Wow think everyone has had snow recently. I love snow. It brings back happy memories of happy times. Mainly because I love skiing and snowboarding. Come winter time it always used to be time to get out the ski kit and pack up the car. We would spend the weekends driving up and down the road for me to either do ski race training or ski races. I loved it. I was very fortunate that I had the opperunity to go away skiing with my family abroad each year. We did this till last year. It was the one thing that no matter what I would always ski. I was often reckless and maybe irresponsible but skiing was my life and i was not about to give it up for my asthma.
I was a reckless skier in some sense but I was always in control. I was reckless in the fact that I would push my body to the limit when skiing. I would not stop a run because I had a build up of lactate acid in my legs and I would often not stop skiing if I got breathless. I would also challeneg myself to see what tricks I could do on the ski jumps. I was born to ski. And when my asthma started acting up I new skiing would become a problem. I managed it somehow.
Three years ago i knew my skiing career was coming to an end. I stuyggled to egt travel insurance to go skiing but also I was attached to a subcut pump of an infusion of terbutaline. I knew this was goign to cause problems. Mainly because I knew if I fell I had a needle in my stomach but also it was an expensive machine I had. I skied anyway. I tucked my infusion inot my inside jacket pocket and put an extension line on my butterfly so I could thread it up and out the top of my polo neck so I did not have to be untugged and get cold around the mid-drift. The blessing on this holiday was that my knee was messed up so i couldnt ski how I like and I could race on the slalom and GS courses so I had to take it easy. I took a coaching role and helped my mum and her friend out who are more cautious skiers. They were really appreciative and this made it not feel so bad that I couldnt ski as I wanted.
The year after this I also had my PICC line in situ. I was still goign to go skiing but once I was discharged from hospital I was having it flushed with heparin every other day by the community matron. I was not sure what i was going to do. My PICC was in the crease of my elbow so very difficult to access myself and it did not have a large amount of line outside my arm. I decided I would try and flsuh it myself and dress it. I was so stupid to think I could manage this. I went skiing and was determined to manage it all myself. But the day before I was due home I was really sick and my arm was agony. I noticed I had red tracking from an infection in my PICC line. I jsut broke down at the thought that I had been so stupid and possibly put my life at risk by getting an infection in my line. As soon as I got home I was striaght to the ward where I broke down on the nurse and told her what I did. I thought she was going to be mad at me. I knew her well so she would have no worried about telling me off. But she was understanding and said she knew how much skiing meant to be and yes I was silly to have done it all myself but that she understood why I did it and was not annoyed but glad I had the sense to tell her what was wrong.
I love skiing and hopefully I wil be back on skis again soon.
On a better note. the snowis great. I am goign up north for christmas and hopfully there will be snow there. All four of my brothers will be there but my sister and her baby are staying at her home. If there is snow it will be great as there is a field and hopfully we can sledge down it if there is enough snow.
I will hopfully undate again before christmas. But if not all the peopel who read my blog have a great chrsitmas.
WT x
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 