WATER HAVING ITS WAY WITH ME.

Today I went ‘swimming' for the first time EVER!.....well maybe not ‘ever’. A little background info here will be in place I assume. When I was little, I was never allowed in water, the reason was because every freaking time I went in, a few minutes afterward, my blood would clot and I would be in excruciating pain until I would end up in hospital on drips and morphine. I have a medical condition called Sickle cells anemia, and for those of you who don’t know what that it, it is a birth defect (blood defect) where you are born with red blood cells the shapes of sickles.

What that means is that your blood cells do not perform the way (or with the same strength) the blood cells of a healthy person would perform. And because of this condition, your white blood cells have a shorter life span and a longer reproductiveness (if that is a word), so you end up with less white blood cells than you should have, and the few you have are always over tasked to protect your body and on top of that, the shape of your red blood cells causes them to stick together and flow less fluidly, which means that they easily clot and easily block passages and cause organ damage in the process.

OK, that sounds grave! It is.

But of course if you learn to take the proper precautions you can live as normal a life as the next person. I do.....but I am digressing.

It doesn’t take much to cause the blood cells to misbehave and clot and send you into excruciating pain. One of the causes of clotting is drastic change in temperature (cold to hot/ hot to cold). This was the reason why I always had clots whenever I got into a pool as a child. We didn’t understand about the need to dip in the ‘right’ temperature so as to avoid shocking the body, which was why my body tried to balance the water temperature with my body temperature and that alone was tasking and it was always a sure way to end up with a clot; which I always did. So while my sisters were learning to swim, I was forbidden to get into ANY pool so I NEVER learned to swim.

As a result of that the brat never swam either.  Well how was a non-swimming parent supposed to teach her child to swim, right? That isn’t even the worse of it. After years of being taught to be ‘afraid of water’ I guess I passed that unto her, so it took A LOT literally, to get her to get into any pool, let alone relax and have fun in it.

Well the hubster decided we will both learn to swim AND ENJOY IT, and I do recall telling him it will be a cold day in hell before that happens. Anyway, he brought us to the lake to to visit the in-laws and to get us swimming.Yesterday the brat got into the lake but only up to her knees and got upset about it, today, just after lunch, I looked out the window and what do you know? She was boldly heading towards a raft with water up to her waist. I was surprised. No! That isn’t the right expression: I WAS SHOCKED!!!

OK, my BIL was holding the raft waiting for her, so yes, she knew she was safe, but yesterday, the hubster and my other BIL were in the water with her, coaxing her and she simply refused to go further than knee deep! What changed? I have no idea, but when I saw how bold she was, walking toward that raft, I told my MIL “maybe it is about time I ventured into water too”. She was gracious enough to lend me her bathing suit since I didn’t have one, and we headed out into the lake.

The moment I let my body relax in the water (It was shallow enough, so I figured I should sit it in) I discovered something interesting; my lower body floated easily and effortlessly while my upper body simply sank. That freaked me out and I started involuntarily hyperventilating (thinking of it now, that must have been annoying to witness). So the first few minutes was of me making a total idiot of myself trying to figure out WHY my body was behaving this way. I mean, aren’t I supposed to sink? Isn't that what happens to people that can't swim? And shouldn’t I be the one in control of MY body movements, regarding balance? Apparently not. Water has its ways and it obviously had its way with me at first contact.

That didn’t put me off. My MIL said to focus on understanding what movements made me float or sink and within minutes I was able to get my lower body to remain sunk with the rest of me; that helped with my balance. Of course that meant the nervous annoying shrieks and idiocy was greatly reduced enough for the rest of the gang to enjoy the water with me.

The hubster was proud of me, enough for him to come teach me a trick or two. We ended up taking the sail boat and headed to the other side of the lake. I learned what turning the sail a certain way does to the navigation and speed of the boat. What the funny coloured metal poles sticking out of the water were for. We even saw a loon!

When we got back to shore, I learned to move my bingo wings to float (The hubster showed me how to). Can’t say it was a success because I still have problems with my upper body refusing to stay afloat regardless of how much I flapped my bingo wings. Nonetheless, I learned to move my whole body by flapping my legs, having watchied the kids do it. I even dared going under water head and all and I learned something interestingly useful; you DO NOT want to inhale water through your nose!!! I had water running into any and all holes, I came of spitting, coughing and spluttering like mad; blowing my nose trying to get the water out of my ears!!

I eventually came out of the water when I noticed my fingers and toes turning prune-like and ashy – not a pleasant sight to behold. All in all it was a surreal experience. I never thought my first ‘water experience’ would be at 41. Interestingly still, I never expected I would enjoy it as much as I did. I feel like a child. Can I say I am looking forward to tomorrow so that I can do it again?

There is something rather inviting about water (I always knew that). Yesterday my BIL and his wife were sitting with me by the lake with our legs in water when I almost tripled over them in my hurry to get out of the water because a 2 inched size fish was heading toward my foot,! And today, I was in the same lake for a good three hours without even the slightest memory that there could be fishes in it! Talk about selective memory!!

We have roughly a week until we go back home, I do not know if I will learn to swim in this time; I do know though that I shall have more to share about water and its ways with me.