jenny the dragon slayer

tuesday morning, i slayed my first dragon.

to understand what i mean by this i need to share with you some of my background: right around may 24 i will begrudgingly celebrate a bitter anniversary of sorts. it will mark seven years since i last walked. you’d think since it has been such a long time, phrases like “i’m going to run to the store” or “let’s go for a walk around the neighborhood” would have slowly worked their way out of my lexicon. but no, i say phrases like these just about every day. that’s just me … a little blind to my disability maybe. or just not hypersensitive to it. these little untruths are not malicious. they are just, well, part of my charm.

keeping that in mind, i’ll explain that the dead dragon from tuesday is because i went swimming. just as dragons insight fear in some, swimming was my fear. so on tuesday, i stared down that beast and i went swimming.

“swimming?” you ask. well, you bet ‘cha!

okay to me swimming is merely me standing in the swimming pool. it is not the breaststroke or the butterfly. for me right now, swimming has become a humungous process.

a process that requires the help of three people. well, four if you count the pool lifeguard (i.e. the lift operator). gone are the days of slipping on my suit and diving right in.

the process starts when i ask my husband, dan, to help me put on my suit. we carefully and momentarily stand to adjust it. then he helps me put on a sweatshirt, which serves as a cover-up, and finally some shoes. then, dan passes me off to my caregivers, ellie & jim. who drive me to the very accessible pool facility in central michigan university’s student activity center. ellie escorts me to the locker room. where she takes off my cover-up and shoes, hands me my towel and i’m one step closer to taking my swim. oops! see what i mean? i neither step nor swim. again, part of my charm 🙂 

once i’m on the pool deck, jim transfers me from my wheelchair to the university’s hoyer lift-type thing. and now the lifeguard pushes me, buckled into my seat, close to the water. swimming is so close! he slowly lowers me down, i can smell the chlorine and feel the chilly water on my toes. brrr … finally, i’m submerged up to my chest. time to unbuckle me. oh the water, how refreshing!!

jim floats me over to the stairs, i’ll use the handles to stand. sorry, no miraculous stair climbing in my future. just standing.

okay, wait. I’m standing! how amazing is that? because of the water, i’m buoyant and seemingly light as a feather. and for the next 15 minutes, i stand. yes, there are occasional breaks where i just float. for me to stand, jim and ellie have to push on my knees to lock them for stability. but once my knees are locked, they let me go and i’m standing all by myself.

as i start to get tired and remember that i don’t want to overdo it, i ask jim and ellie to strap me back into the chair, which lifts me up and out of the water (i quietly make a promise to myself that i will swim again this summer). jim transfers me back into my wheelchair, ellie towels me off and we rush home so i can finally go to the bathroom! unfortunately the pool is accessible, but the locker room not so much.

so i went swimming, which is one dragon down. now i have two more i need to overcome. and i’m looking forward to telling you all about them when i finally slay those dragons.