So…. how was SAISA? Well, it’s safe to say that I wasn’t swimming in a pool and all the work after 2 months ended with a devastating hospital visit. Yes, a hospital. Dengue finally got to me after my 16 years of careful avoidance, the day before SAISA. I think I was crying more about how I couldn’t go to SAISA than me having to be in a hospital.

Even though I didn’t get to enjoy the three days of fun the rest of my team had I still had fun training with this wonderful team that I call family now. I got to experience very sleepy mornings while we jumped into the freezing pool at 6am before we could even open our eyes. We cheered each other on in our races and showed commitment to eachothers improvement. “GOOD HUSTLE!!.” The training was long and hard but you had a feeling of accomplishment at 5:00 every afternoon.

The training was challenging both physically and mentally. We had a new coach this year as we lost our last two coaches because they had left. During practice, we mainly focused on endurance at the beginning of the season swimming 1000m for one part and 2 x 400m for the other. These sessions really allowed you to have some times to think and focus. My trick is to sing to myself as I am swimming long distances so that I can distract myself from the excruciating pain that I’m feeling. That probably makes me sound crazy but try it! Our coach was also very serious about our arm muscle so as you can imagine we had to do a lot of pulling. Over the sessions, you learn to swim independently and swim for yourself rather than relying on the speed of others.

The first time trials of the season are the most nerve-wracking. They determine if you are going to make it into the team or not. You get yourself into the mindset of a swimmer and manifest how you’re going to win each race.

Your sitting in the plastic blue chairs, goggles on your face staring at the block ahead of you that going to determine if you’re in the team. You focus on the waves in the pool hoping that they will be on your side. You hear the first whistle, walk up to the blocks. Stand on the blocks and look ahead, you don’t dare move. ‘take your marks,’ brace yourself and tense all your muscles. The 3rd whistle, You push off the block into a dive and you wait for the water to catch you, then you swim for god, grace and country.

It’s funny how we need to compete with each other to get into the team but a swim team are teammates going against each other to get a place.

After weeks of trying to prove yourself to the coaches that you are what the team needs they start telling us if we made it or not. You’re swimming while the coaches are bickering on the sidelines and pointing to the swimmers. They call up your name and you walk towards them. You’re terrified. What are they going to say? Did I make it?

Luckily I was one of the privileged swimmers that were chosen to travel to Nepal and represent OSC at SAISA.

Then the annual ear infection comes around, never to be missed every year during the same time. I lost a week of training. I decided to do land training to compensate for the morning training and afternoon training I was missing.

3 weeks till SAISA and one we missed because of October break. We all went to the beach and surfed so that we still got a workout while we were away. The next day (Thursday) we went to school to train, this is the day that I started feeling funny (I also had an earache at the beach). I had muscle and joint pains in my arms and my neck, I had a massive headache and both my ears were agonizing. I tried to play football that same afternoon and found myself to be weak and I couldn’t run. I fell asleep on the taxi back home and then rested for 4 days, I thought I had gotten over it because I was fine Saturday and Sunday before school started. Before the SAISA week started. Sunday night I had no sleep, Monday morning I was in excruciating pain because of my ears and I had little to no sleep. Not the best combination.

I didn’t go to school that day, I had an ear appointment so that we could try and fix it before the competition. The doctor was alarmed about my fever and felt that I had something much worse than an ear infection, foreshadowing. We Zoomed to Lanka Hospital, many urine samples and blood tests later. We tried to convince ourselves that it was a virus but of course that wasn’t the universe’s plan…it was dengue. This is when the waterworks started. My temperature was 102 degrees celsius and my platelet count was under 150 000.

I still had hope that I could travel, I was willing to get better. After 1 night of even more blood tests, having to be woken up every hour, and the many blood tests. I still hoped. Then the doctor made the final decision…I couldn’t go. I don’t think that I have ever cried so much in my life. I have never felt more devastated. But my friends still attempted to make me feel better.

Even after a series of unfortunate events I learnt many skills through SAISA and how my swimming experience ended. Over the course of swim training the team and I built trust and new friendship, the fact that I couldn’t go really showed how much we all cared for each other. We had become family. I learnt leadership skills while helping the smaller kids. I learnt how to be committed as I made it a goal to go to every possible morning and afternoon training (unless sickness restricted). I learnt experiences like mine can only make you stronger which sounds extremely cheesy, but it’s true. Even though I didn’t manage to achieve my goals for the SAISA competition I still managed to gain more than I ever have this season. I gained a family out of my team and a new perspective about the SAISA’s that I take for granted.

So how was SAISA? the biggest learning curve I have ever experienced.