Adrian’s story: Mentoring after spinal cord injury

4 June 2025

Adrian sustained a spinal cord injury in 2015, after he became ill with transverse myelitis, a very rare illness. Ten years later, he is a volunteer Back Up mentor, sharing his own experiences to help others. Read his story.

I’m 64 now, and volunteering at Back Up has become one of the most important and meaningful parts of my life.

Meet Adrian

  • A wheelchair tennis champion
  • Retired and loves to travel
  • A Back Up volunteer

“I’m married to Lynne, and we have three grown-up sons. Just a couple of weeks ago, our eldest got married — a big family celebration up in Yorkshire. I retired about two and a half years ago. Since then, I’ve stayed busy: volunteering at Back Up, being a grandfather, travelling and discovering wheelchair tennis!

After my spinal cord injury in 2015, I initially resisted the idea of wheelchair tennis. But once I gave it a go, I really enjoyed it. Now, I play regularly — and competitively. I’m currently the Sussex County Wheelchair Tennis Champion!

During my long career, my role included lots of overseas business travel – including a three year assignment with my family to Hong Kong. Lynne and I were keen to get back to travelling and, over the past few years, we’ve had lots of short haul trips to places including Germany, Spain, The Canaries, Ireland and Scotland. We do plan to be even more adventurous in the years ahead!

I’m 64 now, and volunteering at Back Up has become one of the most important and meaningful parts of my life.

Life with a spinal cord injury

My life changed overnight. I just couldn’t imagine what the future would hold.

I sustained my injury in February 2015. I became ill with transverse myelitis (TM), a very rare illness that causes an inflammation in the spinal cord. My life changed overnight. I just couldn’t imagine what the future would hold.

Most people who get TM makes either a full or partial recovery. But this wasn’t the case for me. It resulted in a T4-level spinal cord injury, and I’ve used a wheelchair ever since.

I spent several months in hospital, including two months at Stanmore Spinal Injuries Centre. In the early couple of weeks, it was very scary. It was overwhelming, so I focused on the very short term — just the next day, then the next week. That helped me get through those early stages.

Impact on my family

There came a point, around two months into my illness when I thought, I just need to get on with this and do whatever it is I have to do. And Back Up helped me see that.

At the time, I don’t think I really appreciated how my injury impacted my family. I was the one in hospital going through this terrible thing and it didn’t occur to me how they might be feeling.

We’ve always been a very close family. They would come and see me at a hospital almost every day, 150-mile round trips when I was at Stanmore. My sons were 24, 20, and 16 — the youngest about to sit his GCSEs. It was a really challenging time for us all.

It wasn’t until years later, in a conversation with my middle son, that I truly understood how painful it was for them, how worried they all were about what I was going through. Was it was going to be life threatening? How was life going to be for all of us going forwards?

There came a point, around two months into my illness when I thought, I just need to get on with this and do whatever it is I have to do. And Back Up helped me see that.

Meeting Back Up

My first encounter with Back Up was while I was in hospital. I was having various procedures and wasn’t really thinking straight, so everything was a blur. But I remember someone from Back Up coming to my bedside and talking with me. After I was transferred to Stanmore, the team would visit regularly, running group sessions and one-to-ones.

Coming out of hospital, getting back into work, being able to do all the things that I wanted to do really helped to improve my sense of independence.

I didn’t reach out to the Back Up team immediately after coming home. At the time, I thought I was coping fine. It was only a couple of years later, after seeing how much Lynn enjoyed her role as a family mentor with Back Up, that I decided to get involved too.

A supportive employer and becoming independent

It was a slow process, but becoming as independent as possible is what it is all about. I am confident about what the future might hold and am enjoying life.

I was lucky to have a supportive employer. I didn’t return to work right away, it took about ten months after my injury. I started with just a couple of days a week to ease myself back in. I also learnt to drive again. It was a slow process, but becoming as independent as possible is what it is all about. I am confident about what the future might hold and am enjoying life.

I had always enjoyed developing people during my time at EY — coaching, leading teams — so mentoring felt like a natural fit.

I’ve mentored many people through Back Up, and I also volunteer as a facilitator for the “What Next?” and “Skills for Work” courses. I’m involved with Back Up Connect and I’ve even help out on the new Coach for Work programme — an exciting new initiative that I’ve loved being part of.

Mentoring and the value of peer support

If you can use your experiences to help somebody else in the early stages of their own journey, then do it. It’s so rewarding.

I absolutely love mentoring. If you can use your experiences to help somebody else in the early stages of their own journey, then do it. It’s so rewarding. It’s challenging at times, it gets emotional at times. But it’s just one of the most meaningful and important things that I do.

Just the other day, I was chatting with one of the mentees I’ve been working with. She mentioned that she’d like to get involved in mentoring one day. What she said really resonated with me — she spoke about how far she’s come, from the trauma of her injury to the new life she’s building now. I’ve been on that journey too.

The one thing I sometimes hear from the people that I mentor is that many of them don’t have other people in their lives who have had a spinal cord injury. By the time I came out of hospital, I’d become close to three or four people. And 10 years later, they become really close friends. Just having other people in your life who are going through the same kind of things that you’re going through, has just been so valuable. We coach each other and we talk to each other. And that’s just such a powerful thing.

I would advise anybody to try and get into something that that Back Up offers. The Back Up Lounge is an opportunity to be part of a group and talk to other people who are going through exactly the same things that you are. That kind of peer support is invaluable.