Aiming For Gold Paralympic dreams for Sue
Stroke survivor Sue Sandars chose life – and has the Paralympics in her sightline!
Busy at work in July 2010, Sue Sandars suddenly found herself with a muzzy headache and struggling to use her keyboard with her left hand.
“I took a couple of paracetamol and didn’t really think any more about it,” explains Sue. “At 2am the next morning I got up to use the loo in the en suite, but I couldn’t tear the loo paper properly.
“My husband Nik came in to see my head banging against the shower and the left side of my face dropped. He rang 999 and I heard him say, ‘I think she’s had a stroke.’ I remember thinking, I’m 48, that only happens to old people .”
Sue was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where she was thrombolised. Regaining consciousness after three days and with paralysis in her left arm and leg, she started the long road to recovery with rehabilitation and physiotherapy.
“After two weeks I was moved to the Cheltenham stroke ward,” says Sue. “I was determined to walk with a stick off the ward and with help I did so, when I left in October 2010 to transfer to community care nearer home.
“We eventually managed to secure funding for me at the Oxford Centre for Enablement, where I became an inpatient in early 2011 for a programme of specialist therapy. It gave me the best opportunities; I was only 48, I wanted to get back to work, get my life back on track and I also had two boys who needed their mum. I have never looked back.”
The eight years since then have involved a lot of rehab and recovery for Sue. And early on, after chance meetings with three high-achieving sportswomen, including Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Sue was inspired to follow a completely new path – to the Paralympics.
After the Rio 2016 games I just thought, What have I got to lose? I’llgiveitago! I applied to the BBC Sport Get Inspired project and Archery GB invited me to a para assessment day in Jan 2017 at the National Sports Centre at Lilleshall.
“About 40 years previously while on an adventure weekend I’d given archery a go, but that was my sole experience. Yet in Lilleshall, drawing the bow with a mouth tab fashioned for me from the leather pull-back that able-bodied archers use, the first three arrows went straight into the gold!
“I was eventually invited to join the Para archery training programme starting in September 2017. However just before I was due to start, I fractured my hip while vacuuming.
“Recovering from that has been a
Drawing the bow with a mouth tab, three arrows hit the gold
really long haul because I was too young for a hip replacement and there were some complications with my treatment.
“I missed five important months of archery training and as a result I didn’t get through some essential Paralympic assessment days. I was advised to go away and fully recover, regain my strength and to shoot as much as I could.
“I am now back at work, back driving… and back in training with Deer Park Archers! I have regained some use of my left leg, however I still don’t have the use of my left arm and hand, ever since my stroke.
“I am restricted in what I can do because I currently have to rely on Nik to help, which is tricky around the demands of his job, but I train as much as possible.
“Nik and my two sons Ed and Charles have been great throughout everything. I would have been completely lost without their support.
“I draw 24 poundage on my bow, using a mouth tab on the string and Nik loads the arrow for me. I will have to increase the poundage in order to shoot the 70 yards required for the Paralympics. It is already taking a toll on my jaw and will impact my neck and my back, so I am currently investigating various alterations that will minimise this and allow me to train more and be more independent, shooting on my own. My goal is to compete in the Paralympics, possibly Japan. If not then, Paris 2024.
“I give talks and speeches relating to o my experiences. I hold Stroke Association recognition awards and I am an ambassador for the Different Strokes charity for younger stroke survivors. I want to raise awareness of younger strokes; the impact of a stroke on young people is huge, affecting their ability to work when they have families to support, mortgages, bills to pay. The British Heart Foundation is helping to raise the profile of younger, active, stroke survivors by connecting stroke to heart disease and heart issues.
“Life for a stroke survivor is full of goals and targets. I have kissed death and I am hugging life. You can sit there and vegetate, or you can live. I chose life.”
Sue supports The British Heart Foundation which aims to raise £100million annually for research into heart and circulatory disease, stroke and vascular dementia to help people like her. WWW.BHF.ORG.UK