A new start after 60: I was partially paralysed by a stroke – and it felt like hell. Then I found a new sport, family and future

The first two times Rose Chin arrived at the basketball court as a 65-year-old, to try out for the Inverness wheelchair team, she couldn’t make it past the doors. “I looked through the window and just thought: ‘I can’t do this,’” she says. “The third time, though, I made myself go through before I could think about it. The team welcomed me with open arms and it’s changed the way I live in my wheelchair ever since.”

Chin was partially paralysed in 2018 after a stroke. For several months, she remained in hospital as she battled through complications and began to rebuild her strength and ability to communicate. “At the beginning, I was so weak I couldn’t even use a wheelchair and I went to a really dark place,” she says. “I realised that I wouldn’t be able to go back to my old life. It felt like hell.”

Once she was discharged home to Fort William, Chin began the slow process of adapting to life in a wheelchair alone. She had to leave her job at Morrisons, give up her love of sports such as squash and badminton, and work out how to respond to people’s questions about her health. “I felt embarrassed to be in the chair when I went out,” she says. “People that hadn’t seen me for ages would ask about it and I’d have to explain what had happened. It was like reliving it all over again.”

Asking for help was particularly difficult as Chin didn’t want to feel like a burden, but after being recommended a course of therapy, she started to glimpse a future for herself. “It was really good to be able to talk to someone about what I was going through,” she says. “I started opening up to other people and one day my social worker suggested I should try a sport. She mentioned the wheelchair basketball team and I decided to give it a try.”

Following that successful third attempt on to the court in 2022, Chin was enlisted as part of the 10-person team and began attending weekly training sessions learning how to pass, throw and defend while manoeuvring herself in a specially designed chair. “We very quickly became a little family with a WhatsApp group full of banter,” she laughs. “I’m the oldest on the team and the youngest is 19 but when I play, age doesn’t come into it – it’s such a buzz.”

Starting off with a few friendly matches against teams such as Aberdeen, Chin found a knack for playing in defence and blocking incoming opponents by placing herself between them and the hoop. “The matches are full-on, 40 minutes in total but we usually play 10 minutes at a time before being substituted,” she says. “It gets so intense! Three months ago I broke my thumb while playing.”

Despite this potential for injury, Chin has found the sport invigorating. Now 67, she has lost half a stone and taken on a personal trainer who has been advising her on her diet, as well as putting her on a weightlifting regime. “I used to feel so isolated but now I’m part of something,” she says. “I’m doing things I didn’t even do when I was able-bodied, so it’s definitely changed the way I see myself. I’m not embarrassed about being in a wheelchair any more.”

Her team have also entered a local league and are ranked second, while Chin splits her week between remote work in customer service back at Morrisons, weight training, basketball practice and matches. She has her sights set on trying lawn bowls, too.

“I feel so independent and I know I will keep playing for as long as I can,” she says. “I want us to raise more money to get more equipment so we can encourage others to join. They might be feeling like I was, but I want them to know that there’s opportunity out there – they don’t have to be alone.”