Paralysed author vows to dance all night after work-out wonder cure

By Michael Horsnell
The Times
Sep. 07, 2006

A BESTSELLING romantic novelist who was paralysed from the waist down for 16 years says that she has learnt to walk again after spending two minutes on a toning table.

Anne Bennett, 57, was resigned to life in a wheelchair after an accident while carrying books in her earlier career as a schoolteacher caused a disc in her back to collapse. Crippled by fibrosis and also suffering from ME, she was forced to give up her job and became largely confined to her home.

Doctors tried to correct the damage but the prognosis was bleak and Ms Bennett, from Llandudno, was told that she would never walk again.

Then five weeks ago she went to a toning table studio and after only two minutes of flexing her weakened leg muscles, was struck by an excruciating pain, forcing her off the table and back into bed.

That night she felt some sensation in her legs and found that she could move them for the first time since her mishap.

She took her first steps in her bedroom but kept the recovery from her husband, Denis, 58, for seven days, fearful that it was too good to be true.

Doctors believe that the movement from the machine, combined with weight loss from a diet she was following, loosened scar tissue and allowed her nerves to function again.

Ms Bennett, author of Danny Boy, Walking Back to Happiness, Mother’s Only Child and To Have and to Hold, said: “It is absolutely astounding. I have been confined to a wheelchair for so long that I had almost given up hope of recovering.

“I went along with my friend and was helped on to a machine called Body Action. After two minutes I felt a huge pain in my back. I was petrified — my first thought was that I had done some more damage and I didn’t dare mention it to my friend.

“That night I realised that my legs were doing what I was telling them to. My legs were listening to my brain for the first time I could remember. It was astounding. I still can’t get over it five weeks on.”

Ms Bennett, a mother of four, added: “Now I have so much to look forward to. I find the most simple things exciting. Getting on an escalator, choosing a restaurant for the food and not the toilet access, having a dance with my husband now that I can wiggle my hips again.

“My youngest child, Tamsin, is 21 and can’t remember ever seeing me walk. When she saw me stand up for the first time she sobbed — she says it is all she has ever wanted.”

Ms Bennett and her husband are planning a party in January to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, when she plans to “dance all night”. She has vowed to continue using the tables and enjoys an hourly workout twice a week.

Mark Ferris, her GP, was shocked by her return to fitness. He said: “Anne’s determination, together with the sustained exercise programme she devised, time spent at the toning tables and losing weight, all contributed to the breaking through of the fibrosis that she felt when she used the machine. Given the thickness of the fibrosis, it should never have happened.”

Turning tables
# Developed in the 1930s, toning tables are padded benches with movable parts that raise and lower the limbs while patients are lying down
# They offer repetitive movements designed to stretch and tone muscles without the patient having to work against gravity
# They are generally used for back and joint problems and can also provide greater mobility to older and arthritic patients
# Among other reported benefits are increased flexibility, improved circulation and relief of stress and tension
# Sessions cost about Ł4 and are available at gyms and fitness centres