A Return to Skiing, and a Return to Landgraaf

With only a few hours in indoor snow domes (since my operation and the debacle that followed) as practice, in November I once again headed to Landgraaf in the Netherlands. I was going to get my classification confirmed and to start building back up my strength and confidence, and although the first races of the season were taking place, I wasn’t planning on entering.

My classification went as expected, this being my third assessment I knew the battery of tests and examinations that would happen very well (in fact better than some of the classifiers as this year I had some trainees working with me). They must have read my report from last year when I fell off the balance board though, as this year I was able to avoid it! The result of the classification was LW10.1, the same as last year, and the most disabled category of sit skiers. However, this time my classification was confirmed, so I shouldn’t have to be assessed again.

I used this trip both to reacquaint myself with skiing, and to build on my work in my new rig. I even managed to surpass this goal, and in training was skiing slalom courses relatively well - this was a great surprise to me, as only a few weeks before I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to ski at all.

With this unexpected success, I decided to give one of the races a go. Prior to this, during a discussion with a coach, we had reached the consensus that I was fully capable of skiing the course, but due to my increased weakness, I would struggle to get myself up if I fell. Seeing as I was already there, I decided I might as well try, and went into it with no expectations as just being there felt like a great achievement. The first run of the race went rather well, I did end up toppling over, but was able to get myself back up (the first time since surgery and in my new rig!) and finish the run. The second run was not so successful, there was no major crash, but my body was completely exhausted and after falling from the start gate, there was no way I was going to be able to push myself back up.

Overall I was thrilled with the outcome of this trip, and once I’ve got my next operation out of the way (which should be much more minor), I can’t wait to get back into skiing more!

An Eventful Summer

Quite a lot has happened since the last post on my blog, once again I have been somewhat neglectful on the update front!

In July I went into hospital to have a mitrofanoff operation, and this is where the story gets a bit complicated… Following the initial operation, I had a series of complications (as my body apparently took the list of potential complications as some sort of challenge); this ultimately led to sepsis, an emergency second operation, and a short stay in intensive care of which I remember very little. Overall I was in hospital for three weeks, with two of them spent unable to eat or drink and being fed directly into a vein by my heart. Once I came home I was still very weak, and in total spent around six weeks in bed.

Thankfully I am doing much better now, and although I do need another (hopefully small) operation to repair the result of one of the complications, I am glad I chose to have the mitrofanoff as it will make my life a lot easier, especially with regards to travelling and being independent.

However, the summer wasn’t all bad, thanks to a grant from the Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation I was able to purchase a new, higher-spec monoski. (For those who know about this sort of thing, I upgraded from a Tessier Tempo Uniski to a Tessier Scarver Uniski). Having to wait to be able to use it was pretty torturous, and the first time I tried it was not very successful, but I can now see the benefits it provides me with, and I have great hopes for the future.