Hilary Lister

I confess that I rolled my eyes, and swore.

Jim Broatch is at it again, leaving salient little e-news report thingies in my already overstuffed inbox. There is, thank God, no stopping the man. He's always shamelessly trying to promote that rag -- the RSDSA Review.

Still, as I read the first few lines of his e-alert, I could not help but think how tiring it is to be exhorted continually by tales of Super People. This time? Some quadriplegic yachtswoman. First of all, she doesn't even have CRPS, she is a quad, that is something totally different! Second, I don't take well to language such as "yachtswoman." Such appellations make me want to cry "[H]ow piquant!" and dig out my jar of capers -- after replacing all my onions with shallots. (I haven't had breakfast, lunch, or brunch, yet -- although afternoon tea in the gazebo is looking providential.)

Iceberg lettuce is much maligned, you know, you friséed arugula freaks!

(Pssssssssssssssst! Nasturtium seed pods make a nice replacement if you can't put your manicured hands on that jar of capers.)

(Did I type my schizophrenia out loud?)

What... oh, yes! I remember. A quadriplegic. Who "yachts." And Jim Broatch.

I felt totally manipulated without even subjecting myself to a reading of the article. What? Me, sitting here in my wheelchair, in more pain than I care to express -- what am I? Is CRPS not a pitiable disease? Hasn't Jim heard that we're on the map now -- that our wee little brains are white instead of grey proper, and smaller than the brains of your average bear?

In other words, what am I, chopped liver? (One day, I will have to extol my readership with the tales of my many famous malapropisms... "What am I, chopped suey?" comes to mind... so wrong, on so many levels. And my well-known version of The Turtles lyric: "No matter how they toss the tights... it had to be...")

I almost feel sorry for little Miss Quadriplegic Yachtswoman, trapped as she is in her dry, humorless life of leisure, her private pinky-up. How would she like to be stuck in a wheelchair on dry land, in too much severe and constant pain to zip on down to the marina? I don't even get to float in the bathtub, for Christ's sake!

Okay, so it was kind of humiliating to have my eyes trip and fall near the end of the rich bitch's story -- "progressive neurological disease, reflex sympathetic dystrophy..." Oh. Ohhhhh! Major oops. How faux is my pas!

Still... yachtswoman?

Am I supposed to conclude that CRPS/RSD occurs in a demographic other than my own? Am I supposed to be shocked that the condition of quadriplegia even *happens* in CRPS patients?

Whatever. What I resent the most is the continual exhortation to be extraordinary. To stop whining "I caaannnn't! It huuuuurts tooooo muuuuccchhhhhh..."

Yeah, well, I'll show that sadist, that Jim c'mon-you-can-do-it Broatch. I'll publish a copy of Hilary Lister's show-off of a story. Geeez, can't a person be a person just by waking up in the morning?

[Shhh! Way to go, Hilary! I can imagine the frothy spray, the smell of sea salt, the blues, the greys, the many kinds of white, the clang and flap of the sails, and your beautiful happy face...)

Disabled sailor to attempt record

A yachtswoman is to make a second attempt to become the first quadriplegic woman to sail solo around Britain.

Hilary Lister, who is paralysed from the neck down, plans to embark on the journey next May using a "sip-and-puff" system of straws to control her yacht.

Her first attempt was abandoned in August because of technical problems and bad weather.

Mrs Lister, of Faversham, Kent, said she was "confident" she would succeed.

She spent six months preparing for the first record-breaking challenge, which was expected to take three to four months in her specially-adapted vessel, an Artemis 20 called Me Too.

It has been designed to be operated through three "straws".

One works the tiller and one the sails while another allows her to select five different functions to help control the craft.

Mrs Lister became the first quadriplegic sailor to sail solo across the English Channel in 2005 and two years later was the first quadriplegic woman to sail around the Isle of Wight.

Her round-Britain attempt started in Dover in June and ended in Cornwall two months later.

Mrs Lister, a biochemistry Oxford graduate, said: "I'm confident that with the experience gained this year, we will achieve my round-Britain dream in 2009.

"Despite terrible weather, this year we sailed the entire length of the South Coast, which is further than any female disabled sailor has achieved before."

'Light switched on'

She was wheelchair-bound at the age of 15 because of a progressive neurological disorder, reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

Mrs Lister lost the use of her arms and hands in 1998, aged 27, but in late September 2003 she was taken sailing on a lake by a friend and fell in love with the sport.

She said: "Sailing came along when life didn't seem worth living any more.

"Within seconds of being on the water, a light switched back on inside me. I knew that I had found what I was going to do with the rest of my life."