05/11/2025
At 88, Proserpine local Renee Scott has lived a life stitched together with love, family and crochet hooks.
But when she suffered a stroke in August, she found herself unable to move the entire right side of her body and unsure if she’d ever pick up a crochet hook again.
“I noticed my speech was slurring and by the time I got to Proserpine Hospital, within the hour my whole right side was paralysed,” Renee said.
Doctors transferred her to the Mackay Base Hospital stroke unit, where she spent four weeks in acute care before moving to the rehabilitation ward.
For someone as independent and active as Renee, who volunteered for Meals on Wheels for more than 20 years and has lived alone since her husband passed away four years ago, the sudden loss of function and dignity, was devastating.
Her rehabilitation was focused on relearning how to stand, walk, dress, and feed herself, but her motivation came from one deeply personal goal: to finish a collection of crocheted blankets for her family.
Renee has crocheted blankets for her nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, each one made with the care only a grandmother’s hands can give.
It was a hobby she learned from her mother in early childhood and which had more recently kept her mentally active and “her hands moving”. The finished product was also always “very satisfying and gives you quite a thrill.”
But when she suffered a stroke, she still had one-and-a-half blankets left to finish — the final pieces of a plan she started last year to ensure no future great-grandchild would miss out on “one of Nanny’s blankets.”
“There are five grandchildren who still don’t have children yet so I worked out I probably needed to make about 15 blankets for them,” Renee said.
“I’d crocheted 13-and-a-half — I just needed to finish the last one-and-a-half,” she said.
Renee’s rehab journey is a perfect example of therapy stitched with compassion, creativity and care.
Working closely with Mackay Base Hospital Senior Occupational Therapist Madeline (Maddy) Miller and the rehabilitation team, Renee focused her therapy on regaining movement and coordination in her right side through repetitive exercise and retraining her brain.
The stroke meant Renee lost movement on the right side of body including her arm, hands and fingers, legs and feet. Her therapists started her with passive movements, guiding her through each exercise until her muscles began to remember. Gradually, she built strength and control.
She celebrated many rehab milestones like making her own toast and pulling up her own pants, but when her crochet hook proved too thin to manage, Maddy improvised a thicker handle so Renee could grip it more easily.
“Adaptation is a huge part of what we do,” Maddy said.
“It’s about finding ways for people to keep doing the things that matter most to them. For Renee, that was crocheting,” she said.
“We were able to tailor her therapy around that meaningful goal and she’s inspired so many other patients on the rehab ward along the way.”
Maddy said Renee’s progress was testament to her determination, family support and passion to achieve her goal.
“Rehab is never easy and there have been hard days. But Renee’s motivation and commitment, even outside therapy sessions, have been incredible. She’s put in the hard work — we just help guide her,” she said.
“The most rewarding part of this job is seeing the joy that it brings people when they're able to return to doing the things that are most meaningful to them. For Renee that was crocheting.”
Renee credits her therapy team for keeping her spirits high and her goals firmly in sight.
“They’ve been marvellous — every one of them,” she said. “When you’re feeling down, they lift you up. They’ve become like family to me,” she said.
Now preparing to go home, walking again, dressing herself, and most importantly, starting back crocheting with her adapted crochet needle, Renee said the key to her recovery had been persistence and purpose.
“You’ve just got to have fighting spirit,” she said.
“Laying down and giving up is too easy. For me, a goal like finishing those blankets gave me something to really look forward to.
“With help from the OTs, I’m on top of the world that my great-grandkids won’t miss out on one of Nanny’s blankets now.”
Occupational Therapy Week (October 27 to November 2) celebrated the extraordinary impact occupational therapists make every day. This year’s theme, Occupational Therapy in Action, highlights the creativity, problem-solving and compassion at the heart of OT practice.
