Shropshire Star

Pole dancing gives leukaemia survivor strength and belief

When Thea Wilson was told last year that she was being discharged, five years after leukaemia almost took her life, she thought she would feel elated and relieved.

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Thea has kept up her training despite lockdown

But instead the 42-year-old from Ditton Priors was scared, panicked about the thread being cut between herself and the cancer team.

She was suffering from PTSD, fearing a relapse and the consequences.

Thea found help and a way of coping with her fears in an unlikely fitness activity – pole dancing.

The sport and her trainer, Sally Brady, are now helping her through lockdown, with Thea even putting up her own pole at home.

Thea enjoys running and horse riding. But she said the focus of her cancer survivor fears were bruises.

“Before I was diagnosed I would wake up with bruises and had no idea where they came from,” she said.

“After my treatment I had a fear of getting a bruise. If I did I would think the cancer had returned and want to go back to hospital for a blood test.”

“Being discharged meant I had to leave my prescribed life behind. I was no longer being told what I could and couldn’t do. But I still had to deal with that fear.”

Thea has previously raised money for the O'Conor unit at The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

It was seeing a poster advertising the Liberty Pole Dancing Academy in Bridgnorth in January that started Thea on her road to dealing with her fear.

“It was something that I had always fancied doing and I had done gymnastics as a kid. I rang the number, spoke to Sally and one of my first questions was, will I get bruises?

“When she said definitely, I signed up.

“I felt that if I knew how I got my bruises, or pole kisses as they are called, I could deal with them.”

Thea discovered that many of the women enjoying the sport were, like her, wanting to regain their confidence for one reason or another.

“We call ourselves pole sisters and Sally is our pole mum,” she said.

“She is incredible.”

The lockdown forced Thea into isolation at home.

“I was worried it would bring back memories of being isolated in hospital five years before but this is five star isolation,” she said.

“The first thing I did was put a pole up in the garden so I could continue training. Sally is now doing sessions on-line which is brilliant and all the members of the studio are keeping in touch with each other for moral support.”

She said many others from the studio had survivor stories to tell whether dealing with depression or anxiety or an abusive relationship.

“There will be so many other women out there, wondering how do I leave the life I’m living now, how can I be that Phoenix that rises from the flames. Everyone of us bares scars and bruises. We all have a story but the common theme that runs through us all. Pole fit has given us our strength and our belief in our bodies. “

Sally, who lives in Wolverhampton, said she too turned to pole dancing to deal with a dark place in her life.

“The relationship I had been in ended and I discovered that everything I had believed in had been a lie,” she said.

“I was approaching 40 and felt unattractive, frumpy, with no identity - I didn’t know who I was.

“I was convinced that everyone who did pole dancing had the perfect figure and in their 20s. When I plucked up the courage to go for a lesson I cried. There were people of all ages and all sizes there, so warm and welcoming. I left with a smile on my face.”

Sally said there had always been a stigma attached to pole dancing.

“People think you are either a stripper or you are going to steal their husband. It is not the case. It is hard work but it gives us the chance to boost our fitness and our confidence and helps us to love our bodies.”

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