Come Sail Away With Me

After doing the indoor skydiving last month, my friend, Josh invited me to a sailing clinic in Annapolis. He is the founder of SPINALpedia, a social mentoring network that brings together people within the spinal cord injury community and also has a video archive so people can share their knowledge and experiences with each other. He tries to set up a lot of different adaptive sports and activities for individuals and families. He mentioned this sailing clinic and I honestly wasn't that interested at first. I love being on boats and on the water, but I knew nothing about actual sailboats. As the time drew closer, Josh was persistent in asking me to go and learn about "adaptive sailing." When my housing arrangement with friends in Annapolis fell through, he even offered to pay for my hotel during the two nights I was in town. (He made it VERY hard to say no!)

The more I thought about it, I realized that this clinic would be a perfect distraction. My graduation from optometry school was scheduled for the 25th and the timing of this even couldn't have been better. I had toyed around with the idea of actually going to graduation because my roommate and best friend, Annie, had offered me her extra ticket. I wanted to go to see all my friends and offer my support, but after more consideration, I realized I would just be setting myself up for heartbreak. Becoming an eye doctor has been my goal since the third grade. All those years of school and hard work were supposed to come to an end in May 2017, I'd been looking forward to it for what seemed like forever. And while I would've been happy for my friends, I think I would have found myself feeling sorry for myself.

The adaptive sailing clinic was put on by an organization called CRAB--Chesapeake Recreational Adaptive Boating. They work a lot with wounded warriors, but I think this was one of the first clinics with just individuals with spinal cord injuries. Words can't even describe how amazing this experience was. We got classroom instructions, starting with the basics, like the parts of the boat. We took everything we learned onto the water all in the same day. I loved being able to learn and then put that knowledge to use and practice right away.

There were two SCI individuals and an experienced skipper on each boat. We had seven people with SCIs, so there were three boats and then Josh had his own boat. Since he doesn't have much hand movement, they had a boat that was controlled by a straw! There are wheelchairs like this, called "sip and puff," where you sip to stop and puff to go (or the other way around?) but I had never imagined a boat being operated like that! Even better is that Josh is very successful as a lawyer and in his business, but said that operating that boat was the most independent and powerful he's felt since his accident. And it's true. I'd tried my hand at a few adaptive sports and I like them all for different reasons, but being in that boat on the water was the most freeing feeling...having total control of the boat and just focusing on everything we had learned in order to get it to the destination we wanted was incredible.

I think what made the clinic even better was the people I met. I don't think you can really understand unless you've been there, but being around other people in wheelchairs made me feel a sense of normalcy. It's one of the only groups of people you can be around where the focus isn't about the wheelchair. You have people you can joke about your struggles with, share experiences, and learn form each other. I haven't really gotten to experience that much because I've only been around others in wheelchairs while in therapy, and that's just a different setting.

We went to happy hour and asked for a table to accommodate four wheelchairs. I hadn't done that before. I'm usually the only one, which means that all the attention is on me. When I'm the only one in a wheelchair in a group of people, everyone feels the need to go out of their way to make sure I'm "okay." While it's nice and I'm thankful that everyone looks out for me, I like going out in order to get away from all the struggles my health brings. I don't like all eyes on me or when people think it's okay to come up and start asking questions about what happened or congratulate me for getting out of the house. (This seriously happens and I swear people think that if you're in a wheelchair, you should be at home wallowing in your own pity). It's hard to explain, but it's almost like because there were four of us, no one really paid attention. I didn't feel "out of place," like I sometimes do.

While I was extremely thankful for this opportunity to learn how to sail, I was even more thankful for the new relationships I formed.

**On a side note, the clinic was cancelled for Thursday due to the predicted bad weather, but I stayed busy (Mom made sure of it). My friends still texted me to let me know they were thinking about me and that the day wasn't the same without me, but I surprisingly felt pretty numb. I didn't shed a single tear, which is pretty uncharacteristic of me in times like that. Maybe because I know that it'll be me crossing that stage and wearing my long white coat with the inscription of "Dr. Kelly Morse" in the near future (or maybe it was the wine and chocolate I was indulging in), but regardless, I didn't throw myself a pity party.