by Gabe Griffith
It is somewhat ironic that I don't like roller coasters, considering the roller coaster ride my life has been over the last 20 months or so. I had always thought of myself as relatively healthy, but in January of 2016, I was still putting my life back together after my wife passed. Then I found myself getting weaker and weaker. I was finally able to get in to see my doctor, and she sent me for some tests in the hospital. They diagnosed me with Guillon Barre, an autoimune disease that affects the nervous system. I ended up getting so weak I couldn't even get out of bed on my own and spent almost 5 weeks in the hospital between the ICU and physical therapy. And then I spent another 5 months in out-patient physical therapy.
In many ways, that episode saved my life. The therapy gave me something tangible I could work toward. While I was laying there, too weak to even get out of bed on my own, I started setting some goals for myself. The first one was to climb an 1100 foot mountain that I had been too weak to even make 20% of before going in to the hospital. The therapists told me my goal of August 1 was too ambitious, so I changed it to September 1 to appease them. I completed that climb on July 23rd of that year.
When I was discharged from therapy, I decided to join a gym and get back in the pool. I had been a competitive swimmer in high school and swam recreationally through college, but I hadn't been in a pool to swim laps in over 10 years. In addition, I signed up to work with a personal trainer. As a result, over the past year, I have not only gotten back all the strength I lost with my illness, but I am now in the best shape I have been in in many years.
Earlier this Spring, I met a guy at the gym where I swim who asked me if I had ever done any open water swimming. I had done some in my younger days, but hadn't done any open water swimming in over 15 years. He asked me if I would be interested in a relay swim across lake Tahoe he was in charge of organizing. When I said yes, he connected me with a team of disabled and able-bodied swimmers.
Our team consisted of myself, a guy with Usher's, a guy with a spinal cord injury who wasn't able to walk, and 4 other "able-bodied" swimmers. The relay technically consists of 6 person teams to swim a 10 mile trek across Lake Tahoe. We were able to have 7 because Corbin and I would always be swimming with another person.
Our team exchanged several emails and had one video conference call before the race, but most of us had never met in person and trained on our own. I finally met a couple of my teammates the day before the race when we got together for a practice swim. That was also the first time I had ever swum while tethered to another person. The tether consisted of a length of bungee cord tied with a loop to go around each person's waist and one thigh. There was also a straight length of cord to allow each swimmer to be separated by about 3 feet, allowing freedom of movement while keeping the sighted swimmer close enough to guide.
Swimming in the lake is much different than swimming in a pool, and the practice swim prepared me well for the relay the next day. By this time I had worked my way up to swimming about 2500 meters without stopping but that was in an 80-degree pool. The lake was much warmer than almost any other year in anyone's memory, but it was still only about 65 degrees. Once I got moving it wasn't bad, but the first time I jumped in the water, it took my breath away. Also, the water itself had a much different feel from pool water, which is difficult to describe.
Race day finally arrived on July 22nd. We got together at about 6:30 AM, and our division of the race kicked off at about 8:30 AM. The way the relay is supposed to work is that each person swims a 30 minute leg in the first round. Then everyone swims for 10 minutes at a time after that until the 10 mile trek is completed. When we weren't in the water swimming, we were riding along in the chase boat. I ended up swimming 3 separate legs of the race. Since our team wasn't actually competing, we didn't stick to the strict time requirements as much or the strict order in which we started. During my first leg, my partner and I swam for our 30 minute segment. In the second round, I swam with a different partner, and we swam for about 15 minutes. This time, just to be different, we did a tandem dive off the front of the boat while tethered together. Luckily it came off just as it would have been drawn up, and we managed not to get a concussion. My teammates let me and a partner swim the last leg. At that point, I'm not exactly sure how far we swam, but it was probably another 15 minutes or so.
I'm not positive how far I swam all together that day, but it was somewhere around a couple of miles. When I came crawling out of the lake that day, it was such an accomplishment, not only for that day but for everything I'd been through in the past two years. I could never have done any of it without the support and encouragement of my family and friends.
