Diving was not the cause

I just need to get this out there for all the people who don’t trust me: diving did not cause this. Diving was not, nor has it ever been the reason that I’m sick. You would not believe how many times I’ve been told by people “maybe if you hadn’t done platform” or “are you sure diving isn’t the reason you’re in pain” and the kicker “maybe you should’ve given up diving a long time ago” and not once has it come from a medical professional. Never has a doctor told me to give up or stop sport. Sure they may have advised me to slow down on what I was doing, cut back on platform and focus on the lower boards, but they’ve never told me to quit the thing that I love, the thing that kept me going and gave me a reason to get back on my feet, out of a hospital gown and the confines of the white wash walls. That advice has only come from the people who have no medical knowledge and really, who have no clue as to what’s going on in my body. But every time someone offers their little tidbit of unwanted information I have to grin and bare it, bite my tongue from snapping, and just politely say “no, diving never made a difference” and then watch as they nod their head with a smug smile as they don’t believe me. Not this time. Here’s my say on the matter and I’m sorry if I offend anyone.

Going back to my diagnosis of chiari you could actually say that without diving we most likely wouldn’t have found it quite as quickly. I was originally sent for x-rays because of back pain that I was getting from diving and the impact from throwing myself off 10 metre and when they revealed nothing conclusive I was sent for an MRI which showed the cysts in my spine and then my brain hanging down too low. I understand that that’s looking at it broadly and I’m picking and choosing the way I see events, but I get to do that. I’m the storyteller here. But throughout everything, my parent’s divorce, earthquakes, and country changes, diving was the one constant in my life and one of the few things I could count on. How could I willingly give that up?

You see there’s no greater feeling than nailing the perfect dive. You’re standing on ten metre, toes tipping over the edge (sorry coaches, I know they’re not meant to be there) and arms above your head. Shoulders pressed to your ears and you can feel the last few drops of water drip down your hair and onto the backs of your legs. Inhale. One two. Exhale. Three four. Look to the water one last time with your eyes. Inhale lift on toes. Throw with your arms and lift with your hips. Wrap your arms around your legs in a tight pike and go through the rotation. Come out and set for the line-up. Look for the water and aim with your hands. Reach and grab and then make your entry. And you’ll know. You’ll know when you go through that water and feel your hands slice through like fabric and your body follows without a splash. For a moment you just wait under the surface in the silence. That time, right after you’ve done one of “those” dives was, is, my favourite feeling in the world. There’s nothing else like it. And once your lungs have reached their capacity to keep you under you kick off the bottom of the pool and finally break the surface and go back into the real world.

Then there’s the aspect of diving that’s not even about the sport, it’s about the people. The people that have become so close I consider family. The friends that I’ve laughed with, cried with, sat in hospital with and shared dinners with. And even gone to their grandmothers 86^th birthday! It’s the friends that have given me countless rides to and from training, and the ones who drop me off even when I insist I don’t need a ride but they force me into their car. It’s these people that I know I can turn to when things get a little bit tougher because they’ve seen me absolutely terrified out of my mind to do a dive, and they’re the ones who stood next to me on the boards while I’ve been literally shaking and crying out of fear and have talked me into doing the things that have scared me. If that’s not an amazing ability, I don’t know what is. And to this day they’re the people that I turn to first when I need help and a little, or big, pep-talk.

And my coaches. The ones on the sidelines who have taught me so much in life. While the bystanders think it’s just the diving, it’s far more. It’s life skills, and as I’ve had to learn to wade my way through the waters of chronic illness, the lessons I’ve learned in diving have been the most beneficial. You all taught me to breathe. That the simple act of breathing through something difficult or painful, like an extremely tough set of an ab work out but if you just breathe it can lessen the burden and make the painful hours seem a little shorter. When facing something scary, whether that be a new dive or procedure, don’t half arse it. If you half arse it you’re going to fail and land on your head and hurt yourself, something I’ve done way too many times. Give it your all and throw with everything that you’ve got. And, in the wise words of Amy “put your A (arse) into G (gear) and get off the board!” Following on from that, always count down from three, because then you can’t continue counting and procrastinating as I’m sure all my coaches will be able to tell you I’m very good at! You see, I have to breathe through every cannula insertion because my veins are getting trickier and harder to find. Every time I’m faced with a new reality of chronic illness life, which might be being on a higher dose of chemo or steroids, or having to use a wheelchair, I constantly have to remind myself to put all I have into the task that I’m doing. And without getting taught these lessons on poolside I don’t think I would’ve been able to face them in the chronic illness world with quite as much courage.

So, to the people who think they know my body better than me and like to tell me that I should’ve stopped diving, hear this: diving saved me. Maybe not in the literal sense, but it gave me a purpose in the many times in my life when I felt like it was falling apart, both before and after brain surgery. It was a place where I could escape, a place where I could take to the boards and find some freedom and just dive to my hearts content, and god do I miss it because not only did I feel at ease every time my feet stepped onto that rough surface, but when I was surrounded by the people that I saw more often than I saw my own family, I felt like I was coming home.