Staying In Your Comfort Zone Never Improved Anyone

I was wrong.

The Marathon wasn’t hard. Not at all.

Last week was. It was like running a marathon every morning of the week.

We went to Pforzheim. With Aer Lingus to Frankfurt. With the Deutsche Bahn to Karlsruhe, and then on to Pforzheim. With a big wheelchair, three bags, and no pre-booked train.

Instead of trying to keep Pádraig’s head up on the plane, we now try to rest his head on some pillows placed on his lap. We have a well-working routine helping him on and off the plane. What is out of our control are the general wheelchair access barriers with long waits until someone answers the helpline and offers support.

In Pforzheim, we got a really large, comfortable apartment allocated in the Zentrum der Rehabilitation where we had an early night each night so that we were able to get up at 6am, have a shower, get dressed, and walk over the 5 minute walk to the Zentrum.

The people in the Zentrum der Rehabilitation in Pforzheim have been helping Pádraig (and the An Saol Foundation) for many years. They base their interventions on three pillars: (1) reduce medication as much as possible, (2) eat well – even with a PEG), and (3) stand, walk, move.

This May was the first time in many years that Pádraig went back for a week. It was extremely demanding, absolutely tiring, and fiercely ambitious.

This video will give you just a short idea of what Pádraig was doing for three hours every morning.

He said he tremendously enjoyed his visit back to meet and work with his old team. What did he enjoy most?

Without hesitation, the daily walk down the therapy room!

There is no place in the world that I am aware of where the practitioners would even think about walking with Pádraig.

Their fantastic creativity, sheer determination, and strong believe in their work is second to none. They bring clients to a point, every day of their work with them, where they are clearly out of their comfort zone. Where they explore capabilities they thought they had long lost. Where they challenge the system’s “no-future for you, my friend” approach.

What an inspiration.

Boom!