Injuries 2
Falls off 1
999 calls 1
Hours spent in A and E 5
Talk about a challenge of extremes, day 2 has been a day of achievement and self-satisfaction.
Everyone has completed the whole day of cycling today and spirits are high. That’s not to say the day wasn’t without event.
One of our riders, who has the most amazing grit and determination, and was probably the most pleased with his own personal achievement today, finished the day in A & E at Stoke Mandeville Hospital with a serious case (of what I am assured is a legitimate cycling term) of “bonking”. Bonking is the cyclists’ term for hypoglycaemia. Lance Armstrong famously suffered from this in the 2000 Tour De France and I’m told it occurs when the body has used up more reserves than have been taken on board and it starts to shut down. Basically, you’ve not eaten enough.
The most unfortunate thing is to have achieved such an amazing feat as a novice rider, only to be hit in the face by serious illness after your achievement.
I often talk about the “problems that are in the post” for our service users once they begin to turn their lives around and move away from their previously destructive lifestyle. All too often we attend hospital appointments and/or funerals of service users who we once supported and are now coping well with a life independent of support and service involvement, because they have discovered they have Hepatitis, cancers or illnesses associated with a street lifestyle. DVT’s can be a constant reoccurrence years after drug use has ceased, along with breathing and blood problems. The irony of such a cruel twist never escapes me.
The parallels here are clear for all to see. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, sometimes your body just shuts down because it doesn’t like the way it has been treated. There’s very little you can do about it, you simply have to weather the storm and take what it throws at you. Many of our service users on their path to change, experience their mind shutting down. The horrors of their experiences can become too much for their minds to bear without the support of substances, and they relapse into substance use just to be able to cope. With the right support, expertise and intervention, both body and mind can recover and that’s what Simon on the Streets’ support workers do every day; they offer the support, intervention and expertise to enable people to cope with the contents of their head, and to carry on. The skills the support crew on Ride 25 have used during the last 2 days have been exactly the same. We’ve motivated, we’ve encouraged, we’ve advised where we can, but most of all we’re just there, whenever and however people need us to be. (However, just to be clear, we draw the line at fixing saddle sores, Mr Collett.)
Our team have made through today, they weathered the toughness of day 1, and then got back on their bikes and faced day 2 with a smile and welcomed the challenge. Bring on day 3…what ya got for us?!
Sponsor the team here