Yesterday I met a
girl she asked me about my orthosis, I was wearing a skirt so it was visible, and
about my leg. She told me she had a similar orthosis for her arm because it's paralyzed, but she didn’t wore it anymore. She told me about her accident and
all the research she did about her disability, it was a nice conversation and I
recognized a lot in her story. She is a swimmer but doesn’t want her upper body
to become more unbalanced then it already is, her right arm is clearly a lot
thinner then the left arm and she is also missing a muscle in her chest. She
doesn’t like it when people notice it and stare at her. My right leg is a lot
thinner then my left leg but that doesn’t bother me much because of the
orthosis it isn’t visible, but I limp and that’s visible. The limping itself
doesn’t bother me because I’m used to it, it doesn’t hurt and isn’t that hard,
it’s just part of my walking, when I’m tired it gets worse. What does bother me
is when people stare, people you can ask me but don’t stare, I can understand
it if children stare. Of course there are moments that I don’t notice or don’t
mind it. Last Friday night I was at a friend’s place in the Hague and when I
walked back to my car I was pretty tired, had a headache and I was limping
pretty bad, it was 1 am, three boys on the street thought it was funny to
comment on my walking, well it wasn’t funny at all! I was tired it was a long
day and sometimes things like that just get to me. What I would like to say is
everybody has their story, some things are visible some things aren’t but
please don’t judge, you don’t know the story.
I
have been fortunate enough to be able to tell my story to all of you via the
blog. So thank you for giving me a chance to share my story with you! It
was not always something I wanted to share but I have found that speaking about
the surgery, the fear of not being able to use my leg and becoming a challenged
athlete has empowered me more than I ever thought!
Part of me thinks that
when I ski, ride my bike or work out in the university gym I am also telling my
story.
On another note I
found a new favorite blog http://canceratemyfoot.wordpress.com/ The adventures of a
paratriathlete. This girl writes about her training in a funny and compelling
way. She also is a member of CAF (challenged
athletes foundation) this year she received a grant for a running foot. I also applied
for a grant for 2012, for training and it would be great if I get it. The grant
could really help my skiing but it would be even more great to be a part of
the CAF community, the events are in the USA so I probably won’t be able to go
but I can share their story over here and tell people about the great cause of
CAF. http://www.challengedathletes.org/
What have I been
up to these days, well training, studying, hanging out with friends and family.
December is a party month everything is nicely decorated and I have a lot of
parties. Last year we had a lot of snow this year it’s warmer. I celebrated Sinterklaas
5 times this year so I have enough of (crappy)gifts to last me a year. My
Brother and Sister had their birthdays and mine is Friday.
Sinterklaas at a lecture
skating ring in Leiden
Celebrating Sinterklaas at my place
I’m studying hard
at the moment have 2 big test coming up on December 23 and January 6, it is
going well. And after that I will get back to the snow to race! Great reward.
Since a week I’m
doing my physical training at the university sport centre, to be more precisely
at the so called ‘testosterone corner’ where all the boys hang out, pumping,
that’s where the weights are that I use for my exercises. I was nervous getting
in there for the first time, because they don’t like girls in the testosterone
corner, I did my first squats one guy came to me and said you are strong for a
girl and with that I was accepted in the testosterone corner ;) He actually had
to take some weight off before he did his squats. And I picked up swimming once
a week, it’s nice and a good way to recover and train core a little
differently. Yes the university sport centre, I’m a fan.
