loosely-coordinated drowning-avoidance... the return

Earlier this week I went swimming for the first time since February 2020. I think I bought a pass to get a discount. And then the world shut down. 

What with the end of the world as we knew it, adding to my fairly well-established suspicion of people, I wasn't exactly rushing to go there. So instead, I thought I'd wait until the week before BoJo's mass herd-immunity experiment and forthcoming reliance on "good old-fashioned British common sense" (see my earlier point about suspicion of people).

Smooth move, right?

Anyway, I got my bag organised the night before and pre-booked my slot. It was actually pretty good because by looking online I was able to work out which time was going to be the least busy.

So the next morning, I woke up, went to the bathroom FOUR TIMES and got myself down for my 8 am slot. And in a lot of ways, it was much more pleasant than before.

For a start, people are now asked to turn up with their swimwear under their clothes - you removed your outer layers by the side of the pool, so no one had to go into the changing rooms (and run the risk of coming face-to-face - or should that be face-to-arse / face-to-cock? - with some old exhibitionist's unmentionables).

The pool was also divided into three lanes, for fast, medium and slow swimmers. This meant that the lanes were a lot wider than the six I remember from the Before Time.

Some things never change, however. For a start, there was - as usual - some bloke who thought he was Michael Phelps bombing up and down the slow lane. And also, as before, I was the slowest swimmer in that lane.

But that was ok. I'm not going for speed - and I'm certainly not going for distance, particularly. A bad swim is still better than no swim, I've always been told. But one of the old guys in the slow lane asked me if I was ok after one of my first lengths, and then told me I was doing really well.

In the past that would've really wound me up. But this time? I just thought it was actually quite nice.

The day after my mother-in-law asked me if I'd enjoyed myself and did I feel better. "Well," I said, "they're two entirely separate questions."

Because I in no way enjoyed myself but I did feel better afterwards. 

I only hope I get a chance to return before everything shuts down again!

--

Yes, I know that it has been two months since I last wrote anything, and ordinarily, my first blog back would involve a lot of excuses and explanations. But that will be coming next time. Maybe.

where does YOUR anxiety go?

Mine goes directly to my legs.

I just did a search for "anxiety legs". This is the top search result:

It is common for anxiety to cause feelings of numbness and tingling. This can occur almost anywhere on the body but is most commonly felt on the face, hands, arms, feet and legs. This is caused by the blood rushing to the most important parts of the body that can aide fight or flight.

Sounds a bit like something we all know and love, right?

And that's my anxiety obviously. But where is it coming from?

Well, I've officially finished my job for the photography festival. But the lack of work isn't even the thing that's making me anxious. As I said before, I was hoping to have a bit of a break between jobs anyway, plus I still have my FUMS podcast work.

The Fampyra tablets are having their usual plateau at present. The MS Nurses have said in the past that this is just how it goes - it works great, then it just seems to stop. So I'm currently having a fallow week (all those GCSE History lessons on crop rotation obviously went into my brain somewhere).

Plus I'm taking an extra week between Tysabri infusions this month, in order to avoid paying an extra £300 for a short summer break (school holiday price rises). So medication issues might be a thing.

More than anything else, I'm just not sleeping at the moment. I'm averaging about 4-5 hours a night, and at least once a week I'll have a night when I just don't sleep at all.

Because of all this I had to cancel my appointment at the Gait lab to check in how I'm getting on with my FES (Functional Electrical Stimulation).

Similarly, I've had to roll back a little on my plan to go swimming more regularly once I was "between jobs" again. I describe my swimming technique as being loosely-coordinated drowning-avoidance at the best of times.

Lord knows what it would be like at the moment.

Image lifted from this great old series of UK Public Information Films - stick around for the brutal ending!

put that thing away

Over the past couple of weeks I've been swimming a couple of times - for the first time since long before my relapse started in mid-June. Although I haven't managed to do as many lengths as I had been doing previously, it has been a good start.

Because I was a wee bit nervous my Dad came along on the first occasion. We went to the pool which is just down the road from our house, not the one we go to with Little Ms D which has unisex changing rooms.

The one which is closest to me very much DOES NOT. Why does this matter? Well.

By way of illustration, when we arrived last week we were greeted with the following sight.

A fully naked old man, with his back to us, bending over to dry his lower legs, balls SWINGING LOW, his third eye practically winking at us.

The level of nudity is something I've noticed previously at this particular swimming pool and it doesn't get any less weird, no matter how often I return.

Illustration based on the author's sworn testimony by my brother

I'm no prude but I can't see that I will ever be the sort of person who is that... I dunno. Blasé? Regardless of who you are, the male form is a ridiculous thing, all swinging danglers and proud salutations.

Even after I'd warned him, my Dad was silently mouthing, "What's going on?!" And that was before we walked further into the changing room to see a (clothed) man talking to a completely stark bollock naked man.

A couple of days afterwards I mentioned the fact that I'd been swimming to my community physio. After having a laugh about the old lads and their OLD LADS, I mumbled something apologetic about the low number of lengths I managed. She pointed out that a few weeks previously I'd been pretty much immobile. So I should maybe go a little bit easier on myself.