Here is her first report in writing.
Sink or Swim: Swimming the English Channel with Type One Diabetes
Previous 20
Jul. 12th, 2008
Memories
I'll write a more encompassing report tomorrow, but I wanted to write something before I head off to bed. I have some amazing, hysterical, funny memories from the swim, and I want to write them down before I forget them.
Telling reporters that it is nearly every woman's nightmare to appear on the evening news in her bathing suit. (They smiled in empathy, but kept shooting.)
Former Olympian and open water swimmer George Park (who once called the narrowest part of the Northumberland Strait "the toughest nine miles had ever raced") calling to wish me luck.
Not getting stung - at all - on most of the PEI side of the swim. :)
Getting stung uncountably many times on the NB side of the swim. I figured I had to actively be bleeding to be in as much "flesh wound" pain as I was in. I got tangled up in two, and actually squeezed one between my armpit and my side.
Several times, I swam over more moon jellies than I could even count (40+?). The boat captain saw one of the jellyfish swarms and exclaimed that there had to be a thousand of them. He was exaggerating, no doubt, but I could not even push them out of the way without churning up more of them. As I swam through the thick of them, there were at least six touching me at any given time, and I am grateful that moon jellies tickle instead of sting. It was still creepy being touched by so many of them, though. :-)
Swimming through a gorgeous sunset.
My coach telling me to follow the moon... and then to follow Mars... and then to follow the Milky Way, as he helped me self-navigate. (The boat was getting tossed around in the wind at that point, and was having trouble maintaining its heading.)
It was good that most of the lion's mane jellyfish encounters were at night: I probably would have said, "Y'know... we don't reeeeeeally need to hit New Brunswick..." had I seen how thickly the jellyfish were packed. At one point, I counted the seconds between stings. (!!) I am so uniformly red that you can barely tell where I was stung.
My shouts of "I made it! I made it!" when I stood up in New Brunswick waking up the neighbours and prompting one to fire his shotgun into the air twice. I mentally envisioned the headline "Swim Aborted Due to Gunshot Wounds", and got back into the water post-haste!
My coach telling me that jellyfish were known for coming out at night to hunt their prey. This violated my "no jellyfish jokes, please!" rule, but was so funny that it made me smile for at least an hour. My coach, it must be said, is wonderfully wonderful. He always seemed to have a perfect response to everything that happened, including the swim ending early. He could not have been more supportive.
Vomiting. ( Cut for high disgust factor )
Someone messaged the boat, saying that they'd distracted the diabetes fairy for me. This was hilarious! I'm going to figure out who it was tomorrow... It made me feel so connected to the diabetes community. (My blood sugars, by the way, were mostly amazing.)
Fifty million texts, voice mail messages, and e-mails during and after the swim, each of which I treasure. Thank you all.
More later...
Here is her first report in writing.
Sink or Swim: Swimming the English Channel with Type One Diabetes
Previous 20
Jul. 12th, 2008
Memories
I'll write a more encompassing report tomorrow, but I wanted to write something before I head off to bed. I have some amazing, hysterical, funny memories from the swim, and I want to write them down before I forget them.
Telling reporters that it is nearly every woman's nightmare to appear on the evening news in her bathing suit. (They smiled in empathy, but kept shooting.)
Former Olympian and open water swimmer George Park (who once called the narrowest part of the Northumberland Strait "the toughest nine miles had ever raced") calling to wish me luck.
Not getting stung - at all - on most of the PEI side of the swim. :)
Getting stung uncountably many times on the NB side of the swim. I figured I had to actively be bleeding to be in as much "flesh wound" pain as I was in. I got tangled up in two, and actually squeezed one between my armpit and my side.
Several times, I swam over more moon jellies than I could even count (40+?). The boat captain saw one of the jellyfish swarms and exclaimed that there had to be a thousand of them. He was exaggerating, no doubt, but I could not even push them out of the way without churning up more of them. As I swam through the thick of them, there were at least six touching me at any given time, and I am grateful that moon jellies tickle instead of sting. It was still creepy being touched by so many of them, though. :-)
Swimming through a gorgeous sunset.
My coach telling me to follow the moon... and then to follow Mars... and then to follow the Milky Way, as he helped me self-navigate. (The boat was getting tossed around in the wind at that point, and was having trouble maintaining its heading.)
It was good that most of the lion's mane jellyfish encounters were at night: I probably would have said, "Y'know... we don't reeeeeeally need to hit New Brunswick..." had I seen how thickly the jellyfish were packed. At one point, I counted the seconds between stings. (!!) I am so uniformly red that you can barely tell where I was stung.
My shouts of "I made it! I made it!" when I stood up in New Brunswick waking up the neighbours and prompting one to fire his shotgun into the air twice. I mentally envisioned the headline "Swim Aborted Due to Gunshot Wounds", and got back into the water post-haste!
My coach telling me that jellyfish were known for coming out at night to hunt their prey. This violated my "no jellyfish jokes, please!" rule, but was so funny that it made me smile for at least an hour. My coach, it must be said, is wonderfully wonderful. He always seemed to have a perfect response to everything that happened, including the swim ending early. He could not have been more supportive.
Vomiting. ( Cut for high disgust factor )
Someone messaged the boat, saying that they'd distracted the diabetes fairy for me. This was hilarious! I'm going to figure out who it was tomorrow... It made me feel so connected to the diabetes community. (My blood sugars, by the way, were mostly amazing.)
Fifty million texts, voice mail messages, and e-mails during and after the swim, each of which I treasure. Thank you all.
More later...
