*Skating as therapy*

(Dated: 11 Oct 2012)

Ok, there are people in the world who have it worse than me, no denials, but I've had a pretty dire couple of weeks, hence the slow third posting.

Without wanting to bore anyone to death with the details, anyone who knows me knows my two cats are my babies. They make my life, they do, and I wouldn't be without them for anything.

A couple of weeks ago one of them became seriously ill. He's only two years old and he's been through hell, bless his little white socks (on his mostly black body, that is). So we've had three or so weeks of rushing to the emergency vets at 4am, cleaning pee up off the carpets at all hours, hearing him howling in pain and finally seeing him through major surgery.

He's now on the road to recovery, thank goodness, but we're still having to contend with a few problems.

Add to all this a couple of things I can't go into when it has my name on it (!), and a bout of flu each for me and hubby - with his turning into a nasty chest infection that can't be treated because he's allergic to penicillin and the only other suitable antibiotic apparently would react with his epilepsy meds, and it's been a fairly miserable time all round.

What does this have to do with skating, I hear you ask. Well, everything. As a result
of all this, I haven't been near the rink for almost a week, and I've hated every minute.

The last time I was there, however, it was a case of celebrate good times (Come on!) because I finally managed to pass Skate UK level 7 (high fives, people!).

Again, anyone who knows me knows my arch nemesis has been Mr Inside 3 Turn. I hear he gets on the wrong side of a lot of people. Not too popular, I gather. I once told a coach that the inside 3 was the creation of Satan himself, and no one disagreed.

Well, I finally defeated him - ha! Take that, evil one. Ok, it needs work, but it was passable.

I was absolutely certain that by the time I got back tonight, I'd be back to square one and poor coach would have to re-teach me lemons at my lesson on Saturday.

But I was pleasantly surprised - skating was as fine as it's ever been, and yeah, it took 10 minutes until I was back at the level I was at last Thursday, but it WAS only 10 minutes, so I was delighted.

I almost didn't go skating today, but boy, was I glad I did. I've been off work sick for three days with this horrible flu thing (Phil has "man flu" - apparently mine isn't as bad, it's just the "regular" variety) and while I wasn't feeling much better this afternoon, I was pretty desperate to get to the rink, so I made a bargain with myself that if I went to the rink, I would be back at work tomorrow no matter how horrendous I feel in the morning.

Standing in the queue to pay, I did think I'd probably made a mistake. Felt faint as a faint thing, and someone even commented on how I "looked like I was about to fall over", but the minute I got my boots on and stepped onto the ice, it was like it all melted away.

And this, dear readers, is the magic of "skating as therapy".

To those of us with AOSS (I'm sure you're familiar with it; most of you are "suffering" from it - that's Adult Onset Skating Syndrome), skating can fix just about everything.

Tonight, it instantly appeared to fix my illness as well as my stress about the poorly kitty cat and other issues.

I'm not entirely sure how it works its magic - whether the cold air had a detrimental effect on the bugs trying to murder me via phlegm or whether it's the psychological effect and a sort of "mind over matter", but whatever it is, it works.

Perhaps it's because you're so busy concentrating on what your feet are doing (or not doing) that you temporarily forget to remember you're suffering. Or maybe it's because you're deliriously happy for the short time you're gliding around. Either way, it's great medicine.

I've spoken to a lot of other people about this phenomenon, so it's not just me. Skating really is the best therapy out there.

In fact, maybe there's a market there...Hmmmmm.....