Orla’s Own Steps – 10 years on!
I can’t quite believe I’m writing this 10 years on. Time has flown, and Orla is now 14 years old.
Just to recap, Orla has diplegic cerebral palsy. At diagnosis, we were told that she wouldn’t walk and would become a full-time wheelchair user. Diplegic CP mainly affects the legs, where the muscles and tendons are tight and painful.
Orla went through regular procedures, including Botox injections and serial casting to lengthen these muscles, but the results never lasted more than three months at a time. As she grew, she would also have needed tendon- lengthening surgery.
Orla Leaving the Portland Hospital
The road to recovery is then a long one, involving intensive daily therapy. Basically, Orla had to retrain her brain to send signals to her legs, which now had no spasticity to support them.
Orla can now move around the house independently. She uses a walking frame at school for speed, and for longer distances she uses a wheelchair. Most importantly, she has no pain and has not needed any further surgery.
She has been through so much, but she doesn’t let anything get in her way!
Orla attends mainstream school and is studying for her GCSEs. She loves attending Theatre Shed in Chesham, has singing lessons and has so far completed her Bronze DofE Award.
Orla currently plays wheelchair basketball for U14s England South. They recently competed in a Home Nations competition in Nottingham and came away with a bronze medal. In September, she moves up to U18s, where all the England teams come together to train.
However, Orla’s main sport is para surfing, also known as adaptive surfing. Which is pretty tricky when we’re landlocked!!!
Orla first had a go at surfing a few years ago while we were on holiday and immediately fell in love with it. She surfs in a prone position, on her tummy like a bodyboarder. Orla requires someone to push her into the wave and a catcher at the other end, so we had to find surf centres with experience of adaptive surfing.
Orla, her surfing crew & her board at The Wave, Bristol
Gold medal wave at Para surfing Open Championships
Things have moved on quite quickly for her. Two years ago, in August, she decided she wanted to do more surfing. So now we travel around the country a lot to find the waves! We’ve also been to Jersey, Ireland and Fuerteventura.
She got her own board last June and entered the Surfing England Para Surfing competition at The Wave in Bristol, where she came third.
Since then, she has been classified in Spain, meaning she can now compete in World competitions. She is also now part of the Surfing England Para Development Squad.
Our summer holiday this year has been all about surfing. We started in Edinburgh at the wave pool, travelled down the East Coast of England and ended with Orla winning her first gold medal in the Open Para Surf Championships in South Shields. She competed against 12 other para surfers, including the current UK Open Champion, and came away with the gold!
As I write this, the sun is shining and we’re sitting on a beautiful campsite overlooking the sea on the North Yorkshire coastline outside Whitby, allowing ourselves a well-earned rest.
Well… until tomorrow, when Orla is hoping to get back into the water!! We are so proud of the person Orla is becoming. Primary school was quite tough for her, particularly when it came to friendships, and we always worried about her recovery and what the future would hold after her surgery.
Now she’s turning into a beautiful young lady, with lots of friends and a real love of life. She has so much more to come, and she continues to be a true inspiration to anyone who knows her.
And so, 10 years on, we want to say thank you once again to everyone in the village who supported us back in 2015-16.
You helped us take a step that changed Orla’s life for the better – and we will never forget it.
Who knows where Orla’s own steps will take her next?
Orla is also looking for sponsorship opportunities to take her to World Championships in California and beyond. kennysue29@hotmail.com.
Sue Brash (Orla’s mum)
You can follow her surfing journey on instagram @the_landlockedsurfer
This article appeared on p10 of the October/November 2026 issue of Village Voice