Rise of the Phoenix | Kadeena Cox OBE | TEDxUniversityofLeeds

[Music] [Applause] on Sunday I land up against some of the best athletes in the world on Monday I woke up a stroke survivor so where do we start do we start with seven-month old kadina who hid under a table scaring her mom half to death because until that point she didn't know I could walk or do we go to four-year-old kadina who was obsessed with dance and learning about her Caribbean culture through that sport has been such a big thing in my life Sports was my life sport is my life because of that I took a path to going into physiotherapy at manester Metropolitan University I started out as a sports scholar and enjoyed learning with other people and being able to be involved as a part of the sports scholar program I super enjoyed being in the power room gym which was something that became a really massive part of my rehab it was in the spring of 2014 when I was doing my neurology module that I started feeling some weird symptoms but I kind of brushed it off because other than my late night trips to get a milkshake I was a relatively healthy athlete I headed down to a local competition and when I got there I got out of the car and had what I thought was just a dead leg so I saw her Physio and cracked on with my Racin I managed to do few races but something just didn't feel right I couldn't move my leg properly I had no coordination and I couldn't drive out of the blocks I just knew something wasn't right but I got in the car spent a lot of time on the cat size driving back had a massive headache but just assumed I was dehydrated it was then when I got over the next morning I had right sided weakness and disar which is speech disturbance so I walked myself to the GP who then sent me straight to the hospital luckily both of them were around the corner it was then that I was told that I'd had a stroke my world came crumbling down everything crumbled around me I thought my life was over but it was at that point that I realized the crumbling was about from the crumbling was about to come arise the next day I had sleep this night and I woke up the next day to an email from UK sport who wanted me to be on the next phase of the talent transfer program into skeleton which is the really crazy thing you do when you slide down the ice on something like a teay with your chin a couple of centimeters from the ice I decided that I was going to push for that and my physio that came that morning um I asked her if I was able to do that in seven weeks time um which she wasn't sure about but I spent the next three weeks pestering her every day to have physio sessions so I'm sure she was glad to see the back of me when I left however I then spent every morning at 7:00 a.m. in the clinic being strapped into a treadmill which is the way I started running and after 11 weeks I was able to get through to not just the the first phase all the way through to the fourth phase at which point I had to then declare my medical history and was unable to continue but i' G gained back my Zeal i' gained back my drive and I really wanted to get back into the life of sport unfortunately being my life that wasn't meant to be and one day I woke up with the burning sensation the size of a 50 P piece in my forearm that spread from my from just that spot in my arm to throughout my arm that day my mom said to me kadina maybe we should go to the hospital tomorrow cuz I was heading to University that weekend I woke up that Thursday morning and had burning and tingling from my head from my neck downwards which I later found out was distonia the uncoordinated Movement we called the ambulance and I went to the hospital and they wanted to dismiss it as poststroke symptoms however by chance they called through to a different hospital and the consultant that answered the phone that day happened to be in a specialist in the in the condition ey later was diagnosed with I remember those words coming out of his mouth like it was yesterday that etched into my brain we think you have MS that was a good punch I'd bounced back from one thing already but this was going to be so much harder it was going to be a real tough time trying to get back from this but I was going to use my sport to help me to bounce back so the next day I decided I was going to set up a fundraiser sport took a backseat however because for the next few weeks I was unable to do anything needing my mom to help me with everything she became my rock she had to help me with my personal care she had to help me with getting my food I think her personal favorite was having to shave my legs but she helped me with everything and she helped me to get through this phase after I decided that I was going to do a competition um and that was on the 4th of January I was diagnosed on the 20th of September so after a few weeks of being housebound I had two and a half months to get myself ready to do a race it was horrendous but it was a benchmark and it was a start because of the balance and coordination issues I had I wasn't able to run so much um as I wanted because I kept falling over so I was just in the gym with my strength and conditioning coach in the power room and we just would doing movement stuff and help me to regain strength he suggested that I got on the bike cuz the furest I could fall was just to the flo the floor at the side of me so I did some walk bike sessions and after a few weeks we realized that I had pretty decent Powers so he said why not reconsider a talent transfer again I wasn't able to do skeleton um and the options I was given were canine and track cycling I can't swim so canoe was kind of out of the window so track cycling was and luckily it was in the city I was doing my um University at was where British cycling were based so I got involved with cycling that year I spent doing my academic studies alongside doing two sports at an elite level and trying not to let e sport know how much of it was what I was doing until I was then selected for the world championships in the the September of 2014 and cycl and then found out that I was doing quite a bit of Athletics I was then told that I had to make a decision about which sport I wanted to do reluctantly I chose cycling um because I was really struggling with Athletics at the time having done Athletics prior I felt stressed um and just really like I was comparing myself against prms cadina um and I just didn't feel like it was a great thing for me to continue that mentally um and see as though they'd said that you know no one can do two sports at an elite level I decided I'd just do cycling I then went to the world championships and it was all my dreams wrapped up in one I went out there and in the first round I ran a world record which was Unreal um I then backed that up in the final equaling that time and becoming world champion it was literally the perfect championships other than getting disqualified the next day for not turning up to my race everything else was perfect and I found my love for the sport again it was at that point I decided that I wasn't going to let my Ms defy me I wasn't going to let anyone else defy me and I was going to come back and take control of my life so I decided I was going to push to do two sports I had a cyc event when I got back um two weeks later so I decided that I was that was my point to show everyone what I could do I went out and did a race I was actually quite disappointed with but it was a world lead so I sat on my bike cooling down contemplating whether it had gone well or not and my coach came down with a message that from UK sport that said she can do what she wants so that's where kadina T Cox arrived I learned about resilience and perseverance that year um so what does this mean to me choose to not give up um sounds Easier Said than done but only you can make that first step so you have to choose to not give up having having targets and manageable goals these are the things that will keep you focused and when things are seeming like they're out of your control you have these things to focus on be flexible and adapt adaptable things change the world change life is up and down so sometimes you just have to look at things from a different angle the shop window when you look at me or you see my what done you think you know she's a world champion she's a world record holder she's a Paro Olympic champion and it all seems great but I have multiple sclerosis and that comes in Peaks and troughs just like life does and sometimes you can't anticipate what's going to come and when it's going to come so so for me I've had to learn how to combat these highs and lows and how to bounce back and how to be a beacon of light in these moments where everything else around me is dark in the times when I'm passing out from the pain in the times when I'm feeling like everything is out of my control I have to rise up 2016 was a turbulent year I because of um because of categories in dis in disability sport um that where you you compete in uh you compete in a category so it's fair for everyone within that classification however in 2016 mine changed and that made it challenging for me going into the par Olympic Games I had to go back to an event I hated the 400 me but it was an opportunity an opportunity for me to get a gold medal so I went to the par Olympic Games and in my first round um as a paral par Olympian novice I went out and did a half second PB which eventually got me my first medal a bronze medal in the 100 meters I then went on to cool down on my bike at the athletic track so I got a lot of funny looks but it was because the next morning I had my 4 my 500 meter time traal in the v Drome I rode the race of a lifetime and I broke my own world record and became paralympic champion in that event and that was when I realized I'd got te medals in two different sports so I was over the moon couple of days went by and then I had to do the dreaded event the 400 meters the first 300 merss at easy and then I realized coming into that home straight that I was in third place and I don't know how I managed to get there where I got the will from maybe it was The Echoes of people telling me that I can't do things and I can't do this and I can't do that that allowed me to to drive down that home straight and there was so much relief that came over me when 10 M from the line I saw that I was pulling away and I became world world record holder and Par Olympic champion in another event I then went on the next day to get a silver medal in the relay and just to top top things off I became the flag bearer for the closing ceremony which was an absolute honor so how have I managed to get to this point and why am I telling you this story about myself the reason I tell you this is because I have an analogy which is flipping the switch and that for me means turning a negative into a positive and yes there are a lot of situations where we're not in control and things feel you know hard but we can flip the switch on that and how can you turn that into a positive and for me that means I I knew I was going to be different and I was going to be a par Olympian but I was going to do that in two sports and make history that's not done in Olympic or par Olympic sport definitely not at the same time realizing that there's more to life than just sport for me sport has always been my life but I was able to turn that around and use it to empower someone and then I lost a lot of friends during that time and that felt really hard as a 23y old but I've now realized that sometimes having a few friend is a lot better than having a lot of a lot of not so good friends this result did not illustrate the backstory so for me I am fourth five time world champion four-time par Olympic champion five time world record breaker yet still my most impressive to me moment was my four finish place at the par Olympic Games in Tokyo and this was because I was unable to run for three months prior to that moment I had spent the best part of two and a half months um running on this beautiful thing the um alter gravity tra alter gravity treadmill because I'd gained a cast tear in one leg and then moved on to having achilles tendonitis in both legs so I went down to the track every single session and would try run and then would walk away crying until the point where my head coach said we need to stop this if she gets to the championship in one piece physically she won't be in one piece mentally so we decided that we were going to use the alter G treadmill and that was going to be how I was going to do my training it wasn't until the week of my my qualification that I was able to actually run on the track and in my first race I ran halfway and lost my head which I've never done and decided to pull out I was on track for making the time I needed to do and then on the final chance to qualify I did did the race and ran probably one of the worst races of my of my life so I didn't think I was going to get get qualification but on the Monday my phone rang and after waiting by the phone all day I thought I was going to be told no but my head coach says you owe me chocolate and mine you've been selected and for the second time I was being selected for two different sports at the same time now I say that because you know life always gives you hurdles and for me having Ms it's really up and down all the time but throughout Rio Rio I was told that my or people said that my motto was carp ADM and this was because I decided with Ms I'm just going to live every moment at a time and push for every moment living all the bits that not everyone would want to do I um I did a show called The Jump which is a little bit crazy I'd never skied I was going to learn to ski and ski jump at the same time um but why not because I gots and I might not be able to walk tomorrow so that's the way I live my life but C DM isn't my motto my motto is a little bit more never give give up just adapt to the waves that's it