Discovery

Most swim parents complain about all the time we spend at meets. I was no exception.  The years flew by & we were going to more and more meets. It seemed I never had time for anything else. I complained a lot. Then suddenly one summer I was off the hook…and it was devastating.

It was a Saturday in June when I hurt my back. It didn’t seem too bad at first, but by evening I was too sore to make it up the stairs. I slept on the couch. During the night it hurt so bad that I began to wonder if pain can cause heart attacks. 

The kids were due to swim in a huge invitational the next morning at Ohio State University’s brand new, multi-million dollar, state of the art natatorium. We were all looking forward to seeing this place. Kids from many states were entered and my little guy was seated 2^nd in one of his breast strokes. He was chasing a state record and raring to go. My daughter’s freestyle was the best it had ever been, and she was super pumped for this meet too.

I realized during that long night there was no way I could go to the meet. By morning I knew my husband was going to have to accompany me to the ER, so he wouldn’t be going either. When he got up at 5:30 to start the coffee I told him. I also asked him to downplay it & not to let the kids know how bad I was hurting. I wanted them to be able to focus on their swims. He printed out directions to the facility for the kids and gave my daughter the car keys. As soon as they were out of the driveway I tried to stand up, that is when I asked him to call 911.

In hindsight, 911 may have been overly extreme, but I truly thought I was having a heart attack form the pain when I tried to stand up. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital they asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10, I said “12”. Then I started crying about missing the swim meet.

I have never admitted that to anyone before today. What a surprise to discover that day in the ambulance how completely devastated I would be to get to skip a stupid swim meet. Go figure.

I missed two months of swim meets that summer while I recovered. I missed my first summer league meet in 12 years. I missed their state and sectional USA meets. I felt sorry for myself while I lay on the ice pack wondering how they were doing. Before then, I had not realized what an important part of our lives swimming had become. I was learning that I enjoyed this just as much as they did.

I suppose when a parent misses a meet now, they get constant text updates from their kids. It may be hard to relate to just what I was going through that summer. We were not big users of cel phones in those days though, & reception at our house is terrible. I just had to wait and wonder until results were posted.

There was a little bright spot though during the boy’s USA state swim meet. I was watching for live results to be posted on my laptop. After he swam his IM I got an e-mail from his future high school coach. It said, “Do you think he missed a wall?” Tears came to my eyes to know that coach was on a couch somewhere “watching” that meet too. Suddenly I felt like I was in the bleachers. I wrote back to him immediately. “He didn’t miss any wall, that is how he swims backstroke. Now you know what your project is next year.”