Paralysed From the Neck Down to Cycling the Camino de Santiago: Meet the Unstoppable Cate Green

Cate Green was determined to discover whether she could live her life to fullest with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). After cycling the Camino de Santiago, her answer is a definitive, yes!

Walking or cycling 790km from the foothills of the Pyrenees in France, to the north-western tip of Spain is no small physical feat! I should know because I just completed the Camino de Santiago myself.

Add an extra 89km to reach the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean in Finisterre and you’ll be begging for a hot shower and somewhere to rest your weary head. It was here that I met Cate Green from Bendigo.

She waltzed into the Little Fox House post-Camino retreat and shared her story with the other pilgrims. An awed silence descended upon the kitchen table as she regaled us with her tales of challenge and triumph.

We thought our journey was difficult, but it was nothing compared to what Cate had to endure. She’s been kind enough to share her hero’s journey with me and allowed me to pass it onto you.

AVH: What was unique about you cycling the Camino de Santiago?

CG: I have MS. I was diagnosed in 2018, and in 2019 I had a major relapse, which left me paralysed from my neck down. I had three weeks in hospital and four months in outpatient rehab, and I learned to do everything again.

Basically, I learned from scratch. The Camino for me was a celebration of learning to walk again and getting my life back, so I wanted to do it on my own. I’d cycled from the north of Vietnam to the south a couple of years ago, but I did that as a fundraising group.

AVH: That’s an incredible story and quite a drastic change from being paralysed from the neck down to cycling 879km. How did you work your way up from that point?

CG: I’m a fairly goal-driven human at the best of times, so put a carrot in front of me and I’ll dance as much as you want. I already had a goal when I went to the physio in the hospital.

They wheeled me up to the physio in a wheelchair and he asked me what my goal was. I said ‘Ride from the north of Vietnam to the south’, and he said, ‘Something smaller?’. To cut a very long story short, we started by learning to stand.

I think people hear the paralysis story and then they hear the 879km story and think there’s this massive jump from one to the other. I think there’s a danger in expecting some huge goal like I did, whereas it was really helpful to have a medical professional break that down and go, ‘OK, what can we do today?’.

It was this really incremental growth. I cycled on a stationary bike for three minutes, and then I did six minutes, and then I was allowed out on the road and I cycled 3km. It took a gradual building up of strength and capacity and making sure it was safe – which was super frustrating to be perfectly honest.

I didn’t have the idea to cycle the Camino until January 2023. I told my physio, ‘I’ve got a new goal. I want to cycle 879km across Spain’.

And they said OK. So they broke that down into chunks again for me to be able to say, ‘Alright, I’ve got this’.

And there were certain physical and even emotional goals I had to achieve before they could safely send me off to Spain. People tend to think I got this crazy idea and jumped on a plane and just rode 879km. Really, there was a lot of planning, a lot of training, and a lot of goal-setting parameters.

AVH: What were some of the MS-related challenges you had to overcome on the Camino?

CG: I’m a creative person at the best of times, and being a creative person, you become a good problem solver. Finding other ways of doing things when you technically can’t do them is my superpower.

I love photography but blurred vision is one of my MS symptoms when I get tired or overheated. So I’ve learned to rely on the green grid on the camera that tells me when the photo is in focus, even if it doesn’t look like it’s in focus for me.

This way I get to do what I love, rather than just say, ‘Well, I can’t take photos because I have blurred vision now’. I’ve found a way around it.

In today’s world, there are so many assistive technologies available that allow people with limitations to find a way.

AVH: How has being diagnosed with a chronic illness changed your priorities?

CG: When you have such a life-changing event like waking up paralysed, your priorities change and you really know what’s important in life, and so you live your life by those values.

The concept of working full-time and building an empire for my business is no longer my main goal. Now I focus on living a healthy life, maintaining really good connections between family and friends, and being an active part of my community.

Those are my priorities now, and the world would be a lot nicer if others shared those priorities too.

Generally speaking, I’m also a little bit more intense. I get frustrated a lot quicker because I want things to go well. When people talk about trivial stuff, I’m not interested. There are better things to put my energy into.

AVH: Did you have any setbacks on the Camino? What did you learn from them?

CG: Oh yeah. On day five of the Camino, my bank account got hacked and was emptied, and then I lost my wallet the day after that.

So I was in this strange country with no cash and no credit cards and physically exhausted from riding over the Pyrenees. Normally that combination of stress would take my legs out, no worries.

If anything like that had happened at home, I’d be in bed for three days, unable to move. I was really shocked that I was under this huge emotional stress in Spain, and yet my legs were fine.

I put it down to the fact that the Camino is a very supportive environment and you know that someone will help you. I had people who would push my bike, and I had friends and family at home who knew that I was doing this crazy thing and they helped.

At home, I’ve tended to keep my MS symptoms hidden and try and cope with it on my own, whereas I think the Camino taught me that asking for help and letting people know you’re struggling actually enables a lot more support and therefore lessens my symptoms.

I didn’t need to ask for as much help as I normally do, because I knew that there was help available if I needed it. Finding that level of support on the Camino has been quite amazing.

AVH: People who walk the Camino are called pilgrims. Did you resonate with this term?

CG: I think so. I mean, it’s the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got or how healthy or how old or how young, you’re all doing the same thing. You’re all out there walking, getting from point A to point B as efficiently and in the least amount of pain as possible.

And for me, because MS is an invisible illness, most people who see me on a day-to-day basis wouldn’t know what I struggle with.On the Camino, it was really invigorating because people just helped me because I was a human that was tired, rather than because I had a disability.

AVH: Why did you choose to walk the Camino specifically in September?

CG: I got into the habit of fearing September because that was when I had my relapse and became paralysed from the neck down. So last September, I did a dance routine with my dance teacher that told the story of my recovery.

And now, I plan something awesome each September. One of the things about waking up paralysed or having some life crisis thing is that you can become very health-conscious. I did.

I’m the fittest, strongest, healthiest I’ve ever been but initially, it was motivated by fear. I became obsessed with exercise so that I wouldn’t become paralysed again. Dance actually helped me change my mindset.

I fell in love with dance and got stronger and exercised because I wanted to dance, rather than because I was terrified of waking up paralysed. The fear doesn’t ever go away but the main motivating factor now is love.

So, I try to do something every September that I absolutely love rather than be worried about waking up paralysed. Because the reality is that with MS it could happen again. Rather than live with that as a dark cloud over my head, I would prefer to say, ‘I love cycling, I love dance, I love music’.

Now I fill my life with those things, rather than worrying about what might happen.

AVH: What advice would you give others with a chronic illness who may find such an arduous adventure too daunting?

CG: I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve been able to do the Camino. Not everybody gets to go to Spain and have the experience I’ve had.

If I can somehow help others do something, whether it’s just walking around the block, or getting out of the rut of thinking ‘My life is miserable’. My life can be miserable, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy some moments. And the more you do that, the more moments you enjoy.

Even the online community in the Camino was amazing while I was away. The support that I got on my blog while I was in Spain was far more than I’d ever expected.

To actually come home and know that I’ve got something to contribute to this conversation is really important. People with chronic illness or disability tend to think they don’t have anything to offer anymore because they may not work full-time and contribute in the same way that others do.

Whereas, people told me that my story really helped them, which tells me I’m a valued part of this community.

I think for me, doing the Camino and realizing I had something to contribute to the conversation to make others lives a little bit easier was very healing. There’s something I’ve got to offer, even though my body doesn’t work as well as I’d like it to on a day-to-day basis.

Photos supplied by Cate Green