Breaking Through my Barrier: I Went Skiing!
It had only been 4 years since I last skied, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. I last went skiing with my family in New Mexico in 2009. It was beautiful snow and weather and we had a fun day. Since then I have had so many issues walking that I was sure I would never ski again. I had a couple of bad falls and then I had something happen that made walking difficult. It seems to be a corn allergy that gives me MS like symptoms if I eat it. Last year we started taking our children to Ellicottville, NY to see our friends. Our friends bought a cottage there and their daughter is close to our boys’ age. They all run around the hills in the snow, watch movies, and play hard. They have a great time together. We were there a couple of times last year–the boys and my husband snowboarded and skied two days over the winter. Each time I would stay behind and carry the boots back to the car and wish I could ski, too. I vowed to ski again. I set a goal to ski one time this winter.
We made plans for 2 weekends with our friends in 2013. I found a program at Holiday Valley that is an adaptive ski program. It is called the Lounsbury Adaptive Ski Program. A way for people with “challenges” to ski. It is a 2 hour lesson and it includes lift ticket and rentals for $40. A person like me would be paired with an instructor and helped to ski. I contacted them and was so excited that I could book with them. I told them about my challenges with walking and they said, “we have sliders if you need them.” There seemed to be no excuse for me. But I was tired in January and didn’t get the session booked. I felt too busy and tired and decided to wait. I think my trepidation got the best of me and I chose rest over tackling my fears. The kids and Mel had a fantastic time and by the end of the weekend the boys were clearly falling in love with being on the mountain and were rapidly improving in skill. By the end of the weekend, I was feeling sad that I wasn’t out on the hill too.
I decided it was time. I went back home and booked my lesson for our February trip. I was in. And I was excited. One of the hardest parts about tackling something like this for me is that my normal goal setting strategy of sharing it with my friends doesn’t work the same way because of my health issues. If I share that I have a big goal of skiing again then people would find out about my health challenges. I don’t know how they could not know, but they don’t. Then I end up having to share. It sort of feels like being gay and being in the closet but I don’t know how I got into this closet in the first place.
I stayed awake for a long time the night before my lesson. I was worried “Am I too weak to do it? What if I am not handicapped enough and they think I don’t belong in their program? What if I get too tired? What if I am too out of shape and I can’t get down the hill? What if I fall? What if I fall and hurt myself and I have a long recovery or I never recover? What if I am making a bad decision? What if I am embarrassed? What if I go to the wrong building? What if I can’t find the program?” I was up against a huge edge and my brain was trying to work its way through how I was going to do this. I watched my thoughts, practiced not paying too much attention to them, and realized this must be really important to me to kick off so much internal dialogue. For me it was really big. I know if it is big it is worth doing and I should kick into brave mode. I also know that all the inner dialogue and fear can have me behave in a reactive or angry way with my family, so I stayed loving and conscious with them as I watched my fears sliding around.
I got there early and found the spot. I waited for the instructor to show up and again my impatience surfaced when he wasn’t there for a while. He wasn’t late, I was early but I was right at my edge and waiting was uncomfortable right into my bones. I sat quietly and tried to conserve energy and still my worrying mind.
At about 9:15 Tom, Becky, and Bob showed up. Becky was in charge of scheduling and I had communicated with her by email. Bob and Tom were my instructors for the day. I learned that they always work in pairs. I felt a little embarrassed for needing two very tall men to get me down the mountain. I took deep breaths. I let it be okay for myself. It was okay to need help. I let myself believe that they were as invested in my goal of skiing as I was, and it was okay to allow them to help. I felt like I didn’t want to seem like a princess who had two burly guys carrying everything and doing everything for me. They needed me to be real and vulnerable and to let them help me so I could get some skiing done.
We got my boots on and my skis and poles (mostly they carried my skis and poles). One of the most helpful thing they did was to help me get my boots on so I could conserve my energy for skiing. We headed outside. I could feel the fatigue starting as I walked in the boots. We headed to the Schoolhouse lift. The day before I had watched my children do several runs on Schoolhouse with my husband. I figured I would start there. I was glad they weren’t asking me to do the Magic Carpet.
I got onto the lift and up we went. I was on a chair lift. My heart soared! Feeling the ride of the chair in the air was something I thought I wouldn’t experience again and it had been a loss for me. I managed to get off the chair. We got situated at the top and Bob gave me some tips for getting down the mountain. We started off. We stopped and talked. We skied some more. We stopped. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to stand and talk, I was better skiing. I took a big breath and said, “I think I need to go straight down and talk on the lift–the standing is the worst part for me.” Bob and Tom got it and from then on, they looked for ways to keep me from standing and ways to keep me moving. We went down. It was a little rough but I was skiing. I was doing it. We talked about me needing to do short runs since I get fatigued and then I can recover on the chair lift. We talked about just staying on Schoolhouse for the day. It seemed like a good idea.
On the lift they gave me great tips on staying forward and shifting my weight to my uphill ski and letting my skis do my turns for me. It was sort of working. My second run we went straight down. I realized I was leaning back each turn as I shifted my weight. Bob and Tom noticed too and Tom told me to keep my shin up again the front of my boot at all times. On the third run, I focused on that and all of a sudden I felt great. I was doing some of the best skiing I had ever done. I was also feeling the burn in my thighs and the fatigue.
Run 4 was a little rough again. It was time for a break. We went inside and sat for a few minutes. I had been skiing for about 35 minutes and I was already tired. If I hadn’t been so physically tired, I might have been able to have a negative thought about that, but I was simply too focused on recovering enough to be able to get out and ski more and use any energy that way. The thought passed.
We went back on Schoolhouse for another great run. On the way back I stopped and said, “I’m getting bored. Is there a gentle Green that isn’t too long? Bob looked concerned and checked in with Tom. “Let’s go,” said Tom. They figured out a run that might work, although they were a little concerned because it was a bit long coming down. “Let’s do it,” I said.
Off we went. We took the Cindy lift up the mountain. Bob showed me a warming hut and a bench I could rest on. I had to push uphill a little to get down to a Green which was a bit tough for me. I got to the Green and it was a narrow run with lots of people. I panicked. All of a sudden I forgot all about how to do my turns and I was scared. It was too fast and I stopped. Tom was tough with me. “You need to be on your skis,” he said in a stern voice. It worked. As I am writing this, I don’t really know what he meant but what I got from it was that I needed to continue to do what I had been doing and let my skis turn me. I needed to keep my shins forward and I needed to lean forward and go down the mountain. I did it and I did the Green easily then. Right up until we came to a Blue.
“We’re doing a Blue?” I asked. My heart was pumping a bit and the fear was coming back.
“Just the bottom of a Blue,” Bob said.
“Ok, let’s go”, I said as we pushed off.
I continued to do good turns and this was my absolute best run of the day. It was fast, it was fun, I was trusting the technique and I was loving the feeling of the skiing even though the burn in my out-of-shape thighs was intense. I was skiing and I was loving it! It was an amazing feeling.
By the time I got to the bottom I was in real need of a rest. The chair lift was the closest place to sit down. “What if we go up again and then rest up at the top?” I asked.
“Sure, if you want to go again,” Bob answered. Tom wasn’t as chatty as Bob, except for the occasional super helpful directives about how to improve my skiing.
We went up to the top again and went straight to the warming hut to rest some more. This was perfect. It was a little hut with a fire in a wood stove and wooden tables to sit at. It was very cozy and we sat and rested and talked. I said I wished I had a little stool I could carry on my back so I could sit down when I got tired as I went down the runs. I also realized that if I got really tired, I could just sit down on the snow and rest. That would allow me to remove the limitation of just doing really short runs. I just had to get over my pride and be willing to sit in the snow. I was tired but I was ready for this run down the mountain.
We skied off toward the Green run. Again we had to push our way up to it. There was a little shelter and I rested again on a bench there to see if I could conserve energy and rejuvenate before skiing down. I tackled the Green with success. It felt easy. When we got to the Blue I was ready. I was whooshing down. Then I had a near fall as my legs didn’t seem to be doing what I wanted them to. I was tired. My thighs were in excruciating pain. I was having to stop and stand up to try to ease the burn. I was still enjoying the skiing, though. I have never had so much fun while being in so much exercise pain before. It was a strange juxtaposition. It was an amazing rush and the skiing felt great at the same time my body was a painful ache. I was done. I skied back over to the lodge and spotted a stone wall. “Bob, I have a favor to ask,” I said. “Would you get my snow-boots from the lodge so I don’t have to walk in my ski-boots anymore?”, I asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
I stayed with Tom and my husband showed up. He was watching for me. I sat down and rested until Bob got back with my boots. Bob helped me get my ski-boots off and I got my snow-boots on. It was nice to be back in them.
“I did it,” I told my husband. Ok, I’ll admit it. I talked about it for the entire trip home. I was so excited. I can hardly wait to do it again.
What I learned: Part of self-care is to do things that push my edges and give me a thrill. I hadn’t had enough thrill lately and I was feeling sedate and boring. Now I feel alive. And it feels awesome.
