A Swansea-based doctor who spent his entire childhood in full-body plaster is now preparing to set sail around the world.
Greg Schey defied the odds as he was forced to learn to walk again after being born with part of his brain sticking through the base of his skull and into his spine.
Incredibly, the 27-year-old medic, who was born in London, is now competing in the Clipper 2017-2018 Round the World race.
He is on board Qingdao, one of 12 yachts competing in the challenge, which left Liverpool on Sunday.
“My coordination was very low, and as a result of that sticking through... it disrupts the flow of fluid which goes up and down the brain and spinal cord,” Greg said.
“That caused bubbling, and the bubbling in my spinal cord, pushes the bones of the spine out of alignment and then compresses the nerves.
“Compression of the nerves leads to lots of rather nasty things, no muscle development, no sensation and that sort of thing.”
Before turning seven, Dr Schey had corrective surgery and then spent the next seven years in plaster and undergoing physiotherapy to learn to walk again.
“Growing up around 12, 13, 14 years of age in full body plaster from hip to shoulder for 22 hours a day is a quite an impingement,” he said.
“The one or two hours I had off were for swimming because it is very good for strengthening up the back and all the body muscles.”
But he refused to let his condition stop him from achieving what he wanted out of life.
Dr Schey said he had always wanted to sail around the world and was determined to achieve it.
He said: “I think it has given me an attitude of ‘if anyone else can do it then I can’.
“It has definitely made me want to prove that I can also do physical things as well.”
His role onboard the Qingdao yacht will be the assistant medic, which will help with his ambition to become an expedition doctor.
Dr Schey said he was concerned that illness could be the main risk to the team achieving their challenge.
He said: “We had this discussion as a crew and the thing that scares us the most is something like a contagious illness.
“Even if it is a simple upset tummy then that can really wreak havoc in a crew and can destroy our potential for a race - because if you have everyone down below then you can’t race properly.
“The big things, the scary things that everybody worries about, the management is relatively simple: you do what you can and you head for land as quick as possible.”
He said he felt “anticipation” of the task ahead, particularly with 40,000 nautical miles of racing the world’s oceans ahead of him.
“But there will be some personality clashes,” he said.
“I guess at the back of my mind I do worry about how our boat will perform with that happening.”
