"Find a Way. Chase Your Dreams"

What an inspiration endurance swimmer Diana Nyad is to all TMS sufferers.

At 64 years old, yesterday she became the first person to complete the grueling 100-mile swim from Cuba to Key West, Florida, without a protective shark cage, on her fifth try in 35 years. She willed her way on the historic swim in nearly 53 hours in the water. She never gave up.

She won with determination and the mantras “Find a way." "Chase Your Dreams."




Reaching shore in Key West, she was interviewed by CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanja Gupta and told him, speaking about herself, “It’s a great study. You had a dream 35 years ago, it doesn’t come to fruition then, but you move on with life. But the dream is somewhere back there. Then you turn 60 and your mom just dies, and you’re looking for something. And the dream comes waking out of your imagination.” She might as well have said it came out of her unconscious mind.

“The swim wasn’t easy. With all the experience I have, especially in this ocean, I never knew I would suffer the way I did. For 49 hours the wind just blew like heck, and it was rough.”

She said that at one point, she was vomiting because she had so much salt water in her system and was shivering from the cold water and air. To relax, she sang lullabies to herself.

The first day of the swim, Saturday, after the start, was really rough for her, she said. She told herself, “Forget about the surface up. Get your hands in somehow, and with your left hand say, push back Cuba, and with your right, push Florida towards you.

Through the swim she held firm to her mantra, telling herself, “You don’t like it. It’s not going well. Find a way.”

Nyad said the swim gave her three messages. “One is we should never, ever give up.
Two is you are never too old to chase your dreams. Three is it looks like a solitary sport, but it’s a team effort.”

She began her swim from Havana on Saturday morning. A support team was always nearby in a boat, including divers to watch for sharks, but she never left the water.

It was her fifth attempt since 1978 and her fourth since turning 60. The first four tries were in rough, strength-sapping seas, an hours-long asthma attack, and paralyzing and excruciating jellyfish stings. For the Labor Day swim she wore a special swimmer’s suit that protected her against jellyfish and a special mask to prevent them from stinging her tongue, which caused her to fail last year.

She made her first try at the long swim when she was 29. Last week she wanted to show that “You can dream at any age.”

She said, “This time, I am 64. So, the years of my life are shorter to the end. So this time I am, all the way across… going to think about all those life lessons that came up during the swim.”

Nyad says she hopes her swim can be an inspiration to others. “I think that a lot of people in our country have gotten depressed, pinned in, pinned down with living lives they don’t want. I write about it all the time… you tell me what your dreams are. What are you chasing? It’s not impossible. Name it.

"Find a way! Chase your dreams!”

 

How awesome!!!

 

WOW! I read about this lady after her last failed attempt. I thought she was amazing for even trying. I am now absolutely astounded by her phsyical and mental endurance.

 

Diana really made up her mind to DO IT.
Those in TMS healing programs need to keep at it.
We need all the inspiration and success stories we can get.

 

I love this idea as a way to self-soothe! What an amazing woman!

 

Diana really is amazing, but I'm thinking that everyone who works to heal their TMS pain,
and servicemen and women working on their injuries and those recovering from accidents or medical problems
also are amazing. Heroes and heroines all.

 

WOW! This is awesome ;-)

 

I am just amazed at the heroism of those who returned "damaged" from the Near East wars.
And others, civilians, who keep battling their illnesses and injuries. They never give up.
I wonder how many of all of them have TMS and need to know how it affects their very real pain.