Returning To The Stage

Only days after my accident I found myself laying in my bed in the ICU with my dad. I only have memory of a few things that happened that day, but I clearly remember two doctors coming in through the door of my room and sitting down at the foot of my bed. They came to look at how I was doing and to look at how my injury was presenting itself. As they looked me over, they stopped and asked me what my goals were. I told them that I wanted to play the flute and piano again. They looked at each other, nodded and one of them said, "I think that's going to be a real possibility." Something about their visit seemed especially angelic to us, as though two messengers had just come in to give us news. As my father and I look back on that day, we agree that there was something extraordinary about their visit. My mom was not present for that moment, but upon hearing my dad recount the experience, she said it was the first true ray of hope she witnessed in him.

Not long after my injury, I was given a plastic flute from my flute playing colleagues, and began to attempt playing again. Hot cross buns was a stretch at first! While I was in the hospital, I picked up my silver flute to try and play, but was unable to even hold it up to my face. I was a discouraged, but I stuck with my new plastic flute. Over these last many months I have worked on playing and started with simple tone production, and then moved on to playing music that had slow moving notes. Now I find myself being able to play music that is almost satisfying for me to hear. Every so often I get a glimpse of the feelings I had before as I played the flute.

The day I received my plastic flute

On October 10, I returned to the stage for the first time. Mercedes Smith and I performed the well-known Flower Duet. Mercedes is the principal flutist of the Utah Symphony and was my teacher prior to my accident. Every year the Utah Flute Association has a guest artist come and perform at a recital and teach a masterclass the next morning. Mercedes requested of the UFA that there be a place where donations could be made to help with the expenses of my Paralympic swimming competitions. The UFA was kind enough to allow this and allow me to play the duet at the recital. Over $1,000 were raised to help fund my journey towards the Paralympics! I don't know quite how to feel at such gestures of generosity from both the donors, as well as Mercedes and the Utah Flute Association. It's a humbling experience. The flute community has been incredibly generous to me and has provided me with all the opportunities to succeed since the beginning. So thank you. 

There are few events since my injury that have been so impacting and positive for me. I felt more capable than normal, and I felt so loved by those in attendance. There are few things in this life that mean more to me than music does, so it was fulfilling to share it once again. I'm grateful that I can play. In many ways I am unhappy with how my spinal cord has healed over the last nine months, but I am beyond grateful for my hands. That is one place where I am pleased with the progress that has returned, and I would be ungrateful and a fool if I didn't recognize that progress. 

While I was able to play the Flower Duet at this recital, I still have a lot to work on! That piece was the perfect length and difficulty for me. I was worried toward the end that I wasn't going to make it because my fingers were slipping off of the keys, but it all worked out and I was pleased with the performance. 

Here is a link to a video of the duet. My younger brother Dallas is holding my shoulders up because I fall forward without some support. I am working on getting a chair and some kind of strap that will allow me to play upright without assistance. That will allow me to bring the flute to me, rather than having to lean so far forward to play. I'm thankful to have music in my life, it does something to me that nothing else can. I believe I was inspired as a little 10 year old to choose the instrument that has brought me so much enjoyment throughout my life. I am grateful to be able to continue to both play and teach (I still have room for more students!) and I look forward to more of these opportunities in the future.

From California To Canada

Yucaipa, California is home to the 2004 Olympic Trials swimming pool where Michael Phelps began his Olympic career. It also happens to be the pool I swam in last week at my first IPC (International Paralympic Committee) sanctioned swim meet.

Before my SCI, I enjoyed swimming competitively both in high school and in USA swimming clubs. Many of you know that I have used swimming over the last many months as a part of recovery. Initially, swimming was a way to strengthen my upper body and core, but over the last few months it has slowly changed from being just another form of therapy to being somewhat of a competitive outlet.

During the summer I had my first meeting with a swim coach at the University of Utah who said she was willing to assist me by way of private instruction in my efforts to swim. When she first saw me swim, I was swimming with hand paddles and a float belt on in the pool at physical therapy. Shortly after that, I began swimming without any flotation assistance and worked at swimming one length of the pool at a time, swimming more backstroke than anything else. At first, I could barely stay afloat and stayed well hydrated from all the pool water that went up my nose as I swam! As time progressed, I began to manipulate my body slightly better and was able to swim a full 50 m without any assistance. Just me, a speedo, and goggles.

In many Paralympic sports, athletes are separated into groups or classifications based off of their disability to ensure that competition is fair among the athletes, and this happens to be the case for swimming. Getting classified in your sport is the first step before you can even begin competing. In swimming, classification is done at an IPC swim meet the day prior to the competition. As I began to be more and more comfortable in the water, my therapists, coaches and I began looking for the next opportunity to be classified. When I saw that the next meet was in Yucaipa, California in September, I admit that I wondered if I was up to the challenge! This would mean a lot of firsts for me; it would be my first time competing, but even more daunting was the idea of flying an airplane for the first time. This would be uncharted territory for me which I would normally invite, but being in a wheelchair tends to make me feel slightly more vulnerable than I normally would be. Go figure...

After some discussion between my parents, support team and I, I decided that I would go for it! While deciding this, we found out that swimmers had to be one year post-injury in order to classify and I had been injured only slightly more than eight months at the time. A call was made to the director of Paralympic swimming who then acquired medical clearance from my spinal cord doctor and I was good to go. My dad was out of town the weekend of the meet, so it would be a mother-son weekend in California, which I was very happy about. We made plans, bought the tickets a few weeks out, and I even bought a travel shower chair. Early in my injury, I knew that I wanted to do some Paralympic swimming competition, but did not foresee it coming so quickly!

Between my swimming with my coach and swimming on my own, I was swimming a few times a week. I thought that maybe I should swim a bit more often since I was going to a meet where others would watch me swim. At this point I had been in open water about ten times. This was strong motivation since I was worried about simply finishing my events more than actually competing in them. I'm apparently quite concerned about how I look when I swim. My coach suggested that I swim 3 events: 50 m free, 100 m back, and 50 free. A few nights before she suggested this, I had a dream that I was swimming my modified breaststroke in a lane next to normal breaststrokers and that I was keeping up quite well (I was so impressed with myself in the dream). I interpreted this as a sign that I was to swim breaststroke, so I added that as the fourth event. As I mentioned earlier, I was concerned about my ability to actually finish my races, and as I worked at this I realized that breaststroke would be the most difficult to finish. I would start off swimming somewhat normally, and basically end up treading water with my hands in a panicked effort to get to the opposite wall. I sometimes joke that we paralyzed individuals only swim fast because we slowly drown throughout the race, and the one most motivated by the will to live ends up being the winner.

We made our preparations to leave and took off early Friday morning to make it to the SLC airport. My mom said the first thing that came to her mind were the words of Kevin McCallister in Home Alone. It's the scene where he says, "This is it. Don't get scared now", as he cocks his gun at the top of the staircase. You can bet I was not the only one nervous about traveling and making this trek a success! We took off while it was still dark, and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to make it through. We didn't know quite what to expect with security, but were pleasantly surprised that being in a wheelchair can have a few perks, including cutting huge lines. Silver linings, people, silver linings.

Needless to say, we arrived with time to spare. The stewardess at check-in was very kind and allowed me to be bumped up to comfort economy, which gave me much more leg room. This made flying so much easier! I had a great time drinking my OJ and eating Biscoff cookies while enjoying conversation with my mom. We disembarked the plane, took a shuttle ride and got our rental vehicle. After a thirty minute drive or so, we checked into our hotel (after a stop at Trader Joe's), I changed into my swimwear, and we headed to the pool. My classification appointed started at 3:15 so we arrived around 3:00 to check in and get warmed up in the water.

Classification is a process of determining the level of disability of an athlete. The athlete is tested muscularly on every level, each muscle receiving a ranking of one to five.. Five being the strongest and one being the weakest. They took my back into a room and asked if I had any movement below my injury, to which I replied "no". They continued to test my biceps, triceps, shoulders, pecs, wrists, fingers, etc. I was a five on all of these except for my finger strength in my right hand which was a four. I also received a zero in finger adduction on both hands. Those are the muscles used to bring my fingers together. After these tests, they added up my score and we headed back to the pool where they asked me to demonstrate my ability to swim each of the strokes. There were two present during this process, one of which was the "Director of Payalympics High Performance Swimming" and the other being the classifier as well as a physical therapist. As I was swimming they were vocal about how symmetrical my injury is, meaning I have equal strength on both sides of my body. I was told that this is rare, but very helpful.

In swimming there are ten classifications, S1 is the most disabled and S10 is the least disabled. These disabilities can vary greatly, but many of those I saw competing were amputees, or had birth defects that resulted in missing limbs. I was classified at S4. With every classification the qualifying times change. In looking at qualification times previous to my classification, I had seen a big jump in time between S3 and S4, so I was hoping I would be S3! I tried to convince them that I should be in S3 but they wouldn't have it. They said I was "a classic S4", so S4 it is.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and made it over to the pool to begin warming up. My first swim would be a 50 m freestyle, followed by a 100 m backstroke. I usually have a good amount of muscle spasticity when I initially get into the water. Perhaps because of all the sensory input from the water, my muscles become rigid throughout my legs and stomach until I get used to it. Before my injury, getting into the water was by far the worst part of the sport because it was usually very cold for the competition. I no longer have that problem since I don't have sensation where the cold would be most shocking, if you know what I mean. This includes my underarms. I sometimes forget that this is the case and I am pleasantly surprised when I get in the water, since I am so used to bracing myself for the plunge.

During morning warm-ups

I chose this one because I thought I looked pretty normal...

 I swam my 50 m freestyle but instead of swimming front crawl, I swam backstroke. In the freestyle events it is legal to swim any stroke... the crawl is most common by far because it is the fastest stroke but since that is currently not my case, I chose to swim back. I swam the 100 m back shortly after. I finished the races and admittedly felt pretty upset. I got out of the water and just felt unhappy about the everything. I didn't feel like I swam well, and I was just down about the whole situation (being at a Paralympic meet alone meant I was disabled, which I'm still really working through emotionally). Swimming is hard for me now. Before, I would get in the water, push off the wall, and glide in streamline and enjoy the water before surfacing for breath. Now, I fight the drag and weight of my paralyzed torso and legs (which happens to be a lot of body). It's hard for me to ever feel like I've had a good swim because I compare how swimming felt to how swimming now feels, and there's a big difference. I don't ever feel fast, and I'm rarely satisfied with a swim. I was thinking all of these things, and went over to talk to the directors who greeted me with many congratulations. They seemed so pleased and I was so surprised! They informed me that I had made the Can/Am meet cut in the 50 m backstroke for the upcoming meet in Canada, which is the next step up the Paralympic swimming ladder. I was shocked (but pleased), and I realized that I needed to reset my standard of performance to an appropriate level. This will be hard for me, but I hope that one day I will feel pleased again at my own performance in the water

My mom and I with my aunt and cousin at the mall between events

I came back later that evening for the second half of the meet where I got some great tips in breaststroke and starts and then swam the other two events. I am grateful to say that I successfully finished my events, even breaststroke... which was not pretty. I wondered myself if I was going to make it, but it all turned out in the end. And that was it, I finished my first meet! It was a major learning experience, but it was an overall success. I have A LOT of work to do before the next meet in Canada, and I hope I'm up to the challenge. Thank you to all who have been such a powerful support to me over the last many months. I couldn't do it without you!