Life was supposed to begin at 40!

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This is a bit old & long-winded, so if you wanna cut to the chase, scroll down to
'UPDATE 17.5.17'... otherwise, I hope you read on...

On 23rd January 2015, I was admitted to hospital suffering loss of control over my legs, chronic fatigue, blurred dull and double vision, massive retention amongst other symptoms. The diagnosis was scary - a rare auto-immune disease that I had never heard of (nor had anyone I knew at the time).

ADEM - "Not a good look"
Acute Disseminated Encephalo-Myelitis (ADEM) was the diagnosis. I had inflammation of the brain & spinal cord, my central nervous system was crashing - I was extremely ill. As I lay in bed for a whole week with a feverish temperature in the low 40’s that prevented the medical staff beginning treatment, it soon became apparent that I was completely losing all sensation in my legs. This was coupled with extremely cold feeling hands & feet and what’s known as banding - the sensation of perhaps a large elastic band wrapped around the torso, although it was obviously not there in reality. As I lay in bed one evening after another inspection from a crack team of the finest neurologists the county had to offer, I noticed that the paralysis was getting higher - by then it was up by my sternum. I heard them whispering behind the curtain - speculating as to how temporary or permanent the paralysis might be. This was to be the single most lonely night of my life. I stared at the ceiling with a lump in my throat until the sun appeared the next morning wondering why I hadn’t achieved all those things in life that we say are on our bucket list, yet too often leave too late.
 

Simple words are usually enough to invoke great things when they are spoken by an idol of yours
As I soldiered on through the relentless next few days of needles, blood samples, lumbar puncture, CT scans, heart echoes, hours of complex MRI scans, dozens upon dozens of pills, catheter changes, bed baths, etc., having long since declared myself separated from the bag of flesh that used to be my body, I fell asleep for around 90 minutes early one evening. I do not recall if I dreamed or not, but I woke up different. I was not going to take this news laying down (yes, I know, but metaphorically!)... I looked to my iPhone for messages, well wishes, a text from family or friends saying that they were coming to visit tomorrow... anything to lift that spirit again. What I found on my phone changed my life. A simple & short message from Martyn Ashton - a spectacular mountain biker who was cruelly left paralysed after a show stunt at Silverstone went horribly wrong, breaking his back & severing his spinal cord. His words of encouragement left me with one thing on my mind - he asked me to send a photo of myself back on my bike. This quickly became my only goal & I was determined to do this on or before my 40th birthday just 5 weeks away in mid-March.
 
 
 
I left the hospital after three days worth of high level intravenous steroids had been pumped into my system. I [amongst so many other pills] was given a course of steroid pills to slowly

It's hard to dispute the facts about what steroids do to you when you see it like this...
reduce over the period of seven months. By June 2015, I’d become bloated and was tipping the scales at 110kg! (Dangerous at just 5’7” (170cm) in height, you’ll agree). Again, I was trapped in my own body. There seemed to be little or nothing I could do and my friends & family (supportive like nothing I’d ever known) encouraged me to go easy on myself as there was no way of combating this unhealthy weight gain.
So, after realising that I needed a real pick-me-up to lift me out of this almost perpetual state of depression and worry (I’d been promoted during my illness & hadn’t been at work to impose any real stamp of my own on the department), I turned to my hobbies for inspiration. My nerve-damaged fingers didn’t give me the co-ordination to improve my guitar skills and although I was still capable of taking photographs, I quickly became bored of not being able to venture outside of the home for subject matter. I tinkered with my 1980s BMX bikes, throwing a dust rug on the lounge carpet to catch the grease & small parts... and then BINGO! A Facebook friend was chatting about how amazing this new piece of kit he had was.
During the steroid treatment, I had [as if getting ADEM wasn’t rare enough] a rare reaction to the drug. Avascular necrosis (AVN) - both femoral heads [the ball of the hip joint] had been destroyed & were already more than 30% missing by the time I demanded X-rays from the people that doubted my description of the level of pain I was suffering. I quickly added my name to the list to become a Zwift beta tester - what a revelation this could be! A piece of computer soft

Zwifting at a steady pace to improve my strength & stamina
ware that would simulate outdoor riding conditions whilst in the comfort of my own home. Suddenly my home wouldn’t seem like the prison it had been for so long. I bought myself a turbo trainer and a cadence/speed sensor for my new Wilier road bike & an ANT+ dongle for my laptop and waited for Zwift to contact me with my free Beta log-in. Maybe, just maybe there could be a way of exercising, to lose the weight that simply didn’t belong to me, to build some of the stamina lost over the last half year and to lower my ever rising pulse rate & blood pressure.
When my Zwift log-in was approved, I quickly became a regular on the virtual island of Watopia - a circuit built to circumnavigate the island was my new training ground & in comparison to the Bournemouth & Poole environs, it was a surprisingly good substitute - even in it’s infancy. As my humble training rides progressed, so did the software. Dozens of ne
 

The hospital food trolley came in handy at home
 
w features & improvements appeared from a mobile app, to the course extensions [with the ability to choose the ‘hilly’ or ‘flat’ loop - that goes under the sea in a glass tunnel!] By now I was already hooked! I was not even walking without crutches. I park my car in the blue badge spaces as a registered disabled person and I find it hard to perform even the most simple of household chores like taking the rubbish out, but there is one thing that I’ve always been able to do no matter what - ever since the day my dad taught me to ride a bike! Yup, ride a bike!
So, what of all this? Well, as a major goal, I have set myself the insane task of taking part in this year’s Prudential Ride London 100 miler. I have secured myself a charity place & will be riding in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society & the Transverse Myelitis Society [the two charities involved in helping people with my type of condition amongst others]. On 29th October 2015 I underwent hip replacement surgery to remove the worst of my now crumbled & dissolved hips. The new [and lighter & stronger] titanium / ceramic prosthetic is settling in nicely and I am just around a month away from having the other one done. Apart from these ‘minor’ hiccups, I am stopping at nothing on my way to making it around the London 2012 Olympic cycling route. Although training IS hard & recovery is tough as nails, I have survived worse! I [some say stupidly] set myself another target - to ride one thousand miles by the anniversary of my illness, so it is with the utmost pride that I can say that I achieved this with literally a couple of hours to spare!
The one thing that I’d really like to close with is a few ‘thank you’s... my fiancée Gosia - a real rock, my family, my work - for continuing to pay me, my awesome network of friends on social media - the bike groups that I love, the medical support groups & my more ‘regular’ friends and lastly but most definitely not least, the people at Zwift Headquarters - without your vision, expertise & passion I’d be slouched on my sofa looking like Jabba the Hut on prozac & feeling as upbeat as a Leonard Cohen number played at half speed. Those guys are truly amazing & I sincerely hope that they are helping people & changing lives for the foreseeable future. The power of this software should not be underestimated - if it can help someone like me get back on his feet & to a level where I can hit a metric century & eventually go on to ride the imperial ton on the real streets around the English Capital within 12 months, then just imagine what it could do for others with fitness / mobility issues as well as helping the more ardent roadie competing & maintaining peak levels of fitness [especially throughout the winter months] in the comfort & safety of the home.
Kudos to everybody involved in creating the Zwift platform. You guys are truly amazing. Thank you for giving me something to wake up & smile about, something to aim for. Thank you for giving me my life back. Below are a few photos of note from 2015
 

14th March 2015 - my 40th birthday. Nothing was as important to me that day as getting this photo to send to Martyn Ashton - I'd done it! (albeit at a snail's pace)
 

22nd March 2015 - I raised over £250 for my local hospital charity by walking 1km just 6wks post discharge (I wasn't impressed, so did the full 5km instead!)
 

29th October - Back in hospital again for the first of two full hip replacement surgeries. The second is booked for late Jan / early Feb 2016
 

3rd December - The biggie - METRIC CENTURY - 100km (62.2 miles) in 3hr7min
UPDATE:

17.5.17... I am fully back to work, I have moved into a lovely apartment in a great neighbourhood [and we OWN this time too!]
and the biggest news that we always thought impossible - we are expecting a son on 6th August 2017 & are also getting married on the 10th anniversary of our first date [27th August 2017]!!!
How did we get through the ADEM intact?! I really couldn't put it in a nutshell other than you just gotta keep on keeping on. We are in no way religious, but we did have faith - faith in ourselves and our own strength and determination.