Sally (Stroke): Chapter 2 - Rehab & taking ownership

Episode 2: Chapter 2 - Sally Callie - Recovery from a stroke on the operating table  (Stroke) - Rehab and taking ownership.

In this second episode, we meet Sally Callie,  a triple Olympian, a world record holder and an U23 world champion in the sport of rowing, who's also a mother, a teacher and a stroke survivor. Following the birth of Sally's second child in 2011 she experienced a seizure and upon returning to hospital discovered that she had a blood vessel deep within her brain which was ready to rupture. Sally needed to undergo brain surgery to remove the blood vessel and though this was successful, she awoke from the surgery to find that she could not move half of her body.

In this chapter Sally describes her experience within a public rehabilitation centre. She talks about taking responsibility for her own recovery, the rehab exercises she did in addition to those given to her by her treatment team and of learning about neuroplasticity.

Transcripts and show notes are available for each episode on the podcast website: storiesofrecovery.buzzsprout.com

Shownotes:

• 00:45 - Sally was able to draw on the things she learned whilst training for the Olympics: she pulled out her old diary and wrote down one thing that she was grateful for every day, sought to find meaning in her obstacle, became a learner and read as much as she could about neuroplasticity, and tried to practice good habits every day,
• 01:21 - Sally found that after a few weeks of heading home for the weekend that she couldn't do it , it was too much, and so she chose to stay in the rehab centre and focus on her rehabilitation 24/7,
• ^04:00 - Sally used the initial 90 day period to push hard for all the improvement she could (tricking herself that she was training for the London Olympics) - "Eat, sleep, train, repeat". She practised visualisation and wrote her own program which she did following the exercises given to her by her rehab treatment team,
• 07:10 - Sally's former rowing teammate Amber Halliday (interviewed in series 2) suffered a TBI following a road cycling accident within the same period and was also recovering. The two of them shared learnings, rehab techniques and research findings from the world of neuroplasticity,
• ^08:00 - Sally recommends reading (or listening) to the book 'The Brain That Changes Itself - by Norman Doidge'. It changed her life and gave her hope that she COULD recover,
• ^09:20 - Sally discusses taking ownership of her own recovery and rehabilitation,
• ^10:00 - Visualisation - Specifics: Visualise an activity which you are already very familiar with (using all of your senses). For Sally this was rowing, but it could be through another activity like golf or an instrument you played pre-injury,
• ^14:15 - Sally set her own personal goals beyond those that her rehabilitation team considered reasonable. She wanted to run 10km again (she recently completed the 2021 Bridge to Brisbane 10km event - raising funds for #teamstroke) and she wanted to wakeboard (which she does again now),
• ^15:57 - Sally recommends using the emotions that you feel. If you are angry, channel it into your recovery. Take charge of your recovery and use that anger to fuel your rehabilitation. As Sally suggests "Be the pilot, not a passenger. Make it your problem to get better",
• 18:17 - Sally  describes approaching her rehab as a 24 hour job, just like with her sport,
• 19:41 - Sally describes leaving the rehabilitation centre to go on an adventure into the city of Adelaide, to treat herself to a coffee and to test for herself whether she was ready to return home.

^Sally's main tips