A journey with Cai Lin...

"Swimming with Scoliosis" - that was my topic during the Sports Medicine Australia conference last week. Every fourth year, this conference will be some where out of Australia and this year it happened to be in Langkawi! Great place and even greater conference. It was the first time I was invited to be a speaker at such a big huge event. With Dr Chan - President of Sports Medicine Malaysia and Mr Anthony Merrilees - CEO of Sports Medicine Australia As you know, I was a former competitive swimmer and only decided to have my operation done recently as no surgeon could guarantee that I could go back into competitive swimming. Putting my surgery on hold also meant that my scoliosis would get worst as the years passed. But this was a risk I was willing to take because of my swimming career. At the end of the day it all turned out really well for me. Soon it will be 6 months since my operation and all that I've been through has most definitely been worth it.  ...

Post op 14 weeks on the 14th of August. What are the odds? Lol. Anyway, really sorry I haven't been updating my blog as regularly as I used to or as I would like. I've been really busy the past two week because..*drum rolls*...I'm involved in the SEA Games!!!! No, of course I'm not swimming. Duh! I'm still doing my rehabilitation you know. But, I'll be part of the SEA Games as a media manager. Basically I'll be taking care of all the media at the aquatics stadium. The media used to call me to interview me, but now the tables have turned. The media is now calling me to ask me where they can interview the athletes. Lol. Some of them are even shocked that I'm the media manager now. Haha. At the main press centre @ MITEC yesterday. Finally got my accreditation card yesterday! But they spelled my name as Can Lin. 😞 Maybe they're also trying to say that I "Can, Lin". Get it? Get it? My duty starts tomorrow and it'll be crazy hectic...

Guess what? I started doing aqua jog since my last post. Been trying to squeeze in at least 3 aqua jog sessions a week. Other than that, I've been going to the gym to do my rehabilitation exercises and continue job hunting. I'm now slowly increasing the number of exercises I do as I get stronger every day. If you are following me on  Instagram , you would know that I did a bit of 'swimming' last Friday. The reason why I said 'swimming' is because I was using a kicking board like in the video below. I used to be able to do this with my eyes closed and without a board but I've lost all my balance now. It's like learning how to swim! I found it a bit difficult to balance on the kicking board. The reason why I put the kicking board under my belly is so that I keep my spine in a neutral position. As a post op patient, I am NOT ALLOWED to rotate, bend forward or arch my back for 6 months. It felt good to be back in the water for a while. The s...

There was an article about me recently on says.com  where they mentioned about my swimming and scoliosis. I read some of the comments and felt really touched that there are so many people supporting me. People also sent me messages on my  Facebook  and Instagram  to ask me questions or to share their own personal experiences about scoliosis or about someone they know who has scoliosis or has been through the operation. There was a particular post that stood out because this person was blaming the sports minister for not helping me out with my operation even after serving the country since 2002. I would like to point out that HE KNOWS about my operation. He can't directly help me because there are a lot of procedures/protocols to follow but he definitely knows what's going on. The people that I have to deal with directly are from the  National Sports Council (NSC) and the National Sports Institution (NSI). If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be going for the o...

Since publicly telling people that I'm going for a scoliosis operation, a lot of people have told me to go for a second opinion and asked if I'm doing surgery for 'beauty' purposes. Here's what I have done in the past: I have seen 2 chiropractors, multiple physios, worn the SpineCor  brace and seen 3 surgeons. The surgeon that is doing my operation is my 4th surgeon. Of all the treatments, nothing has help solve my lower back pain or the progression of my curve. Wearing the brace didn't help because as a patient, you are to wear the brace for up to 20 hours. I spent around 7 hours training a day so there was no way the brace was going to work on me. The only treatment that worked for me was a stretching method called Active Isolated Stretching  which is only offered by  The Stretch Clinic  here in Malaysia. (No I'm not promoting this because I used to work there but I worked there because the stretching helped me and I wanted to help people in return.) ...

Hello! So here I am, finally starting a blog like I said I would on my Instagram . Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Cai Lin and I'm from Malaysia. I've been a national swimmer since 2003 and have represented the country in various competitions starting from SEA Games to The Olympics. I started going for swimming classes at the age of 3, training at 5 and my first competition at 7. I never liked swimming because I always finished last in my races. I only started winning when I was 11 years old and that's when my passion for swimming grew. Swimming became my priority and I told myself that I wanted to go to The Olympics even before I knew how big The Olympics actually was. The reason why I started this blog is so I can share my story about how I've been living with scoliosis since I was 8 or 9 years old. What it's like swimming competitively with scoliosis, dealing with pain, getting made fun of and so on. I will also be writing about my scol...