French Living: Back on Skis

The 19th December 2014 is a day I will remember for a long time, long after the aches have faded that's for sure! One year and three days previously I had been to the doctor on the start of a journey through Lyme disease and on to full-on rheumatoid arthritis. Through pain relief treatment building from paracetamol to opiates, a fortnight of antibiotics for the Lyme infection, buckets of steroids at various doses for months and then finally starting a potentially life-long course of methotrexate, I have tried to focus on the thought of skiing again.

Powder Eights in 2012-13  Will I do this ever again?

Try searching the internet for references to skiing and RA and it would appear that this is one of the hardest recreational activities to keep up once the disease takes hold. Certainly back in February, I could not even get my ski boots on, despite trying my ancient, broken down pair with the stiffness and fit of a pair of wellies. My ankle was rigid and inflexible, my knee was far too painful, and I had little muscle left in my quads to perform the essential push-down-and-wiggle, required for getting a foot into a ski boot. The chances of actually being able to support the weight of a ski on the end of my foot, not to mention driving those planks into a turn seemed fairly unlikely.

But, given that getting out into the mountains to ski or hike was the prime reason for jacking in the rat race and adopting this frugal existence five years ago, I wasn't going to quit, and used every day when the pain was manageable to do a little exercise, even if it was just standing on one leg and balancing for a few minutes.

Snow has been late coming to the Pyrenees this year, and the scheduled opening for the end of November was pushed back and back until there was finally enough snow for the go on 12th December. With the school holidays kicking off the following Saturday we just had to get out there sometime in the following week or wait until January. We tend not to ski at the weekends as the weekdays are cheaper, and given that we were going to have to pay for a full day even though I had little chance of coping for more than a couple of hours, then a weekday it had to be.

So inevitably it snowed on  Monday and Tuesday. This wouldn't normally put us off, but the last thing I wanted to do was blunder around in a white-out. Every little bump or jump hurts my knees and I should imagine this would be tenfold if I hit an unexpected lump or dip. My greatest fear was falling; the limited range of movement in my knees had to mean falling would hurt them, and any hard fall would go straight through my shoulders, too. And then there's getting up again. Not easy. So we crossed our fingers for Wednesday, only to be greeted by rain. I have standards and skiing in rain is something I do not do! Ditto rain on Thursday, so Friday was the day.  

The weather was ghastly again down here at 300m, low cloud, drizzle, but the webcams showed the resort finally bathed in sunshine. Well the top half, anyway.  

To protect my knees I was trussed up like a turkey, elasticated supports topped with velcro braces. I put my ski boots on before we left home, just to be sure that I could, which ensured that my feet were little blocks of ice by the time we burst out of the fog at 1800m and drove into the sunny car park. It was just a 100m walk to the piste, lack of snow meaning our usual starting lift wasn't operating, which was excruciating and exhausting. What the hell was I doing up here?  

The first problem arose when I found I didn't have enough force to push into my bindings on the left side, but flicking the binding up with my other foot solved that problem and the other one went in just fine. It was now or never, so I slid slowly down the little green piste and then attempted a gentle snowplough, one way then the other, and then stopped. Woohoo. I could do it! Slowly and like a beginner again, but what the heck! Confident that I could now turn and stop as needed we set off for the chair lift. Much to my surprise I was happy, more than happy cruising around the blue runs. The resort was empty, so there was nobody to witness the shedding of a tear or two. 

I had wondered if this day would ever come, and I guess that my days of bouncing effortlessly through knee deep powder may be behind me, but next time we are going for the whole day!

Looking out towards Bagnères de Bigorre

Fog fills the Barèges valley