Thursday, July 31, 2014

while we were away

I'm playing catch up. I would have played catch up yesterday or before that but I got hammered with the migraine from hell. 48 hours of torture I tell ya. I was within inches of going to the ER for some serious drugs but realised I had no one to watch the girlies so even though I couldn't even keep water down because the pain was THAT intense I had to stay put and just hope to God it would go away. ( you really wanted to know that didn't you?)

Lily had the Long Course Junior Olympics. This time she did really really well cos she knew what it was all about and the whole "J.O." name didn't send fear cursing through her body. I knew it would be a 3 day event which meant it would start on Friday night. I magically moved my Saturday clients to Friday and inched my Friday people closer together so I could take her and be her cheering squad. I had it all under control. Or so I thought. On Wednesday we received the event sheet and for Lily warm ups started at 7.30am on Friday. WTH?

There was no way I could move everyone. I am always the one who misses work and as much as I don't mind if I can do a switcheroo I do mind not getting paid over and over again. Her and I had a little chat and we agreed that since she only had one event on Friday she would ride up with another swimmer. I have an app on my phone that lets me know her results as soon as she has finished. So she went alone and was a champ.

The rest of the weekend I went with her. I had another really bad migraine that weekend and the thought of taking anything over than essential stuff was out of the question. So I took my phone and decided that iPhotos would do.


It was very official this time around
Breaststroke. Her favourite.
Not sure what team has this as their motto but I like it.
She swam really well and placed in all of her heats. In one she was seeded 79 and ended up 48th. That is huge. She was unstoppable. The parents and swimmers were sectioned off from each other so I didn't see much of her. I think this is a great idea, no parental interference. Since I am a coaches assistant I had the passes needed to go back to the swimmers but I only did a couple of times and that was to drop stuff off to the kids as their parents arrived, or to deliver messages. One particular time I was walking back and a child with skinned knees and elbows and blood running down her wet legs hobbled towards me. It was Lily! She was heading to the end of the pool to watch Sid race and tripped over a barricade.

I took her to first aid, cleaned her up and wished her luck, she had 5 minutes till her next event. What I didn't learn until later was in those five minutes a huge discussion took place between her, her coach and the officials. Could she swim with band aids, could she swim without band aids with fresh bloody cuts? Yes. No. It was decided in the end she could swim in band aids. At this point her event was on the block and they were waiting for the official word. I did see her coach call her off of the block and over to him, he high fived her and she gimped back to the block. This was going to be a horrendous event for her.

The whistle blew, she dove in and was gone. 200m free and her best time ever. She took 6.49 seconds off of her time. Turns out Coach gave her a pep talk, this is going to sting, all you are going to think when you hit the water is owwwwwww. then you have to snap out of it and swim, pain is short lived. She did what he said and went as fast as she could and couldn't even feel anything. Kidlet has gumption.


Sad faced girl.  2 weeks later her knee still isn't healed cos she hits it or Rosie hits it everytime it's almost better!
She did really well, wasn't intimidated and swam it like she owned it all weekend. But now J.O.s mean nothing and everything has to be an A time. Oy.

4 comments:

  1. brilliant.go gel go..col.xx

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  2. I am so very proud of Lily and you both. And so sorry you don't have more support to help out with the girls' schedules.

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