FROM WHEELCHAIR TO WATER OLYMPICS

Heidi Johnnson Wright goes for a theraputic swim in Southern Spain

WATER OLYMPIAN

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

For one hour each week, I’m an Olympic swimmer.

If you saw me on the street – tooling around in my wheelchair, or struggling to get in a building not equipped with automatic door openers – you’d never know about my life as an “Olympian.”

More than three decades with severe rheumatoid arthritis has seen to that. Years of chronic pain, inflammation and resulting joint damage have made me the proud owner of two total shoulder, a pair of total hip and matching total knee replacements. I’ve had other major orthopedic surgeries as well, procedures done to relieve the agonizing pain and to keep me mobile.

But medical science can only do so much in the wake of a powerfully destructive, still-incurable disease. I walk only short distances unassisted and use a power wheelchair much of the time. I need help with the daily rituals of dressing, bathing and grooming.

I still have faint memories, faded flickering images of my life up to age 8, before arthritis became my everyday reality, before words like “inflammation” and “autoimmune” entered my precocious childhood lexicon. Through those foggy windows to my past, I see myself riding my yellow Schwinn five speed, climbing trees, executing perfect handstands.

Though I know I did these things with the gusto and insouciance of a grade schooler, I retain no body memories of them. I cannot recall the feeling of my tennis-shoed feet on bike pedals nor the struggle to pull myself up to an overhead branch nor being upside-down with my arms supporting my weight. These sensations are lost to me forever.

Still, I hunger for physical sensations. I want more than a daily existence in the world of the mind. I crave physical movements: rigorous liquid motions of arms, legs and torso that go beyond mere sitting or taking a few steps.

I yearn for motion. I want to feel the exertion and exhilaration of an Olympic athlete.

Each week I go directly to the University of Miami Wellness Center's indoor pool and take advantage of its hydraulic lift to get into the warm waters.

The Olympics are about to begin.

To the untrained eye, I am no more than a woman with arthritis in a swimming pool engaging in gentle range of motion and strengthening exercises. But from my vantage point, I am entering a new realm.

I walk back and forth across the pool. But walking is the slow, cumbersome movement I struggle with on land.

In the water’s silken buoyancy, I propel myself effortlessly, smoothly. For a few moments, I am not in a swimming pool in Coral Gables but at an Olympic natatorium gliding down the lane wearing the stars and stripes.

I move to the pool’s edge and begin the leg exercises. I stand with one side to the wall and lift my leg out to the side. For minutes at a time, I balance on one leg while I gracefully lift the other, something I can barely do for a second or two otherwise.

Throughout the exercise, I focus on the water’s empowering qualities. I become the movement itself, pushing all else from my mind. I feel strong and confident.

I work on my upper body, lifting my arms on either side, palms up. With the elegance of a ballerina, I rotate my forearms palms down then lower my arms back to my sides.

I am preparing for the swim meet of a lifetime. I imagine powerful moves in which I propel myself through the water like a kestrel on an updraft. I stun the crowd and my fellow competitors, winning my heat several seconds ahead of the competition.

Each week, I bend, lift and stretch my body -- a body that is to the outside world, ravaged. To me, it is a marvelous machine remade by the power of the water.

I am liberated, emboldened, transformed.

For an hour.


Johnson-Wright is a non-practicing attorney living in Miami. She also writes freelance articles about music, literature and travel for a variety of newspapers and magazines around the world.