"Fat to Fittie"

As we get older, one thing we’re definitely going to get more of is pain, either physical or mental, there’s no avoiding it and the way we handle and deal with the situation, differs from person to person. Quite often the physical suffering stems from a mis-spent youth, usually old sport injuries come back to haunt us as the effects of crunching tackles and being thrown to the floor on a regular basis make getting out of bed feel like a herculean task. Not good if you wake up needing the toilet, but also require a 20 min stretching regime, before your legs allow you to actually go, some sort of medieval style piss pot can be a good idea. You often hear older people complaining about the creaks and strains becoming part of normal life and see getting the odd ache as a sign of middle age, but for many others, the pain can be far more severe and is what we know as chronic.

Before I move onto that, I’d like to mention something that happened to me and is the reason I’ve not written much recently. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that the only real exercise I can do is swimming, where I also walk in the water, something I struggle with greatly on land due to my osteoarthritis in both hips. Well about 4 months ago I was in the pool, almost finished when I heard this horrid, screeching voice, shouting at a woman for leaving her mobility aid, near the steps. As I turned, I saw it was a huge whale like woman, who’s body shape I’ll describe as being an inch from being square. She was using a stick, maybe more to do with being massively overweight rather than disabled, but even so, I was surprised at her lack of empathy towards a fellow sufferer. As she entered the water and a subsequent tidal wave ebbed, the abuse towards the woman continued and a passing elderly guy got it as well for daring to continue swimming in the same path as he’d been doing for 10 minutes.

Obviously Moby was going to come and swim in my lane, it’s the way my luck goes, but with only 3 more to swim and 5 to walk, I was nearly done. Just keep your mouth shut I thought to myself, as she continued to bully and harass anyone around her, “nowt to do with you”. (Nowt is a Yorkshire word that means nothing, as in, “she’s nowt but trouble”.) As she joined our lane, the lady in question began swimming the correct way around like the board instructed, that is until I stood up to do my 5 walking lengths, she clearly now saw me as a weakness, limping through the water. I reached the end of my first length and turned to see her swimming toward me, “Excuse me I said, it’s the other way”,

“Yes I f*****g know” she spat, Oh dear, this isn’t going to end well. As I reached the other end, I turned to see her swimming toward me, the wrong way round again, clearly something had to be done to prevent this nasty, evil bully from taking over the pool and more importantly, have her huge frame smash into my poor crippled hips. As she swam closer, I reached out and pushed her to the side, almost immediately I felt my shoulder pull, she wasn’t quite as buoyant as I thought. A few words now followed, from me, not her, where it was made quite clear that she was not a nice person and should consider perhaps not swimming here anymore if she can’t learn to be nice to people, well, something along those lines. I’m pleased to report she’s now left the club due to many complaints and harmony has been restored, I however am still paying the price.

Because of the pain I couldn’t swim for 12 weeks and even now, it hurts and I aren’t able to do as much, which is obviously hindering my weight loss. A scan has shown a significant tear, which when you consider the weight it shifted, isn’t a surprise. I’m down to see a surgeon in January, where he’ll decide if it needs operating on or not, yes, I know what you’re thinking, serves me right, that’ll teach me for pushing the fat lump out of the way. Guess the moral of the story is to ignore nasty bullies as if they aren’t there, adjust your plans and try to pretend its nothing to do with you, though if history’s taught us anything, that never goes well, just not sure if a knackered shoulder is worth the peace and quiet we now have. I had planned to talk more about dealing with everyday pain instead of going off on a tangent, telling you about the elephant in the water (see what I did there)? guess I’ll have to leave that till next time, so as they say in the movies, to be continued………….

*Being lardy and overweight myself, means it’s okay to call someone a fat lump.