Brigitte van der Laan woke up after a brain surgery, and she was no longer the Brigitte she was before the surgery, the tumor was benign, but there was substantial collateral damage from the surgery.
After weeks of initial rehabilitation, she could only walk very short stretches with a stick, and slightly longer distances behind a walker. After some time, her partner and her missed the cycling and going for forests walks.
Then they found the Alinker online. It was 2016 and I was just testing the waters with the brand new Alinker in the Netherlands. I was touring the country to introduce it in some cities.
Brigitte called me devastated because she wanted to try this amazing thing that she found, but could not make it to the PT studio where I would be. I decided to go and see her after, in her home. So I met her and her 5 young children and she got on the Alinker right away. It was all she could dream of.
Because of Brigitte's situation, and we were not even selling Alinkers, I came up with the idea to do a crowdfunding campaign with her. We met again to make a video, and Brigitte was the very first campaigner! Thanks to all her generous friends and people in the Alinker circles, Brigitte now had her Alinker for close to 7 years!
Soon Brigitte was going to the forest with her partner, do 5K runs, and over time trained herself to do 50K runs on a single day! Brigitte is such an example of how you can take charge of your own life. Her forecast as depicted by the medical system did not look like the life she is living now.
Yes it takes work and dedication, but heck is it worth it!
In the summer Brigitte is going to walk the world famous 4Day March in Nijmegen, Netherlands, 200K in 4 days. We'll follow her journey here.
