Latest / Skinquiries / When Eczema Gets Between You and the Sport You Love

Transcript

When Eczema Gets Between You and the Sport You Love · Skinquiries

0:04
Speaker 1: Really, I didn't swim as much at all as I
0:09
Speaker 1: needed or wanted to. During I would say really really
0:12
Speaker 1: tough ten years. There were times when I put it
0:15
Speaker 1: totally on pause, like it was just two I was
0:18
Speaker 1: too rock because your skin is wide open. And then
0:21
Speaker 1: other times, when I happened to be kind of in
0:24
Speaker 1: a remission, I would swim. I knew that I was
0:28
Speaker 1: possibly risking infection or humiliation, but there was no way
0:33
Speaker 1: that I was going to give up what I loved.
0:39
Speaker 2: When you love a sport, it can become so much
0:42
Speaker 2: more than a way to move your body. It can
0:44
Speaker 2: be the place where you feel most focused, most capable,
0:48
Speaker 2: the most like yourself. I say this hypothetically as I
0:52
Speaker 2: possess what my youth soccer coach called negative talent. But
0:57
Speaker 2: for other people who actually have athletic abilities, they've spent
1:01
Speaker 2: years training, competing, and building a life around their sport.
1:06
Speaker 2: So stepping away doesn't only mean losing an activity, it
1:10
Speaker 2: can feel like losing a part of who you are.
1:14
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome or welcome back to skin Querries.
1:19
Speaker 2: This is a show about skin sure, but really it's
1:23
Speaker 2: a show about people. Because skin health doesn't exist in
1:27
Speaker 2: a vacuum. It shapes everything, shapes how we're seen, how
1:30
Speaker 2: we see ourselves, and our experiences of confidence, identity, community
1:36
Speaker 2: and care. I am your host, Dylan Maren. Today we're
1:46
Speaker 2: looking at how living with a skin condition can change
1:49
Speaker 2: your relationship with sports. A flare up can make every
1:53
Speaker 2: movement painful, and the clothing and equipment you might be
1:57
Speaker 2: expected to wear can be really irritating. And even when
2:00
Speaker 2: you're physically able to participate, being in a locker room
2:04
Speaker 2: can make you feel self conscious. My guest today is
2:08
Speaker 2: Kelly Pallas. She's the founder of ITSAN, the International Topical
2:12
Speaker 2: Steroid Awareness Network, and she's a lifelong competitive swimmer who
2:16
Speaker 2: qualified for the Olympic trials in nineteen eighty four and
2:20
Speaker 2: continues to compete into her sixties. Her story is about
2:25
Speaker 2: balancing what your body needs with the desire to hold
2:28
Speaker 2: onto something that has shaped who you are. But before
2:32
Speaker 2: Egzma began changing her relationship with the water, let's go
2:35
Speaker 2: back to when her love of swimming first began.
2:41
Speaker 1: I had two older brothers and I saw them swimming,
2:44
Speaker 1: and I thought that looks really fun. So I snuck
2:47
Speaker 1: into one of the heats. But I didn't know how
2:48
Speaker 1: to swim, huh, And I dove into my first meat
2:52
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to kind of the officials, but the lifeguard did
2:55
Speaker 1: spot me as I sunk to the bottom. After that,
2:57
Speaker 1: my parents were like, Okay, we need to get you
2:59
Speaker 1: in lesson. But I just truly fell in love with
3:03
Speaker 1: swimming from an early age.
3:06
Speaker 2: I love that. What a beginning that your first time
3:09
Speaker 2: in the pool you sink to the bottom and then
3:11
Speaker 2: you're like, I love this. That's brave or bold of you. Yeah, yeah,
3:16
Speaker 2: that's really incredible.
3:18
Speaker 1: It seems to be a common thing though. On my
3:20
Speaker 1: swimming podcast, I've interviewed probably fifty Olympic champions, and you'd
3:23
Speaker 1: be surprised at the number of really elite swimmers that
3:27
Speaker 1: start out in a drowning experience. I think it's like, Okay,
3:31
Speaker 1: now I almost drown and now I'm really going to
3:33
Speaker 1: be good at something that I almost failed at.
3:36
Speaker 2: I love that. I wonder if you need that so
3:39
Speaker 2: that you're like now and that's never going to happen again.
3:42
Speaker 2: And not only is that not going to happen again,
3:43
Speaker 2: I'm going to get really good at this could be
3:46
Speaker 2: we're coming up with theories here, so kind of paint
3:49
Speaker 2: more of a picture of swimming early on in your life,
3:52
Speaker 2: what that looked like for you, what that excitement looked
3:56
Speaker 2: like for you, how much you loved it practicing kind
3:59
Speaker 2: of you know the picture.
4:01
Speaker 1: Yes, I started excelling at summer league, and then when
4:04
Speaker 1: you excel at summer league, a lot of the advices
4:07
Speaker 1: go into a year round program. So I was swimming
4:09
Speaker 1: in practice and my coach was Stan Tinkham, My very
4:13
Speaker 1: first coach was an Olympic coach, and he was not
4:17
Speaker 1: even my coach at the time. He was coaching the
4:19
Speaker 1: seniors and I was in the little kids group and
4:21
Speaker 1: he kind of stopped at the end of my lane
4:23
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, Parker, which was my maiden name.
4:27
Speaker 1: He said, you have a world class freestyle whoa. And
4:32
Speaker 1: I was ten, But that stuck with me, and that
4:36
Speaker 1: little bit of confidence just carried me through like tough
4:39
Speaker 1: races or tough training, which I went on to, you know,
4:43
Speaker 1: get serious. And then I did double practices, and then
4:46
Speaker 1: my goal was to get a college scholarship, and I
4:48
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to be one of the first Title
4:50
Speaker 1: nine babies, so I got one of the first full
4:53
Speaker 1: scholarships to swim in college and then I qualified for
4:56
Speaker 1: the Olympic trials in nineteen eighty four and I've never
4:59
Speaker 1: given it up. I still swim masters, you know, in
5:02
Speaker 1: my sixties, and I just love it. There's something about
5:05
Speaker 1: being in the water that is my happy place.
5:08
Speaker 2: You love swimming, You're a kid who loved swimming. When
5:11
Speaker 2: did egzema show up for you?
5:14
Speaker 1: It started for me as exzema in between my fingers.
5:19
Speaker 1: It would just be those little itchy bumps. I would
5:23
Speaker 1: wake up in the middle of the night, itching so
5:26
Speaker 1: badly that it would keep me from sleeping. And topical
5:30
Speaker 1: steroids became the crutch for me. They became the go
5:35
Speaker 1: to in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.
5:37
Speaker 1: I would roll over, reach into my nightstand, slather on
5:40
Speaker 1: topical steroids. And our morning practice was at five am.
5:47
Speaker 1: If you didn't get a good night's sleep, then you
5:50
Speaker 1: didn't have a good workout, and then you were falling
5:52
Speaker 1: asleep in your classes. And this went on for probably,
5:56
Speaker 1: you know, maybe starting at preteen and to my whole
6:01
Speaker 1: high school career that my hands were seemed to be
6:05
Speaker 1: the crux of it. And then your hands are kind
6:07
Speaker 1: of what you present to the world, so it was
6:11
Speaker 1: just it was also an embarrassment. I think a little
6:14
Speaker 1: bit after. I think maybe it was my freshman year
6:17
Speaker 1: of college. I went out on a date and it
6:20
Speaker 1: wasn't cold outside, it was it was warm, and I
6:23
Speaker 1: had maybe been on a third date with this guy.
6:27
Speaker 1: I got in the car and he picked me up
6:29
Speaker 1: and I had my hand on my lap, just my
6:32
Speaker 1: left hand, and he put his hand on my hand
6:36
Speaker 1: and it was dark, and he said, I didn't notice
6:39
Speaker 1: you were wearing gloves. Oh, And I was mortified, Dylan, Yeah,
6:46
Speaker 1: you know, a woman's hands are supposed to be smooth
6:49
Speaker 1: and perfect. And I literally recoiled, you know, like I
6:54
Speaker 1: grabbed my hand and I said, god, oh, I'm not
6:57
Speaker 1: wearing gloves. I said, I just I have rough hands
6:59
Speaker 1: from from my exzema. And he was like, what's what's egzema?
7:05
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, it's it's just this itchy skin condition.
7:09
Speaker 1: And of course, what would you say if that had
7:12
Speaker 1: happened to you, if you had touched a person's hand.
7:15
Speaker 1: What's your next question logically dealing?
7:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, am I going to get this itchy skin condition? Exactly?
7:21
Speaker 2: Is it contagious?
7:22
Speaker 1: Is it contagious? Was the next thing, of course, is
7:25
Speaker 1: something that you know, we pour exzema patients. That was
7:29
Speaker 1: the thing. You know, you're you're young, and you're trying
7:32
Speaker 1: to bond with other people and create community, and it's
7:37
Speaker 1: just devastating.
7:38
Speaker 2: Of course, God, Kelly, I'm so sorry. I really feel
7:42
Speaker 2: for young Kelly. What was swimming doing to your exima?
7:47
Speaker 2: Was it affecting your exema?
7:49
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I loved swimming so much. I just
7:53
Speaker 1: didn't want to ever stop swimming. And so, yes, swimming
7:58
Speaker 1: makes your skin more dry. Chlorine certainly it made it dry,
8:02
Speaker 1: but it you know, I was always clean, so I
8:04
Speaker 1: don't know if it was making it worse. It didn't
8:07
Speaker 1: seem to make it any worse, and it certainly didn't
8:09
Speaker 1: seem to make it any better. But there was no
8:10
Speaker 1: way that I was going to give up what I loved.
8:13
Speaker 2: And also you're going to find relief from, you know,
8:16
Speaker 2: kind of losing yourself in swimming, which you totally can. Okay,
8:24
Speaker 2: So this whole time, you were using topical steroids as
8:28
Speaker 2: like the bomb, right, like you were going in putting
8:31
Speaker 2: steroids on, and these steroids were momentarily kind of fixing
8:37
Speaker 2: the problem. How would you describe it?
8:39
Speaker 1: Absolutely, they were a constant in my life. They were
8:43
Speaker 1: in every glove box of the car, every night stand,
8:47
Speaker 1: every purse, every swim bag, they were just everywhere, and
8:53
Speaker 1: then they just stopped working. So it kind of ramped
8:58
Speaker 1: up to where it was my and then my face,
9:01
Speaker 1: and then it started to kind of creep all over
9:05
Speaker 1: my body, and my exama was getting worse and worse,
9:08
Speaker 1: and I was getting more red and more itchy, until
9:11
Speaker 1: what I would describe as just the moment of complete
9:15
Speaker 1: and utter defeat, where I was housebound with full body egzema,
9:21
Speaker 1: and it all started kind of with my eyelids were
9:24
Speaker 1: getting really red. And so I had a lot of
9:28
Speaker 1: experience at looking at medical articles and so I found
9:32
Speaker 1: in fact, I paid seventy dollars for this article from PubMed.
9:36
Speaker 2: Wow Old School yeaheah.
9:38
Speaker 1: Ild dermatitis to redskins syndrome to Cure written by doctor
9:42
Speaker 1: Marvin Rappaport, and his email was on the bottom of
9:45
Speaker 1: this article, and I emailed him and I said, here's
9:47
Speaker 1: my situation, and he said, stop all steroids, stop them
9:52
Speaker 1: all WHOA. And that's when I went through topical steroid withdrawal.
9:57
Speaker 1: And it's the greatest thing that I've ever do done,
10:00
Speaker 1: and the hardest thing I've ever done.
10:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what happened when you stopped.
10:06
Speaker 1: The skin involvement was full body. There were you know,
10:10
Speaker 1: absolute open wounds, oozing, itching, hair loss. It was just
10:16
Speaker 1: a daily no sleep. I joked that I didn't sleep
10:19
Speaker 1: for ten years. Got so no sleep, no intimacy, no sweating.
10:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:25
Speaker 1: I remember looking, you know, like I said, I'm in
10:27
Speaker 1: my sixties now. I was going through this, you know,
10:30
Speaker 1: in my forties and early fifties, and I look back
10:34
Speaker 1: at photos of me at that age and now and
10:39
Speaker 1: I look ten years younger now than I did then
10:42
Speaker 1: because your skin is so wrinkled. So yeah, that was
10:47
Speaker 1: a very very dark period of my life. I had
10:51
Speaker 1: to spend six months in bed just what I call
10:53
Speaker 1: it molting, my skin just turning over and you lose
10:57
Speaker 1: layers and layers of skin. It's really not a pre site.
11:04
Speaker 1: So I flew out to doctor Rapaports and Doctor Rappaport
11:08
Speaker 1: and I decided to start the International Topical Steroid Addiction Network,
11:13
Speaker 1: which is now known globally as itsand it's the International
11:18
Speaker 1: Topical Steroid Awareness Network. We have been at work since
11:23
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, officially incorporated as a nonprofit in
11:26
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, but educating the American Academy of Dermatology and
11:31
Speaker 1: Dermatologists that there is a huge difference between topical steroid
11:37
Speaker 1: addiction and withdrawal symptoms and exema. And one of the
11:42
Speaker 1: big ones is the burning red skin. So when someone
11:47
Speaker 1: has exzema, it was just red, itchy, bumpy exma. But
11:52
Speaker 1: once you once your skin becomes addicted to it, it
11:57
Speaker 1: becomes a burning redness, a component of this bone deep itch.
12:03
Speaker 1: We call it the soul sucking itch. Like if Satan
12:06
Speaker 1: had shown off at my window and said, hey, I
12:09
Speaker 1: will stop your itch if you sell your soul to me,
12:12
Speaker 1: I would have.
12:13
Speaker 2: Said, here's my soul, take it, Yeah, it's yours. Yeah yeah.
12:19
Speaker 1: But the interesting part of topical story withdrawal is it
12:23
Speaker 1: has flares and then remissions, and so just when I
12:29
Speaker 1: thought I couldn't handle it anymore, I would get maybe
12:31
Speaker 1: a week break, okay. And the pattern of healing was
12:37
Speaker 1: you have like maybe months of hell and then a
12:40
Speaker 1: week of relief and then maybe gotcha fewer months of
12:44
Speaker 1: hell and then two weeks of relief, and then month
12:46
Speaker 1: of hell and then a month of relief, and then
12:49
Speaker 1: it eventually, yeah, you know, goes completely away.
12:53
Speaker 2: It's God, this sounds as harrowing as it gets because
12:56
Speaker 2: I'm sure in this moment you imagine that there's going
12:59
Speaker 2: to be no relief. That's insight, right, that is the key. Yeah, yeah,
13:03
Speaker 2: like this is my life now.
13:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:05
Speaker 2: So in this time that you were dealing with topical
13:08
Speaker 2: steroid withdrawal, were you still swimming at all or did
13:11
Speaker 2: you put that on pause?
13:13
Speaker 1: For me, fortunately, I felt pretty comfortable when I was
13:16
Speaker 1: in the water, but certainly I didn't swim as much
13:19
Speaker 1: at all as I needed or wanted to. During I
13:22
Speaker 1: would say, yeah, really really tough ten years. There were
13:26
Speaker 1: times when I put it totally on pause, like it
13:28
Speaker 1: was just two. I was too raw, too open. I
13:30
Speaker 1: always like one of the things that was really always
13:33
Speaker 1: huge in my mind was infection because I had a
13:36
Speaker 1: couple of scary infections where you know, you're on antibiotics
13:42
Speaker 1: because your skin is wide open. So that's why I
13:44
Speaker 1: wore a lot of clothes. And then other times when
13:47
Speaker 1: I happened to be kind of in a remission, I
13:51
Speaker 1: would swim, so I knew, you know, that I was
13:55
Speaker 1: possibly risking infection or humiliation, you know, like I'll look
14:00
Speaker 1: back at some of the pictures of me at a
14:02
Speaker 1: swim meet in my bathing suit, right, and I look
14:05
Speaker 1: at the like my neck and my face, and I'm like,
14:08
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, what what did people think of me?
14:11
Speaker 1: But you know, I think when you're in that moment,
14:13
Speaker 1: you just you just can't think that way.
14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you were you were kind of dipping your
14:18
Speaker 2: toes back into it, Yeah, somewhat. Literally. Was there a
14:22
Speaker 2: time that you competed you had a flare up and
14:26
Speaker 2: you pushed through to deal with it and still compete.
14:29
Speaker 1: Oh, I would definitely say that was the Auburn Meet.
14:35
Speaker 1: I went to Master Summer Nationals at Auburn University and
14:38
Speaker 1: it was the big meat. And when you're in a meet,
14:42
Speaker 1: you have to sit around in your bathing suit a
14:43
Speaker 1: lot because you you might swim the first event and
14:46
Speaker 1: then the fourth event. And I remember I did not
14:49
Speaker 1: sleep for about four nights in a row, like literally
14:52
Speaker 1: like one hour. And I just told my husband on
14:56
Speaker 1: like the fourth day of the meat, I said, I
14:58
Speaker 1: cannot go out there and try to, you know, win.
15:01
Speaker 1: But I called my sister in law, who is like
15:04
Speaker 1: this great supporting voice in my head. Maria and she's
15:08
Speaker 1: an elite, high level athlete. And I called her and
15:11
Speaker 1: I said, I'm just done. I can't do this. And
15:14
Speaker 1: she said, no, you can do this. You don't need sleep.
15:20
Speaker 1: She biked across America. She did southern California to Annapolis,
15:25
Speaker 1: Maryland in eleven days on a bike. Right, she didn't
15:28
Speaker 1: sleep at all for eleven days. She's like, no, I
15:32
Speaker 1: know you can do this. I did this, you can
15:33
Speaker 1: do this right, right, So it was just like, I
15:36
Speaker 1: think it's having people that tell you, you know, you
15:40
Speaker 1: can do it, And I believe that now more than anything.
15:43
Speaker 1: I think what I really learned out of topical steroid
15:46
Speaker 1: withdraw that's so transferred to other parts of my life
15:50
Speaker 1: is that we can go through things we just didn't
15:53
Speaker 1: know we could go through until you get there.
15:55
Speaker 2: And I think that's beautiful. It's like, this was your
15:58
Speaker 2: ultimate endurance sport. Was like dealing with these years that
16:02
Speaker 2: you were struggling with this, you know, Yeah, what were
16:06
Speaker 2: the routines habits that were helping you just live with
16:10
Speaker 2: your topical steroid withdrawal.
16:12
Speaker 1: Oh, I became like this hyper vigilant person as far
16:17
Speaker 1: as just of course, yeah, being really natural and really comfortable.
16:23
Speaker 1: I never like I could not get hot like we would.
16:27
Speaker 1: We would adjust our summers to be in the coldest places,
16:32
Speaker 1: like we went up to, you know, the mountains of
16:35
Speaker 1: North Carolina to be in a cold place because the
16:39
Speaker 1: smallest amount of sweat on a topical steroid person has salt.
16:44
Speaker 1: And it's just insane. Yeah, I mean, I remember going
16:46
Speaker 1: in the ocean one time, thinking some people get relieved
16:50
Speaker 1: from the ocean. But I went into the ocean and
16:53
Speaker 1: I literally turned around as soon as I got you know,
16:56
Speaker 1: like body deep. I turned around and I remember just
17:00
Speaker 1: screaming like a little four year old like Ali Ali
17:02
Speaker 1: Ali Ali Ali awie, you know, just on the way
17:05
Speaker 1: back up the beach, of course, and back into the
17:07
Speaker 1: cold shower and back into the house. And I was
17:11
Speaker 1: one that needed to be highly moisturized. I used a
17:14
Speaker 1: lot of coconut oil and vacinine. It helped just keep
17:18
Speaker 1: my skin closed.
17:20
Speaker 2: When did you finally feel healed from this? When? When
17:24
Speaker 2: was there a light at the end of the tunnel
17:26
Speaker 2: and it stayed that light. It wasn't an island, it
17:29
Speaker 2: wasn't a brief reprieve.
17:31
Speaker 1: So people who get healed completely say that the biggest
17:35
Speaker 1: thing is the itch. So the itch was still with
17:38
Speaker 1: me for ten almost twelve years. My skin had improved,
17:41
Speaker 1: but it was still very dry and very itchy and
17:45
Speaker 1: would get cracked and open. And so we again had
17:49
Speaker 1: gone up to the North Carolina Mountains because I was
17:51
Speaker 1: still just terrible with heat, and I got a bad
17:55
Speaker 1: skin infection on my face and I was covered in
18:00
Speaker 1: just a staph infection on my face. And I remember
18:04
Speaker 1: coming back from the mountains in the fall and I
18:07
Speaker 1: just thought this is just I was so crestfallen and
18:13
Speaker 1: so down that that I thought, you know, how long
18:16
Speaker 1: is this going to go on? But I was like
18:19
Speaker 1: anti everything, Like I at one point I was like, no,
18:21
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do antiotics because that's going to
18:23
Speaker 1: ruin my gut and I'm not going to do them,
18:25
Speaker 1: and I'm just going to let this clear up on
18:27
Speaker 1: its own. My brother is an MD, and he did
18:30
Speaker 1: some research and found out that doxy cyclin has an
18:33
Speaker 1: anti inflammatory effect on some eye conditions. Where I had it,
18:37
Speaker 1: I had the infection around my eyes. So I took
18:40
Speaker 1: a six week course of antibiotics, and once my skin
18:44
Speaker 1: cleared up, you know, my staph infection cleared up, I said,
18:49
Speaker 1: this is my life. Yeah, and I just accepted. I
18:53
Speaker 1: literally accept it. So instead of waking up every day
18:56
Speaker 1: this stinks. My life stinks. When is this gonna stop?
19:01
Speaker 1: I just accepted it. I'm gonna swim, I'm gonna live it.
19:05
Speaker 1: I have people in my life that I love, people
19:07
Speaker 1: that love me. I can still eat great food, and
19:10
Speaker 1: I think somehow maybe the destressing of that. At some
19:15
Speaker 1: point after that, I woke up one morning I literally screamed.
19:22
Speaker 2: Ark, I slept through the night. Oh my gosh.
19:26
Speaker 1: And I'm like running into him. I said, I slept
19:30
Speaker 1: through the night, and he said you did, and I
19:32
Speaker 1: said yeah. And it was so it was so unreal.
19:37
Speaker 1: I remember kind of rubbing my hands up and down
19:39
Speaker 1: my legs and I thought, creamy. My legs are creamy.
19:44
Speaker 1: My skin is creamy. And that's the best way I
19:47
Speaker 1: can describe it. It was like sandpaper before and now
19:51
Speaker 1: my skin is a creamy texture. And that was it.
19:56
Speaker 1: And it's been six years.
20:02
Speaker 2: So what changed in your relationship to swimming once you
20:07
Speaker 2: had healed.
20:08
Speaker 1: A big thing that changed is I'm swimming faster now
20:12
Speaker 1: than I did six years ago when I was unhealed. Incredible,
20:16
Speaker 1: You know at sixty five, I've broken four world records
20:19
Speaker 1: this year in twenty twenty six.
20:21
Speaker 2: Kelly, Yeah, I know, Oh my god.
20:24
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I just feel so much stronger and so
20:27
Speaker 1: much more powerful in the water than My husband kind
20:31
Speaker 1: of coaches me too, he's a great swimmer. He's like, well,
20:34
Speaker 1: you realize that while you were going through TSW all
20:38
Speaker 1: those years you were ill. Yeah, And I was like,
20:42
Speaker 1: of course I was ill. Your skin is your largest organ.
20:46
Speaker 1: So I think because my largest organ was so messed
20:50
Speaker 1: up for all those years of swimming that now for
20:53
Speaker 1: the last six years of being healthy, I'm swimming better,
20:56
Speaker 1: I'm swimming stronger, I'm healthier. Also, you know, Olympic swimmers,
21:00
Speaker 1: elite swimmers, we shave every square inch of our body.
21:03
Speaker 1: We shave our backs, we shave our legs, we shave everything.
21:06
Speaker 1: So even my skin plowing through the water with wrinkles
21:11
Speaker 1: is slower than creamy skin like a dolphin. So I
21:15
Speaker 1: think the nice thing is having that creamy dolphin skin's
21:18
Speaker 1: making me faster. So it's just it's just more, it's
21:21
Speaker 1: more joyful, and I'm less self conscious. Yeah, and the
21:25
Speaker 1: greatest thing somebody actually in the locker room one day,
21:30
Speaker 1: you know, in the last year, looked at me and said,
21:32
Speaker 1: you have beautiful skin, and I that was the ultimate
21:38
Speaker 1: ultimate thing, that like, Wow, somebody thinks I have beautiful skin.
21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so, that's so cool. What would you tell
21:47
Speaker 2: someone who's living with the condition, who feels that they
21:51
Speaker 2: maybe can't take part in the sport or activity that
21:54
Speaker 2: they love.
21:55
Speaker 1: I would say you absolutely can, and that we're so
21:59
Speaker 1: we're capable of so much more than we think we are,
22:04
Speaker 1: and do it with your own boundaries. Like you know,
22:09
Speaker 1: there every time I enter a swim meet there's a
22:12
Speaker 1: little byline on the entry that says, swimmers with disabilities
22:17
Speaker 1: please notify the meat director and we will accommodate you.
22:21
Speaker 1: So whatever it is, if you need to swim with
22:24
Speaker 1: tape on your shoulder, or you need to not wear goggles,
22:28
Speaker 1: or whatever your sport is, you can. You can do
22:31
Speaker 1: it in some way, and I think you'll surprise yourself.
22:34
Speaker 1: And like you said, Dylan, the benefits way outweigh the
22:39
Speaker 1: actual whatever embarrassment or extra work or whatever. But yeah,
22:45
Speaker 1: you got to get out there and live.
22:46
Speaker 2: I love that perfect way to end this. Kelly, Thank
22:50
Speaker 2: you so much. It's been such a pleasure to talk
22:52
Speaker 2: to you today.
22:53
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dylan, appreciate you.
22:55
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us for Kelly's story.
22:59
Speaker 2: There is still so much more to come this season.
23:02
Speaker 2: But until then, when the waters get rough, may we
23:05
Speaker 2: find a way to just keep swimming. Skin Quarries is
23:12
Speaker 2: a production of Ruby's Studio from iHeartMedia. Our producer is
23:16
Speaker 2: rheen El mcgraby, Project lead is Maria Saint Aubong and
23:20
Speaker 2: sound designer is Sam Sega. I'm Dylan, Maren. We will
23:24
Speaker 2: see you next time.