On Tuesday 29th Nov 2022, exactly 6 months post-amputation and 1 month post-treatment, I got back in the pool. I’d not swam for almost a year. A year-from-hell that saw my aerobic fitness drop to around 5% of my peak levels, my left leg now half the size with missing foot, a buckle fracture on my wrist and a stone lighter in weight. But I got in and I had a go. Emily Brader, my amazing physiotherapist from Dorset Orthopaedic, encouraged me to try a length of front crawl and I was surprised at how natural my stroke still felt. Backcrawl was the same, barely any difference and I wasn’t swimming in circles as I’d worried I might.
Next thing I know, Wayne Davies, the City Of Derby Swimming Club’s Para Head Coach was peering down at me having spotted me from a lesson he happened to be teaching in the smaller pool. I’m confident he didn’t just leave the children to fend for themselves, but he did spend the next few minutes timing my swims with rough estimates of what I’d need to ‘be up there.’
I’m not quite sure how, but I absolutely smashed those ‘up there’ times and have been asked to trial for their squad in the new year. Hopefully my wrist fracture will have healed and my aerobic fitness will have improved, I’m not expecting my little leg to grow back, but I’m thankful that its mammoth effort in the water got me noticed.
