Winter Paralympics: 'I chose to have my leg amputated after years of pain'

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When musician Shona Brownlee had a fall at the end of her military training she didn't think much of it - but after years of chronic pain she made a life-changing decision which unexpectedly took her to this year's Winter Paralympics in Beijing.

Shona had been passionate about the French horn since childhood.

"Music is all I ever wanted to do," she says. "My evenings and weekends were taken up with orchestra practices and concerts."

Shona, from Livingston in Scotland, studied music at the highest level, first at Birmingham Conservatoire and then Arizona State University in America.

But life as a freelance musician was tough. Orchestral players are often only paid for the one or two rehearsals before a concert and then the performance itself. And it was unpredictable.

She knew of friends who had joined the RAF as musicians, for stability.

"I'd always thought the military wasn't for me. But when I went to visit them and sat in on a couple of rehearsals you realise that the job is exactly the same as a civilian musician.

"You're in a uniform, but you get the rehearsals, you get the concerts, the travel and world class bands."

Shona applied to the RAF and was accepted as an aircraftwoman. Even with a focus on music she still had to meet the same entry requirements as all of the other recruits and complete basic training before she got to play.

There were a few lifestyle changes too. As well as fitness tests and early starts "we marched everywhere," Shona smiles. "You have to march between whatever lessons you've got," from service knowledge to weapon handling.

As Shona approached the end of basic training, she let herself imagine what her musical career would be like.
And then she fell.

"It was a simple accident," she says of the fall from a ledge into a loading bay, and she thought nothing of it. Her ankle was sore, but she presumed it was sprained and would be fine soon enough.

She pushed herself to finish training and joined the band, but "band drill" - more marching - was out. She could barely walk.

Shona was referred to the famous Headley Court Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre and diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome which causes severe persistent and disabling pain. She tried various treatments from intensive rehabilitation to surgery.

"Nothing worked," she says. "I was stuck on crutches with a leg that didn't work."

More at https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-60642118