Adventures in Swimming Deafblind

“Who takes you swimming?” I’ve been asked.

“I take myself,” I say.

“But how?”

I’ve had this conversation often, both from other DeafBlind people and non disabled people. It is no secret that I have some vision and hearing, and I am not judging anyone else’s comfort level on how they get around, but I have never had SSPs or family around or a bunch of people available for rides or help, so I go most places on my own. Going to the gym is one of the places I go on the regular, and I do have to figure out several little things to make it work. This is how I do it. It might not be how others do it.

My gym is less than a mile from my house. It is a familiar route for me and I have been going there off and on for 15 years. There are only 2 very minor streets and one more difficult street to cross. The difficult street is a 3 way T intersection with a stop sign. I generally get there, count to 5, and tell my guide dog forward while making it super obvious that I am going to go. I also have to cross a set of light rail tracks. My guide dog is trained to stop for them. There is a rail crossing signal right there, and I can generally tell when they are deployed.

My guide dog and I on the way to the gym.

When I get to the gym, I have to scan my card. The card thingy moves all across the counter everywhere. But the desk staff is used to me by now and usually bring it to me so I don’t have to search for it.

I then drop my guide dog off with a manager there named Charity who has agreed to watch her for me. This is a personal choice for me because it is hard to swim and shower with a guide dog on deck. I can and have taken her with me, but there is really no where to put her when I take a shower and she is just hanging out soggy and uncomfortable when she is at the pool and is not very happy. This is super helpful for Charity to be doing this for me and she is doing me a personal favor. There are no laws that require that the staff babysit my dog, she is just doing this out of the kindness of her heart, but it makes my and my dog’s life easier. If she is gone, I have permission to just slip my dog in her office. Then I use a folding white cane that I carry in my backpack around the gym.

My guide dog getting comfortable in Charity’s office.

Because my gym uses combination locks that I can’t see, I have arranged for a different locker that is operated with a key. The locker is actually in the staff section of lockers out in a hallway. The good thing about this is that the locker is reserved for me and I have my own key, so I store a small amount of stuff there. The bad news is that its in the hallway.

My key locker in the hallway. I have braille stickers on it so I can easily find it in the row.

Which leads us to locker rooms. I tend not to use the public locker rooms, although I can in a pinch. Yes, I am using the “gimp” showers. I have asked permission to do this, although technically you don’t need to and if there was a bunch of wheelchair users there one day, I would defer to them and go use the women’s lockers. I am using the disabled lockers for several reasons. First, it is because my locker is by the disabled shower rooms and not anywhere near or in the women’s locker room. Second, it is because before I started setting up my guide dog with Charity, I had no place to put her in the locker room while I showered and she could not easily guide me in there. The rows of lockers and benches are too narrow for her to guide me. Third, it is because being deafblind in a locker room with scantily clad individuals can be a little awkward. I get hit in the head with open locker doors my cane misses. I sometimes would run right into people who were naked and when you do this you tend to reach out to determine what you ran into and it makes everyone uncomfortable. And I could not see nor hear whether a shower was vacant or not. I could put my hand up and feel whether the water was running sometimes, but if someone was in there drying off, I can’t always tell. So, private lockers for me, for the most part.

The private family/disabled shower area. Its pretty big and nice, actually. It has two sinks, a private shower and toilet area and a bench.

I depend a lot on tech, so one thing I have been experimenting with is using Aira to get me situated in the pool area. Aira is a service that blind people can call to have a sighted agent give you visual information. It is kind of like a remote interpreter for the blind. For me, I use Aira with a braille display. The Aira operators are sometimes great and sometimes not so great about texting me because they are used to people calling via phone and voice. When it works, it works great. I have special glasses with a go-pro camera on them. I text in, and I ask questions like, “Is there a lane free?” How many people are in the pool?” Can you help me walk to the free lane?” But sometimes, like today, they forget and talk to me rather than text. So, today…they were talking to me and since my phone was flat on my lap, it automatically went to speaker phone. So everyone is hearing this Aira agent talk to me except me. And so someone came up and said he would take me to a free lane, which was nice, but…that isn’t the way it is supposed to work.

All of my tech that goes in the orange waterproof bag. My locker key, my braille display, my aira glasses and MIFI and my phone (not shown cuz its taking this picture.)

Swimming is challenging for people who use a lot of adaptive tech because much of the tech is not waterproof. I cannot wear my hearing aids in the pool area. I will not risk it at all. So, I really hear absolutely nothing, not even sounds. I only figured out the Aira agent was talking to me instead of texting because I could feel the vibrations of my phone on my lap. And then someone came up to talk to me and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I figured it out fast. Still, it is a little nerve wracking when this happens, and confusing for me and others, so it is nice when the aira agent remembers to text me. Then I can do this all on my own.

I have a water proof bag that I put everything in. (I keep my hearing aids in my locker because I am not risking my $7000 hearing aids. I do risk my  phone and Aira glasses and braille display, but I try my best to keep them well away from the pool in a water proof bag.)

My sign, cane and bag of stuff at the end of the pool lane. My sign says “Deafblind Swimmer” and then has some notes about how to communicate with me in an emergency, and explains that I don’t share lanes well.

I also use a sign. I do this mainly so people won’t talk to me and drag me around. I try to make the sign friendly, instructive and funny. But I really don’t know how people react to it. I think it helps because without it, people talk to me and I don’t even realize they are talking to me and it just seems rude. Or I have had people share lanes with me and I didn’t even know they were there until *CRASH!!!* and then they are upset with me and I still can’t understand them. So this is a relatively new thing, but it seems to be working ok.

As far as swimming itself…I am a fitness swimmer. I am not that good, so I just like to keep moving in the water. But I am trying to improve my stamina and lap speed by using swim.com app on my apple watch. It keeps track of your laps and times and can even tell the difference between strokes. I can use the apple watch with voiceover…..sort of. It gets really hard in the pool. I have to hold it up to my ear and even then, I am kind of guessing about what it is saying. So, I tend to use Siri and memorize how to get a workout started and then look at the stats when it transfers to my phone later.

Swimming itself as a DB person is not that big of deal. The two challenges are swimming straight and knowing when you are going to hit the wall. I swim pretty straight most of the time, but I do try to put my hand on the tiles on the pool wall (looks like an plus sign) to center myself before I take off. Then I count strokes to keep track of where I am in the lane. Yes, I do bump a wall or a rope on occasion, but it isn’t totally pinball or anything. The I just straighten myself out. It’s another reason not to share lanes.

A screen shot of my swim.com app on my phone that keeps track of my swims. It shows laps, yards, times, that type of info. Yes, I am working on improving all this!

One feature that I hope they develop on apps like swim.com is a vibrating thingy that would tell you when you are getting to the end of the lane so you don’t bonk your head or hand. I don’t usually do this because I tend to count strokes and I slow down when I am getting to the ends. But if I were really trying to increase my speed, it would be nice to have a vibrating indicator on the watch. It seems to be able to tell when you’ve reached the end of a lap and can count your laps for you, so it seems like the tech is there to do this, and I think it might help sighted swimmers, too. But for now, there is really no great way to tell when you are at the end of the lane except for slowing down.

My Apple watch with the swim.com app on it. I would like it if it could do a little more haptic stuff for me, but it does keep track of my swims.

Real blind swimmers in the paralympics use trained “tappers” to tap them when they are near the end of the lane, but if you want to swim solo it seems like technology could handle this task for the blind swimmer. Don’t you think swim.com??

A stock photo that shows a paralympic swimmer in a race being tapped by his coach. The coach uses a long pole to tap him when he nears the end of the lane so he can flip turn. They practice the timing of this till it is flawless.

So, none of these accommodations are all that difficult, but they do take cooperation from your gym. And I have to say that my gym has been extremely cooperative in working with me and making me feel like I am a member just like everyone else. (Plug: HFAC.com) Inclusion is a choice they have made that allows me to swim solo and I always appreciate it when people can just be accommodating and not make things into a big deal that don’t have to be.

A “knee shot” of me after my swim. It shows me sitting outdoors in a lounge chair by the outdoor pool. In summer, I get to hang out and pretend I’m on vacation after my lap swim.

The Ice Has Melted…at Least for NowI

First off, I want to give Jeanne a shout out. Its amazing how some of my long-time blog readers have followed me for years and been so supportive, even when I disappear for months. It proves again how sometimes “pocket friends” or virtual friends are just as sustaining as IRL friends.

Ok, so skating.

The last couple of times I skated, the ice was melting. I mean this literally, but it was perhaps a metaphor as to what was to come. It was actually pretty fun. My husband, Nik and I and the kids went skating 2 times at the temporary winter rink that they set up each Christmas season about 3 blocks from my house. It is VERY busy, but we managed to get private ice time for no more than the cost of paying for each of us to skate public. So, it was just the 5 of us on this small rink.

 

 

Me in skates at the slushy outdoor rink.

I’m not sure who is in this picture, but it is us at the outdoor rink. It was great to have it all to ourselves.

The problem was, we were first in the day and it was around 40-ish degrees. We would get there and they would have just revved up the generator that cools it down. It was the worst ice! It was just slushy on top and you kind of felt like you were skating through sand. But it was our ice, so we dealt. The main funny (looking back now) was when Nik literally catapulted himself out of the rink when he was racing Naim. He did not stop fast enough hit the boards and flipped right out. You could hear a collective gasp from the people in the coffee shop next door. He was not seriously hurt, but was sore for a few days afterwards. We were so afraid someone filmed it and it would end up a meme on Facebook!

I also skated a few times at Lloyd with the Hooky ladies. Around the blasted Christmas Tree. But I have taken this “semester” off from skating with the Hooky ladies. I’m concentrating on trying to rehabilitate my problem knees and feet.

I do think I screwed up my feet/knees skating. My knees have always given me issues and they crackle and everything all the time. But after I started skating, I began to have sharp pains when doing lunges or squats, walking up stairs, or just walking. All of skating is basically done in a lunge position. Its hard on the knees. Again, I need to preserve my ability to walk as it is so important to my overall independence and mobility. I’ve had a run of bad luck with the new skates and probably doing too much too soon, shin splints, etc. I don’t know if I will have to deal with the reality that I am now too old to skate (or only skate recreationally on occasion). But my months long return to skating has had quite a few bumps along the way and did not go as I had hoped. I’m not throwing in the towel, yet. And I don’t feel bad about trying. But  for now, I’ve temporarily stopped skating for awhile.

…And started swimming! Ice/water, its all related. Although swimming is much more boring and certainly doesn’t give me the same kind of creative outlet, I am really enjoying it now.

So, a little history: I am not a great swimmer. I never got out of “advanced beginner” swimming lessons. I could never properly dive, I don’t know how to do a flip turn, I don’t understand the concept of a breast stroke, I don’t breathe right, I’ve never raced or anything like that.

But it has been this weird little secret superpower over the years. When I was younger and I would race people just for fun, I always won. I won against my dad and many others. Sometimes I have won against much taller men. Now, these were just regular people, not swimmers. I am sure I would not win against a trained swimmer. But apparently, I have a decently efficient stroke.

Once when I was swimming at Fancy Shmancy Gym, this woman came up to me and started talking. I did not know what she was saying, so I told her I was deaf and asked if it was an emergency and she said no. I told her that when she saw me with my clothes on or with my phone, we could talk then because I would have my hearing aids and phone to text. Then I forgot about it.

A few weeks later, I was swimming again and this woman taps me on the shoulder. I was still deaf so still did not know what she wants to talk to me about or even if it was the same woman. I smiled at her and said the same thing again. I’m deaf blind, I can’t see you well or hear you at all but when I’m not in the pool, I will have an easier time, talk to me then.

On the way out, one of the people who worked there asked me to wait. The woman had asked them to get us together. So, she comes and talks to me. They even let us use this little office so I could hear her better. She says that I am a good swimmer with a really strong stroke and with some work, I could be really competitive and did I want to join the master swim team. I just laughed. I can’t dive! I can’t do a flip turn! I get tired after 20 minutes! I suck! I wouldn’t be able to hear or see the coach or when the start of the race happened.

(Interjection to say that blind and deafblind swimmers do swim with accommodations on an elite paralympic level, but I doubted they had those kind of accommodations I would need here. Besides, I still sucked.)

The bigger issue is that they trained 3 times a week and I just didn’t have time for that. I was a SKATER anyway! But I did go home and look up Master Swimming on the internet just for fun. And wow! These are crazy, highly competitive and organized adults! Then I remembered my high school/facebook friend Jay Gallentine was involved in swimming at a crazy competitive level. He is swimming across lakes and doing iron man shit. I wondered if this was what he was involved with. It seemed pretty cool, but still…no time.

Fast forward a few months. My knee is worsening. I can’t skate as much anymore. Everyone is telling me that swimming will be safe for my knee and help me rehab it. I changed gyms to a less expensive one that only takes me 15 minutes to get to. Also, I got an Apple Watch.

An Apple Watch is not necessary for life, of course, but as a DB person, I LOVES me my Apple Watch. Its got a ton of haptic stuff I use now. It can also be used to swim with (do you know how much anxiety I used to have swimming when I couldn’t tell what time it was and couldn’t ask anyone and had to pick up my kids from childcare at such-and-such time? Waterproof accessibility for the win!). It can give you an impressive amount of data about your swim. This is when swimming started to get interesting. I figured out that my stroke count is about half that of Nik’s (we swim at different pools at different times, but compare our stats like the geeks that we are) and I was going faster (although he can go longer as he has more endurance.) Nik has swam competitively in para-swim events in Sweden. He has been coached and could dive and flip turn and knew how to use the “bop you on the head” accommodations and all that. So, I was a little impressed with myself. I think, at least in a sprint, I could beat him. Someday we need to figure out how to be in the same pool so we can go head to head!

So this is starting to get interesting.

I mean, I have a LOOOONG way to go. Right now I only swim for 30 minutes and do more kick board laps than anything else. And my current gym doesn’t even have a masters swim team, and even if they did, I would have to figure out how to accommodate myself or if I could even be competitive without accommodations. And I don’t really know what is available in paralympic sports for an almost 50 year old who is not going to the paralympics.

And skating is not out of the picture yet. And I hope it will never be totally gone, even if I just skate on occasion. I hope to still skate a few times recreationally this spring and see where things are at. But for now, swimming is keeping my interest, helping my knees and feet, and is kind of fun.

“The Olympic Experience”

Just a little update to tell you about my trip to Vancouver, BC. I was there during the International ISU World Adult Competition which was being held at the Burnaby Rink 8 facility, which, yes–has 8 friggin’ rinks! But I knew my family was not going to be into hanging out in some rink in Burnaby and watching adult skaters compete. So, since it was a family occasion with a packed agenda of stuff to do that did not involve skating, I did not go. (It is held in Vancouver every two to three years, though. I’m developing a tentative plan to return for a private, all skating Vancouver trip….)

Skating, Richmond Oval, BC from Lisa Ferris on Vimeo.

I did, however, take my skates and my son, Naim and I went to the Richmond Oval (where the speed skating oval was in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics) and had a lot of fun skating there. The big speed skating oval is no longer there (wouldn’t that have been fun?), but they have two full-sized rinks and we skated in the middle of the day on one with very few other people. It was a really nice skating experience. My son and I were laughing because everywhere it had signs saying “This way to the Olympic Experience!” Well, not quite, but it was a really nice facility.

Vancouver has a plethora of rinks. I was jealous. You are never more than about a 30 minute bus ride (or probably a ten minute car ride) from some available ice in Van. Skating in the big rink with not a lot of people made me really miss that experience I used to have in Portland when I skated at Clackamas Town Center. It made me…think about trying out the Sherwood rink.

Between my old skates and the big rink, I was able to do things I haven’t done in years. It was just more relaxing to have all the space. I thought, hmmm. I had discounted the Sherwood rink because of the distance, but if I time it just right, It would take an hour and 18 minutes to get there (vs. about an hour and ten minutes to get to Lloyd), plus I could go any day of the week except weekends (I am making an assumption here about daytime quiet at this rink, this is actually going to take some experimenting.) And I could go when the kids are at their school and stuff.

I would miss my Hooky Club ladies, though. And so I don’t know if its worth it. Its going to take a bit of experimenting. I am going to try it Wednesday and see how it is and see how they are with me. It doesn’t hurt to try it once or twice. If it doesn’t work out, then I can always continue with Lloyd, or do some kind of combination of both.

I’m working on my skates. I went to Cyclone Taylor Sports in Vancouver which is HUGE skating store. Figure skating only. I looked at getting new Reidells, but decided no. I can’t justify that after my Edea purchase. I may have a buyer for my Edeas, but she wants her own blades (and I want the Reidell dance blades, so that works out). So also on Wednesday I am going to do some skate doctoring. I am going to try to get the toe box on my old skates stretched a little, sharpen my dance blades, take them off the new skates and move them to the old, and re-shoe string the old skates, polish them, and then I bought a Reidell skate arch support kit that when I get it I will experiment with that a little. Then, I will have a hopefully nice pair of skates that will be comfortable and last several more years. And get a little money back from my Edeas. I would say “lesson learned” but I really don’t know how you can learn this lesson without putting blades on the skates and trying them out for a period of time, which is what I did, and then you can’t return them. So, I acted in good faith and I don’t know how I could have really prevented this, but there you go.

Skating could be sporadic while I experiment a little and have my skates in the shop, but there is always Daily Burn!

 

 

Life is Not a Journey, Life is Now.

Guide Dog, Marra, hanging out with Tanya (Ice Staff and Friend) behind the counter.

Oh, my goodness its been a long time since I have blogged, but I did not abandon the project, just blogging about it. No time, mostly.

Let’s see. I took about 5 weeks off of skating in the summer to heal my shin splints. During that time, I did keep exercising and working on my ankle and knee/leg muscles.

Mostly what I did was Daily Burn 365. I kind of got addicted to it. I had done another program on Daily Burn called “True Beginner” which was prerecorded. Daily Burn 365 is a live show. Even though I rarely watch it live at 6am, I usually watch it a couple of hours later. So its almost live. You wouldn’t think the live aspect would be that big of deal, but it kind of is. The host and the fitness people are talking about current stuff and it corrosponds with people chatting live and on Facebook about things. People have babies, move into new houses, release books, change jobs, and you get to hear about it. There are weekly themes and guest speakers and its pretty much a community of sorts. Its kind of uplifting and has good messages.

In my past, I was pretty athletic. Not like, hugely talented or anything, but I could do almost anything exercisee-wise in say, two weeks time. So, if I started an aerobic class, the first two weeks might be kind of tiring and not full-out, but after that, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do to keep up. Now, I am always doing modifications and taking a more low-impact route. It doesn’t seem to improve.

Skating has been the same way.

Its been rather frustrating. I know I’m older now, I know I have chronic illness that affects things like blood pressure, balance, and muscle tone. I know those are the realities. Its been really hard to know how much to push and how much to not push to get myself to maybe improve, but avoid injuries and keep my overall functioning high. I’ve not had these wonderful revelations where people say after like 30 days or so that they feel great and have extra energy and all of this wonderful benefits of exercising. The tipping point between doing just enough to feel good and doing too much and having a lot of debilitating pain or fatigue has been really hard to find. It still is.

So, something kind of helped me from Daily Burn. They talked about how it is not a journey. You know how everyone says its the journey, not a destination? That has always kind of bugged me, because where are you going if there is no destination or if we don’t care about it? And what is the destination? Death? That’s where we all end up, right? But one of the trainers on DB said, “Its not a journey. You are here already.” Like, if you show up to do an athletic thing you are already an athlete. If I skate today, I am a skater. No, I’m not saying I’m a great skater, but I’m a skater. I skate. Skating is happening today. That is what matters.

So, like, my list of skills has been just going nowhere. I’ve had so much pain and fatigue that I don’t even think about my list because all I am thinking about is “Ok, I got here. I’m here. I’m just going to skate and whatever.” This counts. I’m a skater. I skate. Skating is happening today.

I think it is important because I have seen through others how the laws of inertia affect their lives. I do not want to stop, even if going ahead is not showing any appreciable results. Going ahead is still doing, moving, participating, being in it. If I stop, it will be exponentially hard to pick up and go again. I’m a skater. I’m an athlete. I get my body to do some things, the best it can do today. I show up. Things are happening today.

The Hooky Club members are largely older than I am. I see a woman in her late 70s who had a knee replacement. She took 6 weeks or so off. After two weeks, she did not skate but she came and hung out with us. After six weeks, she skated. After  a couple of months, she went to an adult skating camp and just last week I saw her doing pattern dances. Another woman had shoulder surgery and has had a couple of hip and knee replacements. Her husband still skates but she does not. She still comes most days and talks to us and walks around the mall. I like these ladies, if they can show up, so can I.

At a point I looked at the woman who had the knee replacement and how well she is doing and I decided that something is wrong with me. I’m not sure what it is or if it can be fixed. Whatever it is, it does not mean I can’t be a skater and show up, but it deserves some investigation. I should not be having this much trouble, when…look at her!

On a whim, I decided to experiment with my skates. I wore my old Reidells to skate in. I have not worn them since April and I have been working diligently to get used to my new Edeas.

Guess what?

Yup, this is both good and bad news. I think I have figured out (at least one) of the problems. Except that my toes were scrunched up, the Reidells felt fantastic. I had hardly any pain (except for my smushed toes.) I had more endurance than I have had in months. I was faster, more daring, more confident, more comfortable, and took way less breaks. Hmmm.

Its not that the Edeas don’t fit right. The boot feels really good to slide your feet into. Its a difference in the height of the heal and the height of the boot. The heal is just about 1/2 inches higher and the boot is about 1/2 inch lower. This puts my foot and knee in a completely different position to skate on. I’ve been having serious shin and knee pain that did improve during my 5 week break but then started to return after, even though at that point I was only skating once a week. I don’t blame Jim, my skate fitter, because the skate itself fits great. Its just that I can’t skate like that. I think I need a lower heal and higher boot. More ankle support. I thought I would get used to it, but its been 4 months. I don’t know if I will.

So…what to do. Yes, its a lot of money. But it was such a big difference that its like, I feel like never wearing the Edeas again. I like the dance blade, and I can take that dance blade off and put it on my Reidells. I might be able to stretch the Reidells in the toes. I could look at getting new Reidells in the same exact model but with a bigger toe box. (Not gonna go that direction for a while, though. One pair of too expensive skates a year is quite enough. ) So, I’m going to go back to the skate experts and see what they can do. It sucks, but I took a risk with new skates that I could have not foreseen (I mean, 1/2 an inch? C’mon. How could it be such a big deal?) It might have been something that I could have adapted to when I was younger but can’t now. Because I’m a guide dog user and use my feet for tactile information so much, I rarely wear heals of any sort. I think I’m just not young enough to change. I think I can consign my boots and get a little money back for them, but I know it will be a loss. I like the Edeas, but am more happy that I may have found a solution to my ongoing skating issues.

It will be sad if I have to abandon my pretty Edea Overtures, but hopefully they will find a happy home.

But here is the funny thing. ..with the old skates, even though I had to recalibrate a bit and even though my toes were smushed, I wanted to get back to my list! I was like, back crossovers, 3-turns, MITF,  here I come! Feeling like I had some goals and could move forward. So, still not a journey, just more of an exploration of where to go next. Still a skater. I skate. Skating is happening.

So, I was skating ostensibly 2 times a week and doing DB 365 for 30 minutes and then another Daily Burn program like yoga or mobility for 30 minutes on my non skating days. But that was summer. School is in, convention season is here, work is happening, homeschool is happening.

That is the other bit of reality of this. I can’t do it all to the extent I want to do it. So, skating went down to one day a week. Boo hoo! Especially now that I might have solved a big issue. But I don’t get much done on those days and I can’t not get much done on 2 whole days a week. I also don’t have the luxury of an hour plus for exercis

e on most days, so I’ve cut back on DB and am trying to get 30 minutes in a day.

I’m getting in touch with a skate expert who will come to the rink and see about what can be done for my skates. That hasn’t been set up yet, but hopefully it will in the next couple of weeks. I decided not to participate in the Christmas show this time, as I’ve just had so many issues with pain and skating, but if I solve this thing and get back to my list, I think that maybe I could switch to doing Thursdays and taking the group lesson and then get back into that kind of stuff.

I think I have been confused a lot this summer about aging and health and how to manage it. All of this kind of got away from the anxiety thing, because it has caused a lot of additional anxiety in some ways. But I suppose these are good issues to work through. Showing up, whether its skating, DB or whatever, does help decrease anxiety. Bodies decline, some faster than others. We all have to come to terms with that. Aging happens. That is why this “life is a journey” stuff has felt so false to me. If it helps, others, great. But it bugged me. But if I think “life is today, and today I can skate, exercise, take a walk, read a book, help a client, write a letter to my senator, talk to a friend, all the other things my body can do,” then it makes so much more sense to me.

 

Reset

One of the Lloyd Ladies took this of me today. I’m standing in my skates on the ice.

I can be just a bit of a control freak. And that almost caused my skating to go off the rails. Other things caused me to only skate a few times in the past six weeks as well, shin splints, an eye infection, a spree of nausea induced head aching, Even new shoes and a blister. But what was really causing a bigger problem was my control freakishness.

Here is an example: A popular thing for blind people to do is tandem bike. Often, you go to a blind people recreational event and there will be biker volunteers with their tandems for you to climb on back of and ride away on. Its cool. But not for me. I HATE tandem biking, because I am a control freak. I hate being on the back of the bike and feeling like I have no control over where it goes, what it does, how far it leans, etc. So, what do I do? I drive the tandem. I have the (very courageous) volunteer make tactile gestures on my back for left, right, break, etc. And I drive. Now, I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t do this on a major street with a bunch of cars and stuff. I would only do this on a bike lane that is fairly unpopulated. But still. I think driving the tandem is fun, but not being the rear person. Even better is when I have been able to ride my own bike behind or beside a person riding a bike. But I can only do this on a really easy straight route.

So, doing my lesson with Anthony kind of felt like being on the back of a tandem bike. I felt like I was being driven around. Now, I just want to say here, if any one ever reads this who knows him, I don’t think Anthony did anything wrong. This is nothing to do with him, its all my psychosis. Its a level of not being used to skating with a partner, not being able to see while someone is pushing you around the rink at a speed you aren’t used to, not being able to confidently do the steps independently of him, and not being able to control the pain in my legs I have sometimes when with someone else. Its overwhelming and I was dreading skating. I did not want to dread skating.

But I also see where Anthony could really help me out eventually, so I think if I take these things one at a time, I could get to where I am not feeling like I am on the back of a tandem bike and having a control freakout. So, I think I am getting healed with my shin splints and the time off was good for that. I still did shin/ankle/leg exercises the whole time. I think if I could do most or all of the individual steps independently then I would feel more in control when skating with him. I could also have more confidence with the speed. Then the only thing left is just getting used to the whole not seeing and skating with someone else. I think when I learn the dances better, like where I should be on the ice (I mean they are pattern dances, this is not hard) that will help and then it will all come together.

So, I’m taking a coaching break. Anthony was all cool about it so its good. I returned to skating today after only skating like…twice in the last 6 weeks and got my mojo back. I had very little pain. I mainly only worked on forward stroking and some edge stuff. I’m ready to go back to my list of basic skills and start chopping away on them. And it was my birthday today, so my motto for the year is #48skategreat!

I know in the grand scheme, no one really cares that I skate and its just a frivolous little hobby of mine. But it has been “skate therapy” in some unexpected ways. Stuff like the above comes up, where my personal anxieties and issues come in and I have to decide to deal with them or quit. Its good to push through and work outside of your comfort zone (within reason.) But other stuff is getting worked through my head as well.

I was a caregiver for disabled people for around 28 years. Most notably, I was a primary caregiver for a quadriplegic family member for 22 years. It wore my down. It screwed with my mental and physical health, it was hard on my family, but it was no one’s fault. It just was a difficult situation. Near the end of my time, I would walk over there and feel like throwing up I had such burn out. I quit in late 2016 after finding hired replacements for myself. But it was a hard adjustment I still feel like I am going through. A year after I quit, a lot of things fell apart for this man and he ended up losing his apartment and is now living in a nursing facility, which is not ideal. I feel a lot of guilt over that.

There are three reasons I am even able to skate now. One is because my kids are older and more independent, another is because my husband’s business is doing well and the work I do for him I can do on a very flexible schedule, and the third is because I am no longer a caregiver. While his life declined, mine got dramatically better. Our business got better because Nik and I were not so stressed out trying to take care of him and had more time to sleep and manage things. The kids are not so stressed either and we have more time and energy to hang with them, help them with school, etc.  I was able to focus more on my health, eat, sleep and exercise more. Everything got better for me while everything got worse for him. I still see him in the nursing home regularly and we still text and stuff. I still help him out with small tasks from time to time when I can and bring him things he needs. But it is a complex emotional trip. It became one of those “put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help another” things, and I know if we kept it up, our business might have failed and my health  may have more rapidly declined. And he is not helpless, much of his decline happened because of some poor choices on his part. But I see daily that it is all an awful system that he has to contend with as well that is just really really challenging to be successful in. Its just…sigh. In the last year I’ve been spending a lot of time working out stuff in my brain about the whole thing.

So, I try to keep skating as a happy place, an anxiety reducer and unclouded by controversy and drama. I want it to stay that way because it is important that I have something that can be that. I think this means that I have to take things very, very slow. No rushing into dance lessons, no rushing to gain skills when my muscles aren’t ready. I’m 48 and I can still skate. I’d like to keep it that way.

Death by Shin Splints

My 8 year-old helping me do my shin stretches today by holding a strip of theraband while I pull it with my foot. And yes, my house is atrociously messy because nothing got done this week and my husband’s guide dog sheds 4 medium sized dogs’ worth of hair a day.

Ok, you all may have surmised that I had a little trouble getting a coach who would take me. I started at Winterhawks and didn’t even get any “no” responses, I got completely ignored. Emails and calls went unanswered. Friendly “hellos” at the rink got nervously rushed away from. So, when Anthony agreed to work with me, I was very appreciative, and I always attempt to make the newbie comfortable with me with a combination of telling them what I need for it to work but not making it be too much that I need for it to work. I try to be competent and fun to work with (hopefully) and sprinkle any education about my disabilities over time as we go to not be too overwhelming.

Last week went well. But this week was crazy bad. It was not his fault, nor too much my fault. So, my kidney illness that makes me have to count spoons manifests itself with these symptoms: headaches, nausea, kidney pain, and a lot of fatigue, in various degrees and intensities. So for the past four days, I was struggling to manage headaches, a bit of nausea and trouble eating, and fatigue. But, even though I took some Tylenol at 2:00am, I was good to go on Monday morning.

However, transit was not good to go with me.

It was fleet week in the lovely PDX area, and I skate across the river. The Willamette River, on Monday morning, was saying good bye to a bunch of navy ships that had been docked there. To do that, it needs to close down and lift up a ton of bridges. It took me two hours to get to the rink, and I ended up walking onto the ice in a hurry just one minute before my lesson was supposed to start.

Remember how last week I was happy because I took ten days off skating and thought my shin splints had all but healed? Well, without warming up both off and on the ice for my usual 45 minutes, they decided to come back with a vengeance. So, I had a trace headache, I had taken some tylenol and that always makes me woozy, I hadn’t been up in 4 or so days, I can’t see functionally at all when I skate with Anthony, and I had the worst shin splints I’d had in maybe…ever, after we started skating.

Do you know what your tylenoled, 4 days of no activity hungover, blind brain does when its being manhandled around the ice while in sharp pain? It panics and stops working altogether. He was telling me steps and left foot right foot and I was just like, “Wha?? Ow, ow, ow. Feet? Ow. Ow. Trip on toe pick, scrape, lose balance, ow.”

Here is what a smart person would have done. A) Asked the woman who has lessons after me if she would have switched times with me so I could warm up. She was RIGHT THERE, I could have asked… or B) told my coach to forget it, I’d pay him for the lesson but we either needed to quit or slow way down and just work on some really easy, basic stuff.

But instead, I just kept going in a blur of brain panic and blinding (ha!) pain because I didn’t want to be wimpy and have my needs be too overly “special” (barf) and so thus reignited my stupid shin splint pain. After the lesson, I had to get off the ice immediately and recover with skates off. I thought I would just take a break and maybe go pay for a public session so I could skate past the Hooky Club time, but when I got back on the ice, the pain was still dizzying. I even almost contemplated Uber-ing home because I thought I may die on the walk, but the billion dollar price tag encouraged me to tough out the walk. I ended up just getting back on the train after almost maybe 40 minutes of skating.

Ok, but WTF, Shins? Can’t we be friends again? I know at 47, I am not going to do as well as I used to. I know that it is more important to warm up and all that. But, really? I can’t let my illustrious ice skating career be killed by shin splints, can I? How stupid. Here is a video of a 95 year old man that skates twice a week. If he can do this, I should be able to do this, right? I’m nearly half his age! (Seriously, this is pretty cool, though.)

So, I’ve iced them. I stayed off of them for the rest of the day yesterday. Today, I went back to the Dr. Jo videos and did those series of stretches and exercises. They have improved a lot today. But I’m wondering if its something more. My skates? My orthotics? A more mechanical injury?  Should I stop with lessons for a while? Should I stop skating for a while? I am completely confused as to whether I am over or under doing it. Do I actually have to go to the doctor over this? Annoying. I did go to a podiatrist years ago for my plantar fasciitis issue (which seems to be no longer a problem once I put orthotics in my skates) but I never had this much of a shin splint issue before. Someone said to try compression sleeves? I’m getting very high maintenance in my old age.

Dr. Jo (I have been using her videos a lot, lately.)

Spoons, Spoons, Skates and Spoons

This is a graphic that explains Spoon Theory a bit by categorizing different tasks into how many spoons they might take up for a person.

I thought I would write a little about chronic illness management, because it has come up this week and it seems to be such a tough subject for people to understand. I did not skate on Thursday because I was sick. I was not so desperately sick that I couldn’t have done it if I really wanted to, but its an issue of pacing and management and where skating sits on the priority of my life.

So, you may have heard of “Spoon Theory.” If you haven’t, it may help to go read this.

I’ll wait.

So, yeah. Only I think it is more complicated than even she makes it because for me, I don’t know how many spoons I will get a day. It could be anywhere for 5 to 50. Also,when I refer to chronic illness, I am referring to my kidney disease However, my dual sensory loss also plays a role in spoon management.  The same task may vary greatly in amount of spoons it takes based on how well my vision and hearing is accommodated. Say I go to a social event. It is an event with a bunch of blind people so all my blindness needs are met, and since they are disability savvy, they are better than average but not perfect about my hearing. That event will take much less spoons than an event that is not disability aware, just everyday people. In this event, NO ONE is going to tell me who they are, where the food is, what is going on, they will point and say things like “over there, ” I will have to go to them because most will be too afraid to talk to me, and when I do, I will have to answer a bunch of monotonous questions about disability and go into “education” mode even though I would much rather talk about other things. This event will take maybe triple or quadruple the spoons of the disability aware event. The other thing that is more complex is that I don’t necessarily start with a fresh supply of spoons every morning. If I used too many spoons yesterday, I may have less today. If I decide to use too many today, I may be borrowing them from tomorrow. Its complicated.

Here are some of the things I do to try to make sure spoon management is more of a physical thing to deal with than an emotional stressor:

• I put things into categories. I’m lucky that I rarely have too many days where I can do absolutely nothing. So, I can arrange to do things from a less demanding category or a more demanding one based on my level of energy. For example, most desk work, I can do unless I feel so shitty I can’t concentrate. So, there is always something I can usually do to make myself more productive at home.
• I don’t think of sick days as days where I am just waiting it out getting better. I know that there will be a time when there is no more “waiting it out.” This is it. I don’t waste days being sick. So, I have a running list of tasks in all different spoon categories. There are always low spoon tasks. And even if I can’t do a whole day of low spoon tasks, I could do one…or two, or three. At the very least, I can hug my kid or my dog or my husband and try to be a good family member for a few minutes. Then I have not wasted a day.
• I have back up plans and more back up plans. Life for myself, nor my kids or others should not stop if I’m sick. It may be rearranged, but there should be no wait around to get better type of things.
• This is important when making commitments which is almost impossible to do when you have a chronic illness. Its scary. So, I give people advance warning and I tell them what my back up plans are. For example, every term I have to volunteer for 4 hours for my kid’s school to get a tuition break. I tell them upfront about my situation. I pick three things on three different days to do. I prepare substitutes for myself. And then I will be able to get one of those days done without too much letting people down. In college, I would talk to professors at the beginning of the term and say I may be here for ever class or I may miss too many classes. Lets negotiate what I can do if I miss too many. How many is too many? What alternative assignments or learning can I do to make up for missed days? It worked so much better to do that upfront.
• If I do commit to something that absolutely cannot be changed. There is about an 85% chance that I can push through it no matter what. But then I make sure that there is recovery time both before and afterwards. I would schedule easy days around it.
• I don’t listen to any kind of talk about my being “not sick enough” or “too lazy” or any of that shit. I and only I decide what I am well enough to do. No one else can judge me. I see what other people call “sick” and its bullshit. People who are well all year and then get a cold and take off a week and whine about it. The same holds true if they say “You are too sick to participate.” Chronic Kidney Disease is not contagious. Only I decide if I’m too sick to participate in something.  I know I’ve done way more sick than they’ve ever done, so its just impossible for others to judge you appropriately. I try to do my part to lessen any impact on others if I can’t do something, but that is where my responsibility ends.
• I also have a responsibility to take care of my health and try to work at as full capacity as possible whether that means going to the doctor, eating the right foods or understanding how to use Braille with a computer or finding a communication method that works. But I also understand that these things are ever changing, my body is ever changing, science is ever changing, and there is no way to always know the best way to take care of and manage my disabilities at all times. I do my best to keep up with it all, I’m not perfect, and I’m not going to feel bad about not being perfect.
• I understand and appreciate the concept of partial participation. With skating, I know that I cannot skate every day, do every class, competition, test, etc. I appreciate what I can do and don’t have an all or nothing attitude about anything. I try my best and measure myself against that and not what others can do. Doing a part of something is better than doing nothing at all.
• I prioritize based on my own priorities as much as possible, not others. Its not always possible. There are some bullshit things you have to do in life, like paying my water bill every two months by hand because the stupid water company won’t let me set up auto billing. Its stupid, but no water in the house is a very bad thing, so I do it, (fortunately its on my easy list.) But many, many other things do not have to be done, nor done by ME. This sometimes means my house is messy or the kids are eating McDonalds food. But my priority is that my kids get fed, healthcared,  educated, and feel included and loved at home. How I do that is sometimes fantastic and sometimes (McDonalds) just getting by.
• I am extremely lucky to have been able to set up a very flexible schedule for myself where we still earn enough money for the necessities of life (largely thanks to my husband, who is a workhorse and entirely supportive of me.) I know that this is difficult and not everyone can do this. But more and more work is getting more flexible and things like telecommuting, gig economy, work-life balance programs can help with this. As much as humanly possible, I’ve tried to build a life where my disabilities and illness are not obstacles but can be used as strengths. I am lucky to have several outlets where I can help my husband earn money, help other people, be creative and have a meaningful life even with disability and sickness. There are sacrifices to this. I could have had a more prestigious career, made more money, etc. But really? Perhaps not if I was always failing because I was sick all the time or unaccommodated and killing myself to make it in a full-time working world.
• I know that life is precious, at any time an instant could change your whole life, and there is only so much in my control. I try to make the best of what I have control over and forget the rest. I have a good inner core about who I am and what I can do. I don’t get concerned with who I am not or what I can’t do. I try to just expand upon what I can do and who I am. We are all in a decline, I know that there will be day I can no longer skate or remember who I am or fill-in-the-blank here. I can’t be scared about that. I can take advantage of what I can do today.
• Whining is extremely irritating to me. I try not to do it (much.)

None of this ever works perfectly nor do I always have the perfect attitude about it. But it tends to balance out in the end. I come back to this core. I was disappointed to have missed Thursday skating, I would have rather gone and done my group lesson (Its been three weeks!) But I did some other things and that day is done. I can’t get hung up on it. And I plan to go back Monday and so I am still a skater.

I’ve often said, oh-big deal about being Deafblind, but CKD is kicking me in the ass and making me feel like I can’t be who I want to be. It has been what feels like an “impairment” vs. the other stuff which just felt like an identity that has brought me more good than bad. I’ve often wondered why I can’t seem to look at CKD in the same light as my sensory disabilities. And…I finally think I’m starting to a bit more. This is who I am. I can do this today. I can’t do this today, maybe tomorrow. I’m not going to feel bad about it or apologize to anyone for it. I’m doing as much as I can and that’s enough. That’s me.

 

Ten Day Absence Made the Heart Grow Fonder

I have a confession. I was so unmotivated and disappointed by the skate I did at Winterhawks on 5/25 that I just wanted to quit this whole thing. I was in constant pain, I look like shit. The Winterhawks people seem to barely tolerate my existence. I have a busy life which is filled with work, kids, a loving husband and friends. Why am I making more problems for myself when my whole point in this was to feel better. Here is some video from that session which i did not want to show, but why not? (Someday I will actually show improvement and this will be the sad “before”….I hope?)

Winterhawks 5-24-18 from Lisa Ferris on Vimeo.

So last week I did nothing. I did not skate for ten days. I think I might have done 1 Daily Burn and maybe a few walks and only worked out for like, 2:30 hours. Then, I remembered that I have two paid skating sessions left with the Hooky Club as well as an appointment with my new coach. I should keep the appointment, use my last two sessions, and see how it goes.

It went great! First of all, I think the ten days off helped my shin splints heal. I had almost NO pain today. I did not even take off my skates and they felt pretty good. It was really the first time that throughout the whole session, I didn’t have pain. I did feel a bit out of breath, but that was probably more to do with the fact that I literally did almost nothing for ten days physically.

OK, so coaching. My coach was a dancer, and he almost immediately launched in to teaching me the dutch waltz. Which we did in parts together with the Killian hold. Except for that one time I practiced with a precision team, this was the first time I skated with another human where I have to keep together with him. Now, He was giving me A LOT of support, and I’m sure I looked just as bad as that video if not worse. But! I felt the familiar edges, The muscle memory of some of those steps started kicking in, I don’t have the muscle and balance ability to hold those positions on my own, but with his support I was able to get the feel for them. It was challenging and fun.

And a bit scary. Speed has always been a problem, and although I am sure he was slowing way down for me, I was going his speed. Visually it was a bit overwhelming. I could not orient myself at that speed. Then he would say stuff like, “left foot toward the center or the wall” and I would be like, “I have no idea where I am in space and time, I don’t know where the wall is!” I think that will get better when I’m not so freaked out about thinking about what steps I am doing, keeping balanced, and going so fast. Although I could still see a bit of light and color, that was really skating blind. Everything was just whipping by in a blur that I could not cognitively/visually interpret.

So, if I skate with a partner, I suppose that would be the easiest way to accommodate this. As a kid, I knew that I could never compete because of figures. I couldn’t see them. I did test in freestyle a bit, but that was it. Back then, it never occurred to me to try pairs or ice dance. That was for older adults. And Ice Dance, well, it was for Russians! There was not ice dance in the US (I thought). Although clearly JoAnn Schneider Farris proves me wrong, she was totally ice dancing then with a whole US team at the Broadmoor. In my twenties, I wanted to learn ice dance but I could not find a coach or partner. Partners for women are rare, especially for ones who are already in their twenties and just starting. The adult competitive scene was just getting started then and was not developed as it is now.

So now, I just figured I would learn solo dance because that has developed a lot in adult in the past twenty years. But now I recently found out that at the lower levels, you can dance with your coach as partner. Hmmmm, maybe this is the way to get past my speed problem. Dancing with your coach is expensive, as you have to pay all the expenses instead of splitting them, but it might be something to think about.

My husband, Nik, said he wants to learn ice dance with me. And although he CAN skate–he is Swedish Canadian so he was practically born with skates on–he is totally blind so would not be able to serve that role as guide. We could do it, and we might just for fun. But the bigger problem is that he really doesn’t get how much work and dedication it takes and he doesn’t have the time when ice is available. Besides, my plot to get him on the water in his own sport seems to be working. He is really liking rowing. (Here is a video of him on the dragon boat. He is the very last rower in the boat in the forefront that is moving ahead.)

So, I think I have recovered from my funk. And I think it might have been a good thing to take the time off. I had been skating in pain for over two months. Maybe things just needed time to heal. So, this week the plan is to skate today and Thursday, Finish up the last of my “Daily Burn: True Beginner 8 week program” which has taken me significantly longer than 8 weeks, and work up to heading back to the gym. This week and next week have lots of end of school year obligations and event for the kids and then we have dragon boat races on the weekend to go to! (He trains for 6 weeks and he already gets to race in a top-tier boat! I spend 12 weeks just trying to get my skates to feel ok. Ice Skating is a hard sport, you guys.)

UGH!!!

I’ve been feeling blah about skating since Friday when I skated at Winterhawks for likely the last time until fall. They don’t offer that morning session in the summer and they were not very forthcoming towards working with me on any other possibilities. (I mean, maybe there aren’t really any, which is fine, but it would be nice if my questions were answered.) That rink! It seems to have such a tense and no fun atmosphere and people tend to be really territorial. Its like no other rink I’ve skated at, which all have their little quirks. I haven’t really been there that much, so maybe if I went a different time it would be more lively, but WOW people don’t seem very friendly there. I mean, even if you think I am a lousy, non-serious skater that takes up space, my kid and I are still paying customers and could be brought in to take classes, find a coach, join the skating club, volunteer, etc. Its just night and day different from the atmosphere at Lloyd or the old Clackamas. I wonder how much of this has to do with the lack of ice in this town. People may just feel really pressured to make use of the ice when they have it? I mean, I don’t expect social hour, I’m there to work, too. But a friendly hello would go a long way. There have been a few people there who have been friendly, but there are some that go out of their way to avoid us.

Now, I’m not blaming the rink for this, but I was absolutely terrible on the ice that day. I figure I was about 30% worse than I am at Lloyd. I have a snippet of video that I don’t even want to put up because I look timid, awkward and SLOOOOW. So, so very slow. Part of it is that I think because of the cold it takes longer to warm up there for me (and in general it takes longer to warm up now that I’m old.) The ice is colder, hockey ice so it feels different, and also–and this is probably most to blame–I’m so intimidated there! I know that there are about 6 people there skating around at top speed who basically are going to do a triple on my face before they adjust course for me. I do, I really do try to stay out of their way. I try to stay to the outside, give them the right of way, etc. But its very difficult. Since they treat the public session like a freestyle session, they aren’t staying to the middle like I would have in my day. The coaches station themselves around the penalty boxes, and the students come and go to them. I’m more used to the coaches coming to the middle with you and not having this horizontal disruption in the flow of traffic. Back and forth, back and forth. I love the space there and the standard ice size, but its hard going for me. I feel like I”m constantly having to slow down or not even get started on anything because it is so intimidating.

In better news, I have a potential coach at Lloyd! We will call him A. I don’t start with him for another week yet but he was a senior national level ice dancer in the early 90s, so I am excited that I found someone with a dance background. The other person I was looking at, R, I knew from before a bit. I think she is a great coach, all business, goal oriented, and very talented, but I remember her not really knowing dance. She was a freestyle skater. So, I’d be happy with either one, but I am going to try A and see if it is a good fit. My Mondays at Lloyd were feeling a bit wasted, and I wanted to pick it up a notch. Although I have said many times that I don’t have delusions of grandeur, I also don’t plan to skate around in endless circles, either. I don’t know how far I  can really go, but I am going somewhere. I need goals to work toward…testing, skills, local competitions, something.

So, I did meet all of my goals this week. My total exercise time was 6 hours and 40 minutes. I skated two days and worked out the other days, did my outside walks, and 3 Daily Burns and also skating specific off-ice workouts. The only thing I did not accomplish was the renal dietitian because she doesn’t work there anymore and they don’t have a new one yet. So instead I went back to the DaVita site (I’m not the biggest fan of the for-profit DaVita. I always kind of feel like they might steer me wrong so that I get on dialysis sooner. But it is kind of the only game in town.) Anyway, DaVita has a lot of meal planning, recipes and health tracker for people with CKD, and its always good to review and refresh.

This made me happy: Midori Ito, 1992 Olympic silver medalist, skated at the ISU Adult International competition in Germany last month. I got my description of her performance via Dave Lease (from The Skating Lesson) and he was…not so complementary about her. Her spins traveled, no extension, no jumps, etc. But (except for the jumps) that was kind of how she always skated, wasn’t it? Anyway, She is a year older than me and Dave’s Co-host, Jonathan Beyer, complimented her on her obvious exuberance for the sport and her joy in being there. She always seemed like a nice, fun person. So, I’m happy to see that she skated in the Adult competition (Master Elite II, which is senior level skaters with past national and international medals who are between 40-50, I think??? The Adult categories are complex.) The camaraderie around adult skating has always been fun for me, as long as you are out there doing your best, people are happy for you, and so I’m happy for Midori.

 

Wrap-Up Week 10/Goals Week 11

I’ve decided that even though I’ve been griping a lot, I’m doing really good. I’ve skated 12 times in the last 6-7 weeks after an almost virtual 15 year hiatus. Four of those times were in old, ill-fitting skates and the rest were with breaking in new skates. And I’m well within working through the first 4 classes in the Adult Basic Skills Series. I’d give myself approximately another couple of months to work through the rest? Hopefully that isn’t getting too ambitious. The last half is much harder than the first. I’m already playing around with next steps which I think will be starting Moves in the Field and Pattern dances.

On Thursday, my skates were doing much better. I only took them off once, and even then, I was contemplating whether I needed to. I still have shin pain, but nearly no foot pain. By the time I did the group class, I was in awe of the fact that my feet and legs barely hurt! And you can accomplish so much more when not skating in pain. I can do pretty much everything they have us do in the group class (although some is not so neat. And some I modify to fit my level a bit.) I worked on edges, chasses, short (easy) footwork sequences, and stroking. My leg unevenness is improving a lot.

I skated both Monday and Wednesday. Fitbit says my total work out time this week was 5 hours and 33 minutes. I did a lot of walking this weekend, and then some Daily Burn and Fitbit Coach videos on the off days, along with stretching. I still have some stretching left to do today, so that will add another 20-30 minutes or so to the total.

I did get into contact with Jo Ann Schneider Farris so I was excited about that. We have exchanged a few emails and she put my review up on her blog. Its always fun to connect with other skaters and authors and just people who are enthusiastic about life.

I also reconnected with two of my skating friends from before. I had a substitute coach and I KNEW I knew her from before and I figured out that she was my old friend’s coach. So, I had been thinking about them anyway and decided to see if we could connect, and we did! One of them has now (oh, what is the appropriate wording????) changed? from male to female. I have not seen her since and all my memories are of her being male. I’m all cool with it and it was not that surprising to me, really, when I heard. (Weirdly, I was probably more surprised when the other friend got married to someone he met on the internet! Heh.) But I still find myself saying her male name and pronouns so I am trying to correct myself. I was talking to Nik (husband) about her and I kept switching back and forth and he was laughing at me. I know other transgender people and I don’t have this trouble with them. I think it is just mostly because I haven’t seen her in so long and all my memories are of her identifying as male. We may all three of us meet up (people live a bit further from each other and are much further away from skating life, so we’ll see if we get it together to meet up) but I will get myself straight by then and it would be fun to see them again if only every once in a great while.

Anyway, did I say how excited I am that my skates are getting better? Also, I’m getting into a groove with my other responsibilities and working around skating. I’m not falling asleep so much all the time now, either.

So, this week:

Skate two times. Continue to work through the list of basic elements.

Concentrate on Cardio and ankle-leg strength three days.

Stretching 6 days.

Walking outside (beyond transportation walking) 2 days.

Try to make an appointment with my nephrologist dietician. I want to see what she says about my leg fatigue and anything else she thinks about my diet. Its been a couple of years since I’ve seen her.

I’m still trying to work my way back to the gym and work on more pilates/core. I think it will come in summer, because my school responsibilities will be less and the kids will want to get out and swim and stuff. School ends in about three or so weeks.)

I’d like to hit Valley/Winterhawks one more time before school is out as well. I like to make them remember I still exist every once in a while and see if I can become a bit of a fixture there. But I’m thinking I’m going to be cut off over the summer due to the kids at public session. My Lloyd Ladies will be my saving grace over the summer, I think.