Everybody should have a chance to tell their story

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.