Although I have focused on my achievements in the photo summary, realistically this year has been another tough one, on my road to reclaiming my life and discovering the new adaptive me.
A lot of my focus this year has been on self care. By that I don’t just mean being kind to myself here and there. Search some of my other self care posts if you are not sure what I mean. This element of my mental rehab has been an absolute key element in the progress I have made this year.
I stopped seeing self care as a bolt on chore that I had been told to do and started to see it as an integral part of my rehab journey, a key element in my day to ensure everything stays at optimal levels. To this end I truly havre reconnected with myself and rediscovered who I am and what I want from life.
I visited the UK – with team NZ as part of the outrigger canoeing para team. Not only that but I came back with a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal for my country and managed to squash in a trip to visit family while I was there. My first in 8 years.
I experimented with the dating scene. This was weird. It was 30 years since the last time I did this and things have drastically changed, trust me! But, along the way I discovered how shallow and surface judgemental many people are, along with what I certainly do NOT want from a relationship! Even negative experiences are a learning opportunity.
In October 2022 I hit rock bottom. On the second anniversary of my amputation I realised that my life will NOT be the same again. I had been kidding myself for the last 12 months, thinking i could reconstruct the life that I lost. This is never going to happen and it is now all about constructing a new life. This realisation hit me like a smack to the head and was most unexpected. But, I think it needed to happen and it completely changed how I viewed things from there on.
The most important elements in my learning journey this year I think were these final two.
I learned to be more readily adaptable to every setback I receive. I am at the mercy of mobility aids. These do not always perform as planned. For example the trial wheelchair that I was only able to use once and has been in storage for over 2 months now while we argue technicalities. The walking leg – which for a few weeks there a month or so back, I couldn’t wear at all and I was back in a wheelchair permanently for a free weeks. And the running blade, which has needed a socket for almost 3 months and I have not been able to run for that long, if not longer.
These are all challenges that I will continue to face so it is important that I learn to manage the stress and anxiety related to these as best I can.
And finally, I learned to love myself again. Truly love myself. This has taken a long time to really REALLY be true. But I have finally got there. This alone is huge for me.
So, here’s to 2023 and I had better go and plan some goals that I want to achieve in the next 12 months, hadn’t I?!
Melanie Magowan 
It’s been a challenging year for most of us. A year of uncertainty, yet still trying to keep a stable environment for the kids. At one point I was just going day by day, because you never knew if you were going to work the next day. this meant you always have a plan A and a plan B to cover off any unknowns.