Why We Must Watch the Paralympics.

If you believe in equality and love incredible sporting action, get in front of your TV and watch the Paralympics in Rio. Come and support some real heroes who’ve risen out of the ashes of adversity to become elite athletes. This competition is seriously intense and you’ll soon find yourself getting right into it… all from the couch!

Although I don’t watch sport, I decided to give equal attention to the Paralympics in Rio to the able-bodied games. While this started out as a ethical standpoint, it grew into a form of kinship. After all, I live with disability and chronic health issues and these are my heroes. The people who were dealt cards similar to my own, and instead of giving up on sport, persevered. They loved it. Sport moved them in ways which defied their physical being, and the Paralympics provided them with a dream. More than that, it was somewhere to hang their dreams and turn them into goals. In this new environment, they were no longer the slowest, the last to be chosen for the team but through their hard work, dedication and sheer tenacity, they emerged elite athletes. Moreover, in many instances they became medalists, standing up on the dais. That’s such a different story to that deflated kid always coming last.

“People have this idea that struggling is a bad thing, but struggling is brilliant. If you see someone struggle and overcome it, it is infectious. It makes you feel good to be alive”.

 Kurt  Fearnley: Pushing the Limits. Kurt is an Australian Paralympic Gold Medalist among other achievements.

http://www.kurtfearnley.com

Sport isn’t easy for a tortoise.

 

I have absorbed so many stories from the Paralympics and the stories I’m hearing and telling pertain to Australian athletes. I wanted to share a bit of Brayden Davidson’s journey to Rio. The 18-year-old long jumper, was born with cerebral palsy.

As a 6 year old, Brayden Davidson was that kid. Always coming last in sport. Always the last kid to be picked for teams and, as I can share, this is completely demoralising and you can’t help feeling like a loser, a failure, somebody who’s been left behind.

As his Mum said:”He loved sport but he hated sports days because he was never fast enough, never strong enough,” she said.

Even though Brayden loved sport, his family could’ve directed him into other interests and kept him out of school sport. He could’ve spent PE lessons in the library. However, his grandmother was a woman of vision. After one particularly bad day at school as a six-year-old, he retreated to his late grandparents’ house where his dream to become a Paralympian was born.

“And [his grandma] said to him ‘look you’ve got a disability, the Paralympics that’s what you can do’.

“If you dare to dream, it can come true.”

Brayden initially set out to compete in swimming. However, his cerebral palsy made the muscles in his shoulders too tight. A coach told him he could not modify the strokes so he quickly lost his passion for swimming.

But just four weeks after taking up long jump about six years ago, Davidson was competing at his first junior national competition and his love for the sport has stuck.

Davidson defied all odds, and a groin injury, to jump of 5.62 metres to clinch gold in Rio. The jump was 11 centimetres better than his previous best and broke a Paralympic record. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-13/reynella-east-college-assembly/7840694

As a teenager, I shared Brayden’s humiliation in school sports. I had been born with undiagnosed hydrocephalus, or fluid on the brain. While my coordination wasn’t too bad before puberty, it really deteriorated then and my struggles were further exacerbated by a massive growth spurt.

I don’t know why PE teachers have to divide the class into teams and get the cool kids to pick out kids for their team. It’s totally humiliating for anyone at the bottom of the pack for whatever reason. Of course, no teacher would do this to an academically challenged student and yet your uncoordinated kid is fair game. Gets crucified each and every sports lesson. Naturally, it’s all too easy for these kids to retreat from sport altogether. That is when they really need that exercise and could really use the sort of cheer squads usually reserved for the jocks.

(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

 

I have been lucky when it comes to my hydrocephalus. In what seemed like the ultimate bad luck, it was diagnosed when I was 25 and after a rapid descent into a neurological abyss, I had brain surgery. I had a VP shunt inserted which managed the pressure in my brain and I began what was a very slow a gruelling recovery process, which was rudely disrupted by a shunt malfunction and further surgery. For someone whose identity was entrenched in academic achievement and had graduated with an honours degree from university, this was crippling. Things couldn’t get any worse and from where I sat at the time, I could never see myself living independently again. I told a friend that “I can’t even look after a gold fish let alone kids”. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to spend the rest of their life with me. From where I was sitting then, I wasn’t dead but life had reached a full stop. Moreover, despite being told that “I am a human being, not a human doing”, I had to get back into my old work shoes and get my life back.

Ultimately, I did. I succeeded.

Perhaps even more unlikely, I met Geoff and found my soul mate and someone who accepted me as I was and just loved me. We got married. Bought a house and a couple of dogs and then had our two beautiful children.

Since then, we’ve been dealt a further blow when I was diagnosed with dermatomyositis (an severe auto-immune disease related to Muscular Dystrophy) and Institital Lung Disease.

On your marks. Get set! Go! Doing the three minute walk at Rehab.

While I haven’t made it to the Paralympics, I’ve conquered physical hurdles way beyond my dreams. Not just through my own efforts but the teachers who became “the wind beneath my wings”. People who slowly but surely unravelled all that ridicule I experienced in PE at school and believed in me instead.

Skiing down the mountain at Perisher in August 2013.

Me and my bike

The humble violinist

Not so cool…lugging my surfboard.

Sandboarding, Stockton Dunes.

My journey started out with an Adventure Camp with Muscular Dystrophy NSW. There I went down a water slide without my glasses on as well as having muscle weakness. I rode a camel, went sandboarding and complete shock of shocks, I rode a quad bike. I went from there to ski down Perisher’s Front Valley supported by the Disable Winter Sports’ Association and my instructor. I had a surfing lesson and most recently, I signed up for an adult ballet class expecting to spend my time sitting down but instead have mostly been keeping up with the class. It’s an absolute miracle and I’m so chuffed.

These experiences as a disabled person conquering physical hurdles in the sporting realm, have shown me just how important sport and dance are for everybody. Taking this further, the Paralympics provide athletes living with disability that higher place to aim for. After all, we each achieve more when we have an ambitious goal, a destination, something challenging to work towards. Everybody deserves that.

So, switch on the box and prepare yourself for some great sporting action from some very deserving sporting heroes.

Bring it on!

Have you been watching the Paralympics? Any favourite events or stories?

xx Rowena

 

 

Weekend Coffee Share 25th June, 2016.

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

If you’re joining me for coffee today, you’d better forget having anything iced or frozen today and instead warm your frozen fingers around a coffee or join me in a mug of Hot Chocolate. I like my hot chocolate with whipped cream, a sprinkling of cocoa and marshmallows to dunk. Indulgent I know but I don’t have one very often so they’re quite a treat. I had my first one of these back in Koln or Cologne back in 1992. Another time…another place but still delicious!

My daughter playing her violin.

By the way, I had the Hot Chocolate featured here on Tuesday My daughter was performing with the school choir and the string group at a lunchtime concert and as her school is a good 45 minutes drive from home, I just had to go out for lunch, a Hot chocolate and follow it up with tastings at the neihbouring cheese and chocolate factories. As much as Mum’s Taxi might cry “abuse” and “exploitation”, there are also benefits. By the way, after indulging on pork pie swimming in gravy with hot crunchy chips, my Hot Chocolate, cheeses and chocolate, I topped my splurge by visiting a huge charity shop “The Vinnies Warehouse” where I picked up a fabulous red Oroton handbag and knee-length black boots for a steal. The boots are a little tight but for $25.00, I’ll make them fit.

Ever considered going swimming in gravy?

I needed a huge pick-me-up this week. Awful things have been happening to good people I know and then I can extend those sentiments out to Beautiful British MP Jo Cox who was brutally shot and stabbed in the UK. She was a wife, a mum of two, a daughter, a sister.

However, it was matters closer to home that really rattled me. A family friend’s daughter lost her husband suddenly fa heart attack. He was only 45 and they had a 12 year old son…the same age as ours. As much as we’ve lived with my volatile health for the last 10 years, I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose your husband and Dad suddenly like that.  Steve Gee was a much loved and respected Sports Journalist and my heartfelt sympathies go out to his family and friends. Speaking of which, I need to write a card and think of what to say, which I’m finding challenging. Perhaps, “thinking of you” is enough but when we’ve come so close to experiencing a similar loss, I expect more from myself. What have I picked up from along the road? Hence, I have written nothing…other thasn sharing his memory with you.

This week, also saw our local Paralympic Gold Medallist, Liesl Tesch attacked and robbed at gun point while training for the Paralympics in Rio. I’ve met Liesl a few times and I actually wore her gold medal down the main street of Gosford during the International Women’s Day March a few years ago, when she was our Keynote Speaker and I was on the Status of Women Committee. I also met Liesl again when she spoke to members of the kids scout troop. They’re Sea Scouts and Liesl and her husband contribute behind the scenes. What helped me at the time, was seeing how she juggled her mobility so she used a wheelchair to conserve energy but rode her bike to and from work. This made me realise that using equipment didn’t make me it’s slave and I could use it to extend myself, rather than narrowing my options. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that at the time and since then, my health has improved significantly and I’m getting around quite well almost all of the time.

So, to hear about what happened to Liesl and  a team official, really rattled me and I did manage to get a card off to her.

I understand that bad things happen to good people and that our lives need a balance of flavours like a good dish…a bit of saltiness, sweetness, acidity, creativity, following the recipe and not just having everything sweet and sugar-coated all the time. I understand that in many instances, adversity is good for us and makes us stronger, more resourceful, compassionate and loving but at the same time adversity breaks, leaves our heroes fighting debilitating PTSD and loving people somehow consumed with hate. It’s not a predictable equation where you can put adversity in and know the person’s going to emerge like a beautifully wrapped package with a bow on top when it reaches the end of the production line.

While I haven’t been so bold as to go up to God and ask him what on earth he’s doing, I have been wondering whether he might have pressed a few of the wrong buttons. We all know someone mean, nasty and despicable who lives a comfortable life well into old age and karma never catches up with them. Case in point being Jack the Ripper. I guess the argument goes that they’ll be judged by their maker but even so, am I the only one who wants to see justice on earth and not only for eternity? I don’t think so.

So, you can see I’m a bit fired up this week but it’s doing me good venting my thoughts here and I know many of you have experienced tragedy and heartbreak and know these feelings much better than I.

Speaking of stress, last night we heard that Britain is Brexiting the EU. I don’t know what all this means and I guess it remains to be seen. I’m Australian and going back, there was some tension about what Britain was doing joining the EU and what that meant for the Commonwealth. I guess those questions will resurface to some degree. Our current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is an outspoken Republican and we have a Federal election on July 2. There have to be some local ramifications and I don’t know what Brexit means for Australian exports to Europe. It seems the stock market isn’t happy at the moment but hopefully it will bounce back. That obviously has global ramifications.

Anyway, I wrote a post about Brexit last night: The Brexit: Britains Favourite Biscuit. It’s not intended to be a funny piece and falls more into the realms of satire.

Roald Dahl at work in his Hut.

After dealing with the heaviness of the last week,I’ll move onto what I’ve been reading and ask if any of you are huge Roald Dahl fans? You might recall that for the A-Z Challenge I wrote a letter to Roald Dahl as part of my series of Letters to Dead Poets. This has triggered a Dahlfest in my own bookshelf and I’m currently making my way through his biography while reading through his children’s books. I have already read Matilda, James & The Giant Peach and this week I finished off Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I’m now reading Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator. I’m pretty sure that I read both Charlie books as a child but my memories are very dim. I certainly loved the movie starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, although there are some obvious discrepancies with the book. Who hasn’t wanted to find their own golden ticket and tour Wonka’s factory and own it at the end?!!

So, travelling along a chocolate river in my dreams has paralleled those more intense questions this week and we’re having a quiet weekend with the kids off at Gang Show rehearsal for Scouts. Performance are only a few weeks away. This means that I’m still rugged up in my winter PJs and dressing gown and I have no intention of going anywhere today. At a chilling 12.9 °C, it’s almost too cold to breathe! (Okay! You can start playing your violins for me now!)

So, how has your week been? I hope it’s been good and look forward to catching up!

Thanks for popping by! This has been part of the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Diana at Part-Time Monster. You can click  for the Linky to read the other posts.

xx Rowena