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mollywheezyIn 2007, I was visiting a friend in an assisted living facility and while walking up the stairs, I fell, hitting my chest on the corner of a step. Since I was holding onto the handrail and not in a hurry, I apparently fell over a stray air molecule because I’m talented like that. My chest hurt and I thought I must have pulled a muscle. I visited my friend anyway, and when I arrived home, I told my husband Arthur that I had fallen but downplayed how much my chest hurt because we were leaving town for vacation in a few days, and I didn’t want him to even have a thought of canceling our vacation.
It had been about a week since my fall, we were on vacation and having a good time. Then I sneezed and I thought I was dying. The pain in my chest was worse than anything I had ever experienced in my life. I doubled over, clutching my chest. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, and Arthur panicked. He searched for his phone to call 911, while I frantically shook my head no. I managed to get a breath and gasped, “It’s okay. I think I broke a rib.” “A broken rib is NOT okay.” “It’s not a heart attack, though.” I finally convinced him not to take me to the ER in an unfamiliar city. The fact he didn’t know where a hospital was and couldn’t find a phone book helped, and I agreed to see our doctor when I returned.
Our doctor confirmed that I had broken a rib. Her hypothesis was that I cracked a rib when I fell and then it broke through when I sneezed. For months, I could not bend or lift anything, including bending to put on my shoes, and it hurt to breathe. I bought some slip on shoes, but Arthur had to help me get dressed, and wash and braid my hair. I was growing my hair to donate to Wigs for Kids so I had a lot of hair. Since it was almost long enough to donate, Arthur graciously agreed to let me wait to cut it. Even once I cut it a month later, I still couldn’t get my arms above my head to wash it.
This system continued for months. Of course, when it hurts to breathe, it’s impossible to exercise. Exercise?! I couldn’t even dress myself! I gained forty pounds, which was the most frustrating thing of all since I had been doing well with losing weight before my broken rib. When I expressed my distress over my weight gain to my doctor, she told me to go to a water aerobics class, and suggested I pick one geared for older people because it should be easy enough for me to do. The water would support my chest so it wouldn’t hurt and I should be able to get the exercise I needed to start losing weight again.
That sounded like a good plan, except for one small detail: I hated water. I remembered almost drowning as a five-year-old. I was using my much older cousin’s inner tube because it was shaped like a swan and I thought it was cool, but it was too big for me and I slipped through it and sank like a rock. My dad dove in to rescue me and pulled me up coughing and spluttering. He was always a good swimmer and decided I needed to learn how to swim. Of course, my dad grew up on a lake, and we lived nowhere near a lake and didn’t have access to a pool either. We joined the YMCA to use their pool, but I refused to take a swim class, and thankfully my parents didn’t force me. My main issue with swimming was not wanting to put my face in the water. My dad did manage to teach me how to tread water and to do the backstroke, which I didn’t mind because it didn’t involve putting my face in the water. My dad was satisfied I could at least participate in not drowning, so he didn’t push me to learn much more.
Middle school Physical Education classes were a nightmare because we had to have a unit of swimming to pass a state mandated swimming test. I was panicked because I was going to have to put my face in the water! (Not that Middle School PE wasn’t always a nightmare) I figured out a system: if I held my breath for the duration of the time I had to swim, I had to have my face in the water, which I still didn’t like, but it was better than having to repeatedly take my face out of the water and put it back in again, so I practiced at home learning to hold my breath for as long as possible. Oh the logic of my twelve-year-old self!
I remembered these things when told I needed to take water aerobics and in addition to my dislike of water, I now did not want to appear in public in a bathing suit! Arthur suggested that if I went to a class for elderly people I should look good in comparison even with my weight gain. He suggested I think of my good memories involving water. There weren’t many . . .
In my eighth year, my parents took me to see both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I had fun holding my dad’s hand while wading, feeling the sand squish between my toes and collecting pretty seashells from the water’s edge. My mom made me wash the seashells in our hotel room’s sink before she would even let me think of packing them. While the shells were hanging out in the sink, one of them began walking away. My mom was horrified, but my dad calmly went with me to return the hermit crab to its home.
When my best friend and I were thirteen (after we had passed our swim test, her with flying colors and me by the skin of my teeth) we decided synchronized swimming was really cool and we should teach ourselves how to do it. This was in the eighties so there were no YouTube how-To videos available. Of course, we did not succeed. I wasn’t even a decent swimmer. The only thing we managed to synchronize were our arm movements while standing in the shallow end of the pool, but we had fun trying. We also decided around the same time that watching swimming and diving on TV was a really good way to see almost naked men without our parents getting suspicious. “Of course we want to watch the Olympics! We are being patriotic and supporting our fellow citizens in their athletic efforts!”
My good memories of swimming didn’t really help with needing to actually attend a class in a bathing suit in public, but I wanted to be healthy, so I gathered my courage and joined the YMCA. The fact that the arthritis swimming classes met at 8 A.M. did not endear them to me, but I went. I drove to the Y in my bathing suit and coverup, and then had to shower before getting in the pool, and then shower and change afterwards since I have never liked to stay in a wet bathing suit, so this one hour class took at least two hours. The first day, the teacher tried to convince me I did not belong in her class because I was the youngest one there by at least twenty years. Her first language was Polish, and I was not doing well with convincing her why I did need to be there . . . until she saw me try some of the moves, and agreed with me that yes, I did belong in her class. On the first day, I managed to get my foot tangled in a pool noodle and couldn’t manage to extricate myself. I wasn’t drowning, because my other foot was firmly on the bottom of the pool and my head stayed above water, but the lifeguards were mobilizing anyway. One of them finally grabbed the end of the noodle while I grabbed the side of the pool and managed to untangle me. After that excitement, I needed a nap. Water aerobics, even for people twice my age, was exhausting!
Over time, though, I did begin to get stronger and did begin to lose weight. I lost my discomfort about being in a bathing suit in public because everyone in the class had bad eyesight and couldn’t see me anyway. The teacher was very nice and extremely skilled, learned all of the class members' physical problems and would tailor exercises to help each of us. I became friends with several class members, and after class we would often have a post-class hot tub party if we didn’t have anywhere to be right away. I attended the same classes for years until I finally was healthy enough and able to find a full time job.
Today, swimming is still not my first choice for an activity, but playing in the water with my nieces and nephews definitely makes it worth it. Fifteen years later, I am much more comfortable in my own skin than I was previously, and will wear my Star Trek bathing suit in public with pride. I also LOVE hot tubs!
It had been about a week since my fall, we were on vacation and having a good time. Then I sneezed and I thought I was dying. The pain in my chest was worse than anything I had ever experienced in my life. I doubled over, clutching my chest. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, and Arthur panicked. He searched for his phone to call 911, while I frantically shook my head no. I managed to get a breath and gasped, “It’s okay. I think I broke a rib.” “A broken rib is NOT okay.” “It’s not a heart attack, though.” I finally convinced him not to take me to the ER in an unfamiliar city. The fact he didn’t know where a hospital was and couldn’t find a phone book helped, and I agreed to see our doctor when I returned.
Our doctor confirmed that I had broken a rib. Her hypothesis was that I cracked a rib when I fell and then it broke through when I sneezed. For months, I could not bend or lift anything, including bending to put on my shoes, and it hurt to breathe. I bought some slip on shoes, but Arthur had to help me get dressed, and wash and braid my hair. I was growing my hair to donate to Wigs for Kids so I had a lot of hair. Since it was almost long enough to donate, Arthur graciously agreed to let me wait to cut it. Even once I cut it a month later, I still couldn’t get my arms above my head to wash it.
This system continued for months. Of course, when it hurts to breathe, it’s impossible to exercise. Exercise?! I couldn’t even dress myself! I gained forty pounds, which was the most frustrating thing of all since I had been doing well with losing weight before my broken rib. When I expressed my distress over my weight gain to my doctor, she told me to go to a water aerobics class, and suggested I pick one geared for older people because it should be easy enough for me to do. The water would support my chest so it wouldn’t hurt and I should be able to get the exercise I needed to start losing weight again.
That sounded like a good plan, except for one small detail: I hated water. I remembered almost drowning as a five-year-old. I was using my much older cousin’s inner tube because it was shaped like a swan and I thought it was cool, but it was too big for me and I slipped through it and sank like a rock. My dad dove in to rescue me and pulled me up coughing and spluttering. He was always a good swimmer and decided I needed to learn how to swim. Of course, my dad grew up on a lake, and we lived nowhere near a lake and didn’t have access to a pool either. We joined the YMCA to use their pool, but I refused to take a swim class, and thankfully my parents didn’t force me. My main issue with swimming was not wanting to put my face in the water. My dad did manage to teach me how to tread water and to do the backstroke, which I didn’t mind because it didn’t involve putting my face in the water. My dad was satisfied I could at least participate in not drowning, so he didn’t push me to learn much more.
Middle school Physical Education classes were a nightmare because we had to have a unit of swimming to pass a state mandated swimming test. I was panicked because I was going to have to put my face in the water! (Not that Middle School PE wasn’t always a nightmare) I figured out a system: if I held my breath for the duration of the time I had to swim, I had to have my face in the water, which I still didn’t like, but it was better than having to repeatedly take my face out of the water and put it back in again, so I practiced at home learning to hold my breath for as long as possible. Oh the logic of my twelve-year-old self!
I remembered these things when told I needed to take water aerobics and in addition to my dislike of water, I now did not want to appear in public in a bathing suit! Arthur suggested that if I went to a class for elderly people I should look good in comparison even with my weight gain. He suggested I think of my good memories involving water. There weren’t many . . .
In my eighth year, my parents took me to see both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I had fun holding my dad’s hand while wading, feeling the sand squish between my toes and collecting pretty seashells from the water’s edge. My mom made me wash the seashells in our hotel room’s sink before she would even let me think of packing them. While the shells were hanging out in the sink, one of them began walking away. My mom was horrified, but my dad calmly went with me to return the hermit crab to its home.
When my best friend and I were thirteen (after we had passed our swim test, her with flying colors and me by the skin of my teeth) we decided synchronized swimming was really cool and we should teach ourselves how to do it. This was in the eighties so there were no YouTube how-To videos available. Of course, we did not succeed. I wasn’t even a decent swimmer. The only thing we managed to synchronize were our arm movements while standing in the shallow end of the pool, but we had fun trying. We also decided around the same time that watching swimming and diving on TV was a really good way to see almost naked men without our parents getting suspicious. “Of course we want to watch the Olympics! We are being patriotic and supporting our fellow citizens in their athletic efforts!”
My good memories of swimming didn’t really help with needing to actually attend a class in a bathing suit in public, but I wanted to be healthy, so I gathered my courage and joined the YMCA. The fact that the arthritis swimming classes met at 8 A.M. did not endear them to me, but I went. I drove to the Y in my bathing suit and coverup, and then had to shower before getting in the pool, and then shower and change afterwards since I have never liked to stay in a wet bathing suit, so this one hour class took at least two hours. The first day, the teacher tried to convince me I did not belong in her class because I was the youngest one there by at least twenty years. Her first language was Polish, and I was not doing well with convincing her why I did need to be there . . . until she saw me try some of the moves, and agreed with me that yes, I did belong in her class. On the first day, I managed to get my foot tangled in a pool noodle and couldn’t manage to extricate myself. I wasn’t drowning, because my other foot was firmly on the bottom of the pool and my head stayed above water, but the lifeguards were mobilizing anyway. One of them finally grabbed the end of the noodle while I grabbed the side of the pool and managed to untangle me. After that excitement, I needed a nap. Water aerobics, even for people twice my age, was exhausting!
Over time, though, I did begin to get stronger and did begin to lose weight. I lost my discomfort about being in a bathing suit in public because everyone in the class had bad eyesight and couldn’t see me anyway. The teacher was very nice and extremely skilled, learned all of the class members' physical problems and would tailor exercises to help each of us. I became friends with several class members, and after class we would often have a post-class hot tub party if we didn’t have anywhere to be right away. I attended the same classes for years until I finally was healthy enough and able to find a full time job.
Today, swimming is still not my first choice for an activity, but playing in the water with my nieces and nephews definitely makes it worth it. Fifteen years later, I am much more comfortable in my own skin than I was previously, and will wear my Star Trek bathing suit in public with pride. I also LOVE hot tubs!
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no subject
Date: 2022-09-19 06:02 pm (UTC)This line made me giggle: My dad was satisfied I could at least participate in not drowning
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 02:53 pm (UTC)I'm glad to have made you giggle. ;)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-21 07:54 pm (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-22 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 12:34 am (UTC)Sorry about the pool noodle. How annoying!!
The hot tub though sounds amazing. Maybe I should try again, and just keep my head out of the water :)
Where did you get your Star Trek bathing suit? :)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-27 01:13 am (UTC)It was annoying, but I eventually got free. ;)
Hot tubs are awesome. :)
thinkgeek.com which unfortunately no longer exists. :(
no subject
Date: 2022-09-24 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-27 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-25 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-27 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-25 05:23 pm (UTC)This really makes me want to take water aerobics classes too. I'm glad the classes were so positive for you, and that you healed well! <3
no subject
Date: 2022-09-25 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-26 03:37 pm (UTC)