Alison’s Arctic Adventure: Hospice OT to swim in the Arctic Circle

Question: What would occupy an occupational therapist (OT)? 

Answer: A swim in the Arctic Circle across two time zones?

Yes, that’s what Alison Martin, who shares OT duties at the hospice with colleague, Katy, and therapy assistant, Tracy, is going to be doing in 2025.

Wowser!

Alison’s booked for the event Swim the Arctic Circle taking place on 12th July which is just the small matter of swimming between Sweden and Finland in the River Torne and is, as the name says, in THE Arctic Circle. So, pretty chilly, even in July.

Furthermore, she’s entered both a daytime 2000m (2km) swim and later the same day, midnight, the 3000m (3km) swim which takes her across borders and time zones.

If she completes the 3km in less than an hour she will technically finish before her start time. Mind-boggling!

Now, you’d expect this to be meat and drink to a keen chilly dipper but, the fact is, Alison has never swum more than a couple of hundred metres in open water and, with only five month to go, was taking swimming lessons to improve her front crawl technique.

Wait… WHAT?

To be fair, Alison’s a regular with the Wirral Bluetits Chill Swimmers since May 2021, so her frequent meets at Leasowe Bay, in the cold Irish Sea, where Alison says she “splashes around a little,” will have more than prepared her for the plunge in what might be a cool 16-19 degrees centigrade. (15°C and less is officially cold!)

Did anyone mention that Alison… …was once caught up in a riptide at Leasowe Bay? That a rescue helicopter, which was sent to assist because the boat would have taken too long, landed just as four or five other strong swimmers had scrambled her to the shore? That she needed treatment for hypothermia? No? Well, it happened!

And still, a little more cautious nowadays, Alison and friends, Sarah and Wendy who are joining her in Lapland (they won’t see Santa in July) enjoy “swimberling” (dipping and bobbing around) the Wirral coast.

Alison is paying her own way for the challenge and is ultra determined that she will, with her little mascot, Swimberling. Mini.Me (pictured on the left), achieve it while raising vital funds for the hospice. (A link to Alison’s Just Giving page is here and below)

Alison gained her BSc degree in occupational therapy in 2001 from the University of Northampton. Work had taken her mum, Pam, originally from Wallasey, and her dad, Eddie, from Manchester, ‘down south.’where Alison and her sister grew up.

Many a happy school holiday was spent on the Wirral visiting her grandmother. Years later her parents retired and moved back to the Wirral and now only live around the corner to Alison and her family in Hoylake.   

When qualified, Alison came to the Wirral and started her OT career at Arrowe Park Hospital working across all departments, including A&E, acute and rehabilitation wards and spent five years at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. Before joining us at the hospice, she worked in the wheelchair service at St Catherine’s in Birkenhead.  

Before joining us at the hospice, she worked in the wheelchair service at St Catherine’s in Birkenhead.

Alison’s now an integral part of the patient and family support services team rat the hospice and she’s really enthusiastic about her colleagues and her work as an OT,

“There’s a great spirit at the hospice.

My fellow OT, Katy, Physiotherapist Miriam and our therapy assistant, Tracy, are a great therapy team. We work with all of our multi-disciplinary team colleagues so that we understand fully what matters most to each of our patients and how we can help.

An occupational therapist helps people of all ages overcome challenges completing everyday tasks or activities. They look at the relationships between the activities you do every day – your occupations – alongside the challenges you face and your environment. Part of my role as an occupational therapist is to empower people to help themselves by providing advice to enable them to keep doing what they love and need to do.  

As well as supporting patients in the in-patient unit, we facilitate education groups in the wellbeing centre. These education groups aim to provide non-medical ways of managing symptoms.   

We facilitate FAB (fatigue, anxiety and breathlessness) sessions in working with outpatients, inpatients and our Wellbeing Centre, day services,  patients.

We’ll also assess everything, from being able to get around at home, making a cup of tea, getting in and out of a bath, right up to ward discharge planning, including assessments to establish the adaptations people may need at home so that they can be as independent as possible outside of the hospice.  

We start from the premise that life is for living and we’ll work with each patient and their family to ensure they can live a fulfilled everyday life, despite their illnesses.

It’s such an important and rewarding job.”

In her own, full, home life, Alison is married to Alex and they have children, Rebekah and Zach and a dog called Remy (who is a scruffy mutt and nothing like the fine cognac…Remy Martin).  

So, it’s just the small matter of home, work and swimming to think about for the next several months, Alison.

Everyone at the hospice wishes you all the very best, Alison, and, Thank you so much Alison and, as Dory sings in Finding Nemo… just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!!

If you’d like to sponsor Alison for her chilly Arctic Circle swim there’s a link at justgiving.com/page/alisonmartinarcticswim 

 To learn a little more about occupational therapy services at Wirral Hospice St John’s please visit wirralhospice.org/occupationaltherapy