Adapted Cycle; Adapted Laptop; Adapted Life

Life is never the same after workplace bullying.

The target/victim will never be able to go back to what they were, who they were before the assault on their value, their integrity, their personality was launched.

However, that's not to say that it can't be as good in its own way - or even better.  It just won't be the same.

It depends on how the target/victim adapts their life to meet their present challenges.

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Just as when my laptop got "baptized" a few weeks back and damaged some of the connections on the keyboard, it will never function the way it did before the "baptism"/injury; however, it can be functional again - with some adaptations.

In this case, I took the (at that time nonfunctional) laptop to a who tech reconnected things inside so the laptop would turn on (Yay!) and then advised me to purchase a new keyboard/mouse set as a workaround for the now defective keyboard.  Which I did.

Unfortunately, without thinking I went for the cheapest keyboard/mouse set I could find.  It was a cheap fix but that keyboard is one honkin' big thing. My grandson says he's never seen one that big. Then there's the presence of two mice: one for the desktop and the one for the laptop.  Have you ever tried sitting in a chair with the laptop on a desk in front of you, two mice (one for the laptop and one for my desktop) trying a balance a huge keyboard on your lap?

Clumsy does not adequately begin to describe the new set up - especially if I continue to use the desktop as I've used it in the past - to do two things at once like watching a DVD on the desktop and writing my blog on the laptop.

I've also discovered that picking up the desktop mouse when using the laptop does not work - and vice versa.

Final solution in this case: buy an affordable laptop.

Of course then, I have the challenge of learning to use a new laptop with a different operating system.

I think I can do that.

Actually I know I can do that because I am writing this blog posting on the new laptop.

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Similarly, when my balance became seriously disrupted along with cognitive skills, and other things like high anxiety in the fall of 2011 and continued on for months, either I had to give up cycling period or find another way to do something I enjoyed.

My Adapted Bike Freedom Hope
in a victory moment at the top of a steep hill

Me being me, I chose the latter - to find a way to make cycling safely a reality in my new life.

Solving this problem involved a different process than adapting the laptop.

The existing bicycle, a 10 speed mixte frame Raleigh Grand Prix, could not be adapted for my needs.  So I had to construct a whole new set up from the ground ... er ... should I say from the wheels up?

I did some preliminary research on the net and discovered some options: a trike - either a regular adult trike or a recumbent trike; stabilizer wheels which are about the same diameter as the bike's wheels and set close to the rear wheel; or adult training wheels - similar to a child's training wheels but bigger and sturdier.

I chose the latter.

Again, it works.  Again, there are adaptations involved.  Again, there's a new way, a different way of doing things.  Again, like the laptop with the huge keyboard, it's a visible adaptation. 

It's not the same as riding a regular, two-wheeled bicycle.  For one thing with the additional set of wheels, it's heavier than the normal bike.  Also, with the additional wheels, it's clumsier than a "normal" bike.

But it works.  Like the adapted laptop and a workaround in the workplace, it's not optimal but it works and it's giving me a piece of my life back.

Freedom Hope all ready to participate in this year's
Great Cycle Challenge

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And now we get to the part about the adapted life which is something else altogether.

Since all the damage/injury is internal due to stress from the bullying, there are no appliances I can add like a cast, crutches, wheelchair, artificial limb or other device that's visible.  It's all internal. Nothing visible.

In this case, the adaptations are called coping mechanisms: alternate ways of dealing with situations; alternate ways of looking at things; alternate ways of making things work.

For example, I used to cook almost exclusively using a recipe.  Now I've learned to be more creative and throw things together.  When the cognitive skills won't cognitate (I think I made up that word), the creative skills have kicked in.

For the times when I'm too weak and shaky to function (which still happens on occasion), I try to keep frozen entrees from the store on hand.

When all else fails, hubby makes a mean chilli. 

For me, it's also meant reinventing my self plus my lifestyle.

It's meant walking with a therapist during the duration.  Learning my strengths and weaknesses.  My value.  Accepting myself for who I am; for what I am ... and also for what I'm not.  Realizing that I'm human.  I'm not perfect ... and neither is anyone else.  I'm learning that I cannot control anyone else and at that same time that I should never allow anyone else to control me.

Recently I tried to sign up for a local group ride with the Great Cycle Challenge only to be told that if I'm the one with the training wheels, this ride is "appropriate" for me.  Two things: (a) I hate the word "appropriate" because it was continually being thrown at me in the workplace during the bullying years and (b) go back to the paragraph above about not allowing someone else to control me.

It's meant realizing that there are chronic sometimes debilitating affects which appear to be here for the long term although they are significant better than seven years ago when they first not only appeared but took over my life.

The weakness and shakiness I've referred to earlier is not only an ongoing concern, but is currently a very real and present concern.

You, my reader, cannot see it in action; however, it has kicked in viciously during the writing of this post.  I've writing it - slowly a few sentences, a paragraph at a time.  That's why there was no post on Monday. 

But I've also learned to be gentle with myself.  To not kick myself in the butt when I cannot do things.  To treat myself with grace - just like God does.

Fatigue, lack of balance, cognitive disruptions along with other affects come and go.  Every year though I see a piece of recovery. 

I've challenged myself in ways that I could never have imagined when I was still "healthy".

I'm not the same person who had the energy to go places and do things.  Not the same person at all.

Yet in many ways, I'm a new person.  Able to enjoy life in ways that I never could before.

Victory after Group Ride #2 in the Great Cycle Challenge

For that I am thankful.

Recovery Behind Bars: Handle Bars That Is

Gathering for Group Ride #2

As I start living life as it happens after turning the corner, my ongoing recovery from workplace abuse continues to just get better and better.

A significant part of my journey of recovery post workplace abuse has been regaining pieces of my life which were an integral part of me before all the junk in the workplace happened.

Writing, knitting, reading, cycling.  They have all been a part of the whole process of recovery.

Today I'm focusing on the part of recovery which involves cycling.  Something I wanted to do but thought I couldn't after the debilitating chronic/physical affects kicked in in the Fall of 2011.  Balance being the most critical challenge but, but by no means the only one.

After falling off my two-wheeled, Raleigh Grande Prix in the middle of a busy road, I realized that I would have to say good-bye to something I loved.  Something that made me feel free and whole again.

But then ... me  being me ... I began to think of ways to make cycling happen again.  Me being me, I researched things on the net.  I already knew that there are adult trikes both upright and recumbent.  I also learned that there are both stabilizer and adult training wheels.  Stabilizer wheels being fitted close to the rear wheel and about the same diameter as the rear wheel.  Adult training wheels being ... well ... adult training wheels.  Just like the ones on children's bikes only bigger.

Armed with this research and a good idea of what I wanted to do on a bike and what I needed to do that, I went into several local bike shops.  Only one paid me any attention.  I owe all that's happening now to them.

I've written and posted pictures about my adapted bike which I have now named Freedom Hope because that's what she gives me.

I discovered though that having a bike I can now safely ride was only the beginning.  Learning how to ride a bike again was also a beginning.

However, there are challenges in the area I live in:  traffic, hills, one way streets just to name a few.  I wasn't able to fulfill my ambition of taking a nice ride into Uptown Waterloo which is only about 5-6 km or riding in the country due to some of these constraints.

Sigh.

Gathering for my first group ride ever
at the Cataract Trail in Ontario

This is where the Great Cycle Challenge comes in.

 I discovered it in 2016 on my Facebook feed.  It is a self-directed ride to raise funds for research for pediatric cancer at Sick Kids in Toronto.

By self directed, I  that the individual rider chooses his/her own routes, challenge distance and challenge sponsorship.

One thing that has always held me back on these kinds of things is that with my "altered abilities" especially the fatigue, I could never guarantee I could be at a certain place, at a certain time, on a given day and ride a set route consisting of a set number of kilometres.  This challenge gave me the flexibility and the control that I needed.

So with fear and trembling I signed up for my first Great Cycle Challenge in 2016.  My goals:  50 km/$50.  Both of which I wasn't sure I could meet.  Both of which I not only met but surpassed ... which surprised the heck out of me.

It was good.  Very good.

I signed up again last year and this year with slightly higher goals.

Each year I've seen significant gains in my progress both in my overall journey towards recovery and in my comfort as a cyclist on the road.

This challenge has challenged me to cycle both inside and outside the box.  To find alternate routes to get in kilometers around the area in which I live.  It has challenged me to set what I call "goals within the goal".  Personal goals I hope to meet at some point while cycling.  At this point, some I've met; some I've yet to meet.

This year, the challenge has added something new.  Group rides.  As the Great Cycle Challenge is usually a solitary thing unless you're part of a team or whatever, they decided to instigate these group rides so that if people chose they could meet each other and develop a sense of camaraderie.

This year for the first time in seven years, I was able to commit to being at a certain time, at a certain place to ride a certain route - on an adapted bike no less.

I did it.

Note: a group ride has never been on my list of goals for the simple reason that I never thought I could do one.

Group ride #1 was on a bike route which created from where railroad tracks used to be.  It's relatively flat and something I not only can do but have done. As I expected, I was the cow's tail, but that was OK.  I challenged myself and rode 26 km on a set route - a multi use trail part of which goes around Bellwood Lake near Fergus, Ontario.  My longest bike ride ever - even when I was young and healthy.

I was happy.  My only wish was that someone would have waited for me to arrive at the "finish" line to celebrate my victory.

Freedom Hope and the "gang"

So I geared up again for group ride #2, a road ride starting at a car pool parking lot.  Something I had wanted to do these last years and thought I would never do.

Challenging hills, hills and more hills.

 I did it.

But not without a lot of support and encouragement from the rest of the team.

Introducing myself as the "challenged" rider, they seemed to accept me as a bona fide, valued member of the team.  Not a handicap.

I was never left alone to ride by myself this time as I had been on the first ride.

Someone was always either ahead, aside or behind me.  Encouraging me up those hills.  One lady even biked beside me up a hill and when I started breathing heavily coached me on breathing - which helped a lot.

At another point, these incredibly supportive people even let me be in the lead.  I felt protected.  I also felt accepted.

I even heard a comment behind me when I was in the lead about hills being easier when you go slower.  Wow!  That blew my mind.  And made me feel appreciated.

Allan, a grandfather from the first ride in Fergus, Ontario with his grandson
(group ride #1)

It's also been neat meeting those people I've read about on GCCCanada posts or on threads.  One man on a thread said he was riding his grandfather's 40 year old bike.  He and his bike were there on group ride #2.  Last week on group ride #1, I met a man who wrote a jingle for the GCCCanada last year and had been featured on one of their posts last year - which just happened to pop up on my Facebook feed this past week.

And so I leave you dear reader at this point to enjoy these photos, to savor the victory.

Victory "high five" with another rider
- the man riding his grandfather's bike

The long and short of it
- or "short and sassy" meets "lean and mean"

I came, I met, I cycled

I am woman.  Hear me roar.