1 week Ago By Cam Tait
Article content My first question after being in the water for a little over an hour were to my cousins Bob and Cathy Beattie. “How’s that for entertainment?” It was 1976. I was in Grade 11 at Glenrose School Hospital, and got an extended lunch break to swim a mile in the school’s pool, which is also used by patients in the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.
Yes, my friend, a mile. Seventy-two lengths. Bob and Cathy were in town from Grande Prairie and, very patiently, sat at the pool’s south end and watch me swim.
Lap after lap. After ..
. lap. Now, almost a half-century ago, if I did go swimming.
Given my weight, I am sure people would report a whale sighting. In Grade 10, Jim Silverson was the new pool’s lifeguard. He asked me over, and over, to come swimming.
Been there, done that. Have the trunks. When I was even younger, touring around the Okanagon with my parents on summer holidays, my dad put a life-jacket on my back and let me splash on every lake we stopped at.
My swimming days were over. At the age of 12, I retired. But Silverson? He was persistent, and eventually convinced me to get in the pool.
I swam backwards. That was the best for my cerebral palsy, and since the Glenrose pool was a toasty 72 degrees, my muscles didn’t tense up like they did in lake water. Within time, I found I could walk small distances into water.
I was really enjoying myself inn the water. Keeping my neck from falling back into the water was the only issue we had. Silverson walked behind me in the water and held my head in his hand to keep it afloat.
He then had the physio department make a neck brace out of Styrofoam. It went around my head, and pieces of Velcro snapped it at the bottom. It helped me, sure.
Perhaps more importantly, the neck brace provided independence. And made it fun to want to swim a mile. It has been a wonderful lap down memory lane, and I want to bring in 14-year-old Myah Brandsman into the chat.
In late January, Myah took a school immunization shot and lost mobility. She started rehabilitation at Glenrose and, like me, enjoys using the pool. It would be a great shame if it shut down.
That’s the word around the Glenrose: a Postmedia story earlier last week reported Alberta Health Services is closing the pool. Sorry, AHS. I think closure would be a mistake.
The pool, of course, provides so many great rehabilitative benefits. But, when you’re a young kid, and your world has been spun upside down to the point where you need rehab, something as familiar as a pool just might make the process not so rough. Especially if they can have a little fun.
Who knows, right? A door may open for Myah so she can swim a mile. I’ll be there at poolside watching her ..
. every lap of the way..
