Swimming Part I

My friend, Wayne was until he recently retired,a special education teacher in the Seattle school district. One of the things he did was to take his students swimming. He went to the West Seattle YMCA which had facilities for dealing with people with disabilities. One of his students was in a wheelchair. I believe, but I am not sure, that he might have had spina bifida or some other view birth defect. When he heard of my injury, Wayne offered to take me swimming.

Swimming presents some interesting difficulties. My wheelchair cannot really get wet. I was uncertain how to get in and out of the pool. I was also uncertain that I would be able to swim once I got into the pool. It turns out that the YMCA, and later I would discover most other pools in the region, have answers to most of these problems. They have loaner wheelchairs, much cheaper and less sophisticated than mine, which may be taken into the showers. They have a hydraulic lift, water is a good hydraulic fluid, which is a chair which may be raised or lowered into the pool. They offer a number of flotation devices to guarantee that once in the water you won't sink.

There is also an issue about getting dressed. Is very difficult to take your pants on and off when you are sitting in a wheelchair. Normally when I am getting dressed I lie in bed and as I raise my pants I roll back and forth. This takes the weight or the one side allowing me to pull the pants up or, when getting undressed, push the pants down. In a wheelchair, I can raise my body by pushing up with both arms. However, when I'm using both arms to raise I have no arms to do with my pants. So when I am getting dressed for swimming I need the assistance of an able-bodied person to deal with my pants while I am raising my body to take my weight off of them. Fortunately, Wayne was used to playing this role.

We got a loaner chair, I rolled into the shower and washed off and then rolled to the pool and transferred to the chair. I was then lowered into the water and put on floats around my waist and both feet. I rapidly discovered that I was unable to swim on my stomach because it was difficult to raise my head and breathe. However, swimming on my back presented no difficulties. I was able to easily swim laps using my arms in a coordinated stroke and allowing my legs to float behind.

Swimming laps was easily the hardest exercise I was capable of doing since my accident. Wayne and I swum a number of laps. Everything went well until it was time for me to leave the pool. I easily got into the chair and was raised out of the pool. From there I needed to transfer back into the loaner wheelchair. Getting into the chair had been very easy and I assumed that getting out would be the same. Unfortunately, I did not count on the fact that the chair was still extremely wet from being in the pool. When I gave a vigorous push with my arm to propel myself into the loaner chair, my arms slipped and I found myself in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Fortunately, Wayne and a lifeguard were standing right next to me. I had never instructed people in the use of the fireman's carry which is the way I was taught to be picked up off of the floor but there is a first time for everything. With two strong men helping me getting back into the chair was a very simple process.

I went swimming with Wayne several more times in West Seattle. The only real problem was that West Seattle is a long ways from my house and most of the time was spent getting to and from the pool. I began to think about other pools which might work equally well.