I'm
on a bit of a fitness campaign. As someone with osteopaenia (a bone
density slightly lower than ideal due to lactose intolerance) I've
been taking a calcium supplement for some time. But I decided that
I'd need to broaden my exercise base from just cycling because
cycling does not fulfil the “weight bearing” requirement. So for
two weeks I've been running and swimming too. I'll leave from writing
about running for now, especially as I can walk faster!
But
swimming has been a massive challenge for me. For a start, I have
some rather obvious scars from historical surgery and no swimsuit I
could find on the internet was ever going to disguise them. Then
there's the fact that I am petrified of deep water, and my local 20m
pool (less than ¼ mile away) is 3m deep at the deep end.
But
when you yearn to do something you will find a way, and I found a
pool 20 miles away which I thought would suit me better. It was just
the swimming costume problem stopping me, and the potential
embarrassment of my body being on show.
I
could buy a costume with low legs to disguise my scarring, but not
with a swim back. Those with swim backs seemed to have incredibly
high cut legs which would shine a torch on my scars. I also wanted an
internal pocket, to stop my pouch from slipping out through a leg
hole, and a heavy pattern to break up the outline of my appliance.
Ostomy specific swimsuits had pockets and patterns and one or two had
swim backs, but none of them had low legs.
So
I got to work with bits of newspaper, designing a pattern, and after
about a week of work (and a lucky find in the case of the fabric) I
came up with this:
Front view
Back view
I
had spare fabric left over, so I made a two-piece costume too:
Now
I've been swimming four times, and I've had people come up to me to
admire my costumes. I can hardly believe it but it's true. People
like the bright pattern and are disappointed to find they can't buy
one the same for themselves, but they take so much making that I
simply cannot offer to make one for anyone else. With all the work
that goes into them, I can now see why swimming costumes cost so
much!
So
I'm running, swimming and cycling. But I can promise you this, I'm no
triathlete, and I'm constantly exhausted just now.
It
will get easier, won't it?
