29th November 2015 -tomorrow, also a Sunday, it will be 8 months since I was hit by a young reckless skier – an incident which has changed me and changed my life.

There have been good changes – for the last five months I have swam every day, and I am now up to 1km per day. My breaststroke is really, really strong and this week in the (communal) changing rooms a chap about half my age said ‘ you’re a really good swimmer’. I told him I wasn’t sure about that as I am a bit limited because of my shoulder – saw him wince at my scar – but he was insistent; ‘ No, you are really good, you keep going for a long time’.

I am actually trying to do some crawl. The main reason for trying to do crawl is at my first consultation in the UK the consultant said to me ‘You’ll never do crawl again’. I am of the personality type that if you tell me I can’t I’ll prove you wrong and the consequence is I am blinking determined to do the crawl again. So the last few swims I have been trying a bit of back crawl ( I can do a length) and front crawl ( pitiful).

So, because my shoulder was broken I am now swimming and gaining all the health benefits from doing so but as a swimmer I am broken.

I am  riding again but only in the school.My enforced break from riding seemed like a long six months and whilst it is great that I can ride at all I would love to go out for a hack especially on some of the lovely autumn days that we have been having . The trouble is, I can’t risk falling off so I have broken away from hacking.

Last christmas my bike was broken. My lovely husband bought me a new bike for christmas, a mountain bike, it is beautiful and I rode it all the time until I had my accident. I have not been on it since as again I am worried about falling off. Coincidentally, the injury that I have is mostly seen in people who have fallen off bikes and horses – so you can understand my concern!

But there is one part of me that is not broken – an this is an important part. My spirit is not broken, in fact I feel stronger than I did before the accident. I think that is because I have always lived a blessed life and never had too much to cope with. I also realise that I still live a blessed life and in the whole scheme of things a dodgy shoulder is not the most monumental of things that could happen to you.

So I count my blessings more than before, I am more aware of the fragility of our existence than before and I am stronger than before.

Because if it doesn’t kill you it only makes you stronger.