Life Guard training, a experience that I truthfully have feared for the past 4 years sense I started working at camp. You see I have always herd all the stories about how hard and intense it was this made me want to take it and prove I could do it! This was a fear that I wanted to conquer, this is the story of my Life Guard Training.
I guess I will just have to start at the beginning, that would be life guard training! Life guard training is the first time us counselors as a staff meet and bond together before the rest of the staff get here. We all go through life guard training together get pushed physically and really get to know each other. Meeting everyone went great we all seemed to get along well right from the start. It was a strange network of friendship, almost everyone had a friend working here with them, and somehow all of us friends were friends with each other in some way or another, very hard to explain haha. Life guard training was going to be fun and great phyical challenge and I wanted to conquer the small fear I had of failing..(I’m like 2% body fat.. AKA I dont float!)After little instruction the first thing we did after we got there was swim 300 meters! Not going to lie this made me realize that all that running I did a few months back had defiantly did nothing to prepare me! I was dead tired and the next test was right after.. So as we moved to the brick test with my chest pounding and lungs gasping for air I knew this was going to be hard. For the brick test there is a blue brick at the bottom of a twelve foot deep pool, first you have to swim to the other side of the pool then back to where the brick is, dive down get the brick, swim back to the other side then back to the side you started on! Everyone who went before me either failed or barely lifted themselves out of the pool.. I really wanted this and seeing that its challenging really gets me going, makes me want to conquer it! So when my turn came around my blood was pumping and I was ready! I jumped into the pool and started swimming, I swam down to the other side and was soon treading water over the brick. I took as deep of a breath as I could and went down……… I only got down about nine feet before I ran out of air. After rushing to the surface I tried to catch my breath. I tried and tried but couldn’t get more than a small gulp of air. My chest was wrenching and was pounding with pain. My heart was racing and i slowly realized that there was no way I could finish the test.. I was angry that my body was quitting on me, I was angry but I wasn’t about to let this test take me from this pool so I got enough air to say I’m getting out and started to try and swim to the ladder. When I got out of the pool I began explaining my heart condition. You see a few years back I had a similar problem in football, My chest gets tight I have trouble breathing and there is more pain than I have ever experienced. From what I have been told My heart starts beating so fast that I should be having a heart attack and a pouch around my heart inflates creating pressure in my heart and lungs. They asked me if I wanted emergency care and i said no, you see I don’t have health insurance and I don’t make enough money to really pay any medical bill. They gave me oxygen and soon told me they called emergency care any way.. Soon both me and the instructors agreed that I should be in another room so I don’t worry the others and scare them away fro the test. on my way I became very nauseous and grabbed a trash can and yup you guessed it puked up breakfast… At this time the paramedics have arrived and I’m sitting next to the trash can on a bench. As I was being asked questions my new friend Lincoln came over i asked “how you doing man?” he responded with and “all good” then proceeded to puke into the trash can as well lol it was quite a funny moment I thought. Now as I’m strapped to the gurney it really begins to sink in that I’m not going to be able to concur this fear of failing… I began to try my hardest to hold back tears and I felt the feeling of failure sinking in. After my short ride in the ambulance I sit in a room in the ER alone wires and stickers suck on all over my body. I just sat still disappointed, angry, and sad. Tears began to roll down my face as I sat wet still in my swim suit in this hospitable reminding me of this terrible restriction called my body. I began to long for my glorified body and Became disgusted with the sin filled limited body I had now. Soon a doctor came in and asked me some questions, I told him the same thing I told the others earlier. he said we were going to take some x-rays and after he finds my records we will see from there. I soon again sat alone watching doctors and nurses running back and forth past my room.
After a small while my good friend and boss Jim came in, one of the nurses earlier told me that he was on his way, that comforted me a little. Jim began to make funny statements like “they going to give you a monkey heart?” witch made me laugh and calm down a bit. The he asked me how I was feeling and I kind of broke down. “I hate it that it’s not me quitting! It’s my body I literally cant do this and I hate that!” “I hate that I can’t just go back and try again!” I’m so thankful for Jim in my life for he at this moment began to speak truth to me. He began to tell me to stop getting mad over this and figure out what to do next. After our little talk he went out and called my mother and my sister for me to let them know I was in the hospitable and then came back in to be with me. After a bit a financial adviser came in to talk with me. You see I don have health insurance and soon Jim and I were informed that workmens comp was not going to cover any of this sense this seems to be a pre-existing condition. So now to add to the mix I have been reminded of the medical bill that will be soon on its way. God provides and I’ll let Him take care of how I will pay for this so this was out of my mind soon.
My mother and my sister arrived and Jim said he was going to check on the rest of the staff sense they were now having lunch, so he left me in the care of my family and the hospital. My mom said that she was sorry that I have to go through this pain again. She knows how much it hurt me mentally and spiritually last time. But by now I was back rejecting reality. I was cracking jokes and my mother proclaimed that only would I almost die then be joking around smiling and simply wanting to get out of the hospital soon after I arrived. The doctor came in and did exactly as I expected and told me nothing new, advised me to check up with a doctor and see specialist just like the other doctors said the last times. I already decided that I wasn’t going to the doctor because I didn’t want to wast any more time just to be told they found nothing new. I wanted to continue with life and not sit idle run up a bill and possibly be told there is nothing they can do for me. So I checked out and Walked out of the ER still shirtless in my swim suit, medical stickers sill stuck all over my body, still slightly wet from the pool.
I got dropped off back at Life Guard Training and met back up with the staff. They were still having lunch when I arrived, I hugged my mom goodbye and joined my staff. Everyone was like “He’s alive!!” haha I told everyone I would live. I still had the stickers stuck on because they stick on very hard and they feel like pealing off duck tape, so soon began the game of “Lets see if we can make Shaun feel pain!” all the male staff grabbed a sticker and counted down to pull fast and quick. A great roar from me fallowed my laughter by everyone and myself. It was a great way to be welcomed back. Lunch was over and we began our walk back to the pool and back to training. This walk through these halls was a interesting feeling of slight shame for I knew that when I walked back into class I was walking in as someone finishing the course and only becoming certified in CPR and First AID, not being able to pass the whole class.
The rest of my days went I passed CPR and First AID with flying colors and the rest of the class passed as well. Allot happened in this one day and I’m still dissecting and processing it fully. but what I do know is the truth, the truth that God uses everything for His good, my good times and the times where I fail. He will use it and He has His reasons for limiting me here and now. I still struggle with finding peace in this specific spot of my life but I just remind myself that this life is not mine. I have given it to the Lord and His will and sometimes I will not understand it but thats okay I have faith that my Father is good.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”
No comments:
Post a Comment