Life-changing Channel challenge
Two intrepid grans tell how swimming the distance of the English Channel helped ease years of pain
‘I took my health into my own hands’
As a child, Lis Fenwick’s painful joints were dismissed as ‘growing pains’ by doctors but the problem was, she never grew out of them.
It wasn’t until Lis was 44 that she was finally diagnosed with the auto-immune condition lupus after suffering for years with various symptoms including exhaustion, blinding headaches, skin rashes and mouth ulcers. Nevertheless, she carried on working as a headteacher, educational senior advisor and Ofsted inspector without taking any time off work.
But as the grandmother of three from Ulverston, Cumbria, readily admits: “Some days were a real struggle.” So when her chance to take early retirement came three years ago at the age of 56, she took it and set about changing her lifestyle. Although she accepted that she had to take her prescribed medication for lupus, she wasn’t happy about taking the painkillers she needed. “So I decided to take my health into my own hands and get fit,” she says. Not entirely convinced it would really work, she joined a gym and hired a personal trainer who devised a workout programme that involved swimming.
“I loved swimming as a child but could only do breast stroke,” Lis says. After taking lessons to master front crawl, butterfly and tumble turns, she became a regular at her local pool. It was there that she heard about the Aspire Channel Swim in which swimmers tackle the equivalent of the English Channel (22 miles) over 12 weeks to raise money for people paralysed by spinal cord injury. “It was a cause very close to my heart as
a schoolfriend of my husband’s broke his back and became paraplegic. He has since died and it was nice to do it in his memory,” she adds. Lis completed the distance in 14 sessions in just over four weeks, swimming up to 170 lengths of the 20-metre pool. And she enjoyed it so much then she decided to swim ‘back home from France’.
Her efforts raised £290 for Aspire and had the bonus of enabling her to stop taking painkillers. “Before, I couldn’t walk upstairs without stopping halfway. Now I run up them! I feel so much better. The physical and mental health benefits are amazing,” she says.
And she has continued with the fitness plan. “Now if I am on holiday and don’t swim for a week or more, I can feel the pain come back. For me, exercise has become essential. If you can only swim a length, you can do it.”
‘Everybody just cheered me on’
When Angel Homer was retired on health grounds before she was 30, she felt her world was over. Up until then the busy mum of four had juggled two jobs as an auxiliary nurse and train cleaner. But when carrying a heavy load one night in 1997, she suffered a back injury that left her in uncontrollable pain and doctors discovered she had a slipped disc. Soon afterwards, she started to suffer from chronic fatigue. A rheumatologist diagnosed fibromyalgia and Angel was registered disabled. “Overnight I’d gone from being physically fit to being unable to get myself out of bed and dressed. It was devastating,” recalls Angel (48), a grandmother of five from Bournemouth. Unable to work and forced to use a wheelchair and mobility scooter, she refused to be beaten. “I’ve never let it get me down,” she says. “I might not be able to work but I studied for a degree over ten years and I raise money for charity. If I can do anything to help anyone, I’ll get involved.” When a friend suggested she might do the Aspire Channel swim last year, Angel agreed, although she had a few reservations. “I wasn’t a good swimmer and I’ve always been scared of going underwater after a seaside accident when I was young so I didn’t know how I’d manage, or if I’d have enough good days to allow me to. Sometimes I can be in chronic pain for four days a week.” She needn’t have worried. Being able to swim at her own pace meant she could do a length of doggy paddle on her good days and get out for a break when she felt too exhausted. Eventually, she reached the other side of the ‘Channel’ to the delight of her supportive family. “Everybody just cheered me on and I felt really pleased I’d achieved it. I pushed myself through the pain barrier and it’s made me even more positive!” says Angel, who raised £320 for Aspire through sponsorship.
‘Before, I couldn’t walk upstairs without stopping halfway. Now I run up them! I feel so much better’
‘I’m not in pain when I’m in the water and the effect lasts for a couple of hours afterwards’
She also lost a stone in weight and discovered that she could reduce her prescribed dose of painkilling tablets by half. By keeping up the swimming, she can still control her pain. “I’m not in pain when I am in the water and the effect lasts for a couple of hours afterwards. It’s made a massive difference to me,” she says.