab rails and I have to build in like rest and space away from people. It's totally different, but kind of, yeah, it's about accommodation really, isn't it? And yeah, okay. This is just understanding who you are and what you need. Yeah, and I think being prepared to ask for help as well sometimes, isn't it? Which yeah, I think is important. Okay, this I think is a really good one to end with. What advice would you give to young people who are ashamed of their disability or uncomfortable with it? I think it's such a big area, such a big area and such a massive yeah, thing I'd love to change overnight. But again, I think one of the things, again, people to understand and that young person to understand what they can do to make sure. So for example, if they're a wheelchair user, make sure they've got a bespoke chair, make sure they've got the right equipment that enables them so the chair doesn't define them. So most wheelchairs service, most services, most doctors don't have a clue about wheelchairs. And that's one of the biggest things that you can do for somebody who's a chair user is make sure that they're in a chair that it's built to them for them so that it's not about a granny chair with push handles that means someone's just gonna move me out of the way when they don't want me in the way. Don't uncool those granny chairs because you can get really cold chairs, can't you? Is it with kids that do the neat chairs for? Yeah, they're one of them that does. Yes, there are a lot out there that do them or they fund them with kids. And then yes, there are a lot of, we've got manufacturing in the UK who bailed, built bespoke chairs, who I would go to. And ultimately, if there's somebody out there, then please get in touch with me. I'm really happy to try and help you either through Vookie or come through on Twitter. But it's really crucial to get the right piece of kit so that they're happy with it, get the color they want. All these things are really, really important to that person. And then yeah, making sure they get the skills teach. And as an able-bodied person, you're not as parent, you're not going to be able to teach them those skills because you don't know how to use the chair. So getting in touch with somebody, learning that actually asking for help for those things is where they need to are and teaching them that that's the right help to ask for and for using things in the right way. Again, it's also working within the class. So I go into schools where, for example, classes where there's a child who's become disabled, say for an accident, I've just been working in the school, one with a child who's now a chair user and one with a child who's an amputee. And actually the amputee is just about teaching them that don't take his leg really. That's all it is because he's a most amazing young child and he's just got up and started running on his leg that you wouldn't know he's so much better than he was. Whereas the girl is really struggling with the fact to say that her identity has changed and people are really, they want to push her, they want to patronize her and they don't have to talk to her. And actually it's been going in and getting them to understand how to lay the classroom out better for her, getting her included in PE, making sure we get the funding. So she's got a sports wheelchair, but again, teaching her how to get an outfit and those are things that can't be done by somebody at school who's already there because those are just skills that they don't have but they do have the skill to ask for that help and get that child that support. So I think that's the biggest thing is, yeah, get in touch with somebody who does know and will help you. There are so many people out there but yeah, that's why I want to build my future on is making sure that those children don't feel different and that they do believe that they have a future and that they can achieve the things that anybody else wants to do. And do you, are you happy to kind of help if there are, you know, I imagine there would be sort of adolescents in particular, we talked before about that, who might be really struggling with who they are and how they feel, who just really need a role model, like you had it, Ed really, like are you happy to be that person to people out there? I mean, you can't be it to everyone, but. You know, no, but absolutely I am. And if I can't, then I will make sure I signpost you to the right person who can do it. And that's what our future is about in giving people who are going to get a label or who like me fight that label and say I'm not disabled, it's only I'm only disabled because there's steps in my way rather than anything else. And I guess there's a happy medium on that one. But no, I am, I'm really, really keen to work with those people to find them to make sure they've got that support going forwards because they are that person. They are not the person and or a chair person. They're the person and the chair. That's what it is about. That makes sense. I'll put all your like contact details and stuff in the show notes. So the very final question is whether you've got a suggestion of someone I should try and persuade to come on a future episode and what question you think I should ask them. Ooh, oh, intriguing. Yeah, OK. I think that you would put a couple of people as athletes that would be intriguing and quite interesting from your point of view. And then I guess it depends on the angle. So if you're a sports psychologist, that'd be quite interesting. And for him, it would be very much, I think, where is the where is the line in sport between sport and mental health and that person being so one of the big problems in elite sport is that mental health is still seen as a weakness. And so if people open up about it, which is a whole other show and I'm quite happy to talk to you about that another time, but there is this really big gap or void, if you like, between the mental health and how it gets looked at and pushing it under the carpet because we think you're going to be weak as an athlete if you've got mental health issues. So therefore, people are not asking for help and it's becoming too late and tragically, there have been some really tragic cases out of that. And so I think that one of my questions would be for them is, where's that line and how can we change people to understand that in elite sport, that it's not a weakness. And actually, we can use that as a massive strength once that person's able to manage. That's a great question. Will you help me find the right person to ask that question of and have them on the future? I'd like to try with that one, yes. William, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. And we'll catch up like a side from this. That's great too. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's been really, I always love talking to you and you inspire me so much professionally, but also just personally, you're just outlook on life when things haven't always been easy, but you always seem to find a way forwards and that's, I think, really important. Sometimes it's just about getting through the next minute, isn't it? But so far, you've always done that. That is a really, and people use it as a thing, don't they? So just saying when things are really, when your anxiety is that high or when something's happening that actually is that minute, the next minute, it's the next minute. And actually it is that it does get you through a day or a morning or an hour when things are awful. And that's what you do. So yeah, I think you're absolutely spot on with that one. It's a great place to start and finish. Any final thoughts from you before I stop recording? No, thank you so much. I just think it's really interesting. And I think what you're doing with your podcast is great. It's just about having people to think and also it's enabling other people then to link in with sort of support structures or answering their questions really. It's great. Oh, I hope so. Well, thank you. I will stop recording and we will continue talking. All right. Thank you, Rachel. Bye. Thank you.