Tuesday, 29th August 2023.
Today I went swimming. First time in ages. Maybe a little bit more specific: if you regard swimming as using your arms and legs to propel yourself through a body of water, maybe not so much ‘swimming’. If you regard it as taking most of your clothes off and lowering yourself into a body of water, in this case an enclosed open box called a ‘swimming pool’ then I did. I must admit my thrashing about and ungainly movements upright probably don’t constitute a recognised stroke. But hey, baby steps.
For somebody with Multiple Sclerosis, most bodily ailments — heck, most bodies — swimming is an excellent source of exercise. For me, when the whole world tells me that the fix for all ailments of human beingness is exercise, it’s pretty much the only exercise. But, and here’s the thing: (things), it’s bloody boring, everything gets wet, I have to get my fat ugly whale tummy out in public and everything smells of chlorine afterwards.
If you get kicks out of looking at people in few clothes, go down the park, swimming pools aren’t the place.
The first and most important thing is the water supports your body weight against gravity, unlike the park or the local pavements, so there’s less pressure on already knackered joints. It provides a resistance against movement, so it’s a free gym exercise even just walking in the shallow end. As if walking in the deep end was an option. And, I suspect the most important point especially initially, you’re doing something. Taking action, making something happen. The ownership of agency, to whatever small degree, cannot be over estimated in importance when much of you life’s agency is owned by disability or disease.
At first my body was in revolt. Wtf? What are we doing? But my mind was happy.
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