Swimming Lessons

Yesterday marked the last day of the 2021 Olympic Swimming Trials. My family and I have been watching it throughout the week, eager to turn on the tv and dive into a world we no longer inhabit. 

Swimming was a large part of my childhood but it was an even bigger part of my family. In fact, it’s how my family came to be: my parents met at a swim meet. My dad excelled on the high school swim team and my mother was born a water bug. Growing up, I watched her direct a swim lesson program, teach lessons to the neighbors at the local pool, coach on a club swim team, and even petition for a local natatorium. For my mother, water is a magnet and she can’t resist its pull.

My middle brother swam briefly before switching to basketball and my oldest brother competed nationally before going on to swim in college. I myself swam for ten years on club and summer league swim teams, but halfway through high school, I left to pursue musical theatre. Swimming was a rite of passage shared by every member of my family, and we each have our own unique relationship with the sport.

Watching the Olympic Swimming Trials has brought me back to my swimming days, which could also be considered my pre-POTS days. They were the days of boundless energy, of two hour swim practices and the sweaty dry-land conditioning sessions that followed. They were the days of eating whatever I wanted, of killing time on deck with friends, of giggling underwater and fiddling with my goggles on the wall as my coach yells at me to keep swimming. I never loved swimming enough to commit to the sport the way others have–the way my oldest brother had–but there was enough love to look back fondly on the memories, which is what I’ve been doing a lot of lately. 

I’ve swam laps at the neighborhood pool twice this week, mostly to keep up my POTS treatment but also to pretend I am an Olympic swimmer (no shame). Swimming is actually great for POTS because it’s horizontal exercise. Plus, the pool water helps me get some sun without overheating. Major win! My olympic fantasy collapses after 100 meters in the pool however, when I come up gasping for air and realize how much distance lies between my daydreams and the swimmer I am now. 

In passing, I mentioned to my mom how I can’t wrap my head around the fact that at 15 years old, I swam an average of 7,000 yards at 2 hour swim practices, 5-6 times a week. Sometimes, I had swim practice twice a day. And although I was certainly ravenous and ready for a good night sleep afterwards, my tiredness was minuscule compared to the exhaustion I experience from POTS. 

“I took my abilities and accomplishments for granted,” I told my mom, whilst feeling compassion for my 15 year old self who couldn’t possibly understand. She didn’t know what she could lose, what she would lose in time, and the privileges she’d one day learn to live without. 

The memories of what it’s like to be normal, to go to swim practice and stand in the shower and still have energy left over, flicker in my mind briefly before quickly fading away. They’re like a name I can’t remember but lives on the tip of my tongue, or like a person that looks familiar but whose face I can’t quite place. They are a sketch of my old life, a rough outline but nothing more. The memories are my childhood, the majority of my life, yet they are so hazy that I question whether or not they were a dream. 

Last Thursday, I stopped by the local tax office to pick up my permanent disability parking placards. They’re mostly for school, so that I can park in disability spots closer to classes and reduce my amount of walking across campus, but they’re also for flare days or gigantic, Texas-sized parking lots. It felt surreal to hold them in my hand and recognize they were prescribed for me, not for my grandpa or anyone else, but me: the same girl who swam two hour swim practices six times a week. Plus dry-land.

There’s no shame in a changing body or having disabilities and limitations. There’s no failure in using a disability parking placard or any other form of accommodations. Yet as I held the plastic placards on a steamy Texas afternoon, I wondered how many other people felt like I did: shocked to be acquiring these blue signs much sooner than expected. 

I thought of all the other POTS patients like me, who lived active, athletic childhoods before they were debilitated by chronic illness. Are their hearts also filled with grief for all they’ve lost? Are they too wandering around in their post-diagnosis life, dazed and confused and maybe even a little embarrassed, wondering where that little sporty kid went and if they’re ever coming back? 

Thanks to a year and a half of physical therapy, these days I feel strong. I can go out dancing with friends, complete grocery shops with no problem, and spend over an hour in fitting rooms, trying on dress after dress after dress. In many ways, I feel the healthiest I’ve ever been, even if I do still have limitations. But feeling my strongest and most vibrant whilst picking up disability parking placards makes that whole experience even more confounding. 

In some ways, I wonder if my time as a swimmer equipped me for the challenges of chronic illness. Through swimming, I gained grit, endurance, and resilience. I learned how to keep pushing when the set got hard and my heart was pounding and all I wanted to do was quit and float in the middle of the pool. When the coach wrote a set on the board that looked entirely impossible, I understood nobody could finish practice for me, that I’d have to just keep swimming, no matter what.