Sink or Swim – the joys of swimming
I love swimming, I always have. In more recent years though going to a public swimming pool would fill me with dread. I am basically a defective weeble wobble; Whereas the toys won’t fall over no matter how hard you hit them; I am so unstable under normal circumstances that it’s a joke. Back to my point, the weeble wobble effect is worse when I walk on slippery surfaces, like ice or wet floors, so going swimming proved to be a nightmare.
My most recent swimming trips were during a holiday where our cottage had a private pool available to us and we spent our time making the most of it! I was more mobile then and the distance between the cottage and the pool was roughly ten steps!
As with most people, the recent lockdown meant I spent more time at home and less time walking about. As a clinically vulnerable person I was advised to always stay home and not mix with other people. Ugh. As a people person this really was my worst nightmare. The distance I could walk with my sticks became shorter each week.
Accepting that I needed more help than just my sticks was a big challenge for me. However, since getting my wheelchair I have found my world has opened to me in ways I never expected, but it also showed that I needed to spend some time working on my shoulders and arm muscles if I have any hope of wheeling myself around in my chariot. This is where the “sink or swim” philosophy comes in. I could just sit in my chair and moan that I can’t get anywhere because it is too hard to push myself along or I can do something about it.
I am so thankful for our local swimming pool; they have recently had a major refit and they have thought of everything for the disabled swimmer. From the access to the building, the wonderful changing facilities and wheelchair lifts into both pools and wide solid steps down into the training pool. I was told I could take my crutches into the pool if that would help me get in or out and during my swim the lifeguards would look after them until I was ready to leave. I am still that defective “weeble wobble” but at least I feel like I am supported in my efforts to get in and out of the pool. I am hoping in the next few weeks to try out some swim socks to see if they give me a little more assurance underfoot to reduce the “weeble wobble” effect. I am now swimming every Friday morning and I am loving it. I am building up the muscles in my shoulders so I can pootle around in my wheelchair to my hearts content. I am finding for the 40 minutes or so that I am in the water, my hips are relatively pain free and I am challenging myself to go further every week. The first week I managed 10 lengths but more recently I have managed 42 lengths in 40 minutes! I am always going to push for more because I cannot let Robin get too far ahead of me. Robin says I am faster in the water than I am on land, I must agree with him. That also reminds me of a polar bear; their average walking speed is 3.4mph whereas they can maintain a steady 6mph in the water, for several days apparently.
It may have taken me years to get into the habit of going swimming on a regular basis but a change in mindset and view of the world has meant I am having to think and do things differently. I am trying to see possibilities and not just the problems associated with my life on wheels. Day to day living still throws up the unexpected issues that really in this day and age shouldn’t be there, but with a little more thought we can make all places accessible to everyone – not just the able bodied.