On Saturday my mother, who is visiting, my brother and sister-in-law, and Tyler and I went to our apartment complex’s pool.  It was the first pool day for Tyler and I.  Tyler has lived two summers so far (now on his third) and we have had a lot of trouble with him being fearful of a large pool.  He loves kiddie pools and sprinklers and water play at daycare but get him near a large pool and he howls.  I wasn’t sure how he would be this time around.  I bought him a tube that looked like a fish in an effort to make it more fun and encouraging for him.

I think his biggest problem this time was that the pool was cold.  Not freezing, but we have been having cool nights this summer so the pool never really has gotten the chill out of it.  My mother was getting impatient with Tyler.  We all want him to start getting more experience with swimming and playing but I didn’t want to force him, knowing that would just make him more fearful.  The best I could do was carry him in the pool, swinging him around a little and dancing.  I was about waist high or so and Tyler was not really in the water.

When we stopped for lunch I realized that I had strained my bicep muscle in both arms.  I am right handed and I couldn’t even lift my arm to feed myself.  My left arm was not much better. I was so mad at myself for not recognizing that I was actually just carrying Tyler around for a long period of time and that I was not getting any help from the weightlessness you get when you are in the water because he wasn’t in the water!

After lunch I could no longer play with him, I just had to sit and cheer from the sidelines.  My mother said but you’ve got me and “Michael” and “Mary” to play with him but I wanted to play with him!  He’s my son, I wanted to be the one having fun with him!  Logically I know that eventually, sooner than later, he will put more of himself in the water and I will have the help of the weightlessness to be able to have fun with him, but at that moment I was feeling so upset and angry.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday I spent many hours lying in bed with heating pads.  The time in the pool had also flared my Costochondritis.  I did not have enough heating pads to cover all of the places in my body where I was hurting.  Now it’s Monday and Tyler is back in daycare.  I am going to rest as much as possible but the arms are kind of important body parts to do…anything.

I feel so down about this and angry.  I feel like my recovery is going to set me back with everything I need to be doing with my health, the REAL problems that I have.  If you are chronically ill you know there is nothing worse than getting the flu, an injury or anything else on top of what you already have to deal with.

I am praying for a speedy recovery so I can get back to my life and that I will be able to play with Tyler again in the pool soon and that we can both have fun.  I took pictures at the time with the thought of posting them here as part of a wonderful day, but Saturday turned out to be a day I would rather forget.