{"id":448,"date":"2016-06-02T23:23:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T23:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ameliabooneracing.com\/blog\/?p=448"},"modified":"2016-06-03T12:41:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T12:41:40","slug":"superhuman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ameliabooneracing.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/superhuman\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovery: On realizing you aren’t superhuman"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 6 weeks since that fateful run where lightning bolts shot down my leg.<\/p>\n

When the initial MRI was taken, and my sentence was given (12 weeks until running, etc.), a part of me held out hope in the back of my mind that the doctors were just being conservative. C\u2019mon \u2013 I\u2019m the girl who returned from knee surgery to win World\u2019s Toughest Mudder exactly 8 weeks post-op. Surely, by 6 weeks out, I\u2019d be close to running again. I\u2019m superhuman, or so people tell me.<\/p>\n

Instead, after 5 days of testing walking about, I\u2019m back on crutches. 4 weeks of non-weight bearing, they initially told me. Never would I imagine it could possibly be\u2026more. (c’mon…I’M SUPPOSED TO HEAL LIKE JOHN CENA, PEOPLE)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first week of injury was excruciating \u2013 I\u2019d liken it to an addict in withdrawal from running. After a week, I thought I got over the hump. Things started feeling better. I got into a routine \u2013 4:30 a.m. meant, not wake-up time for hitting the trails, but wake-up time for heading across the street to NorCal CrossFit for some quality time with the AirDyne (arms and one leg), and the ski erg (initially sitting down). Evenings meant swimming with a pull buoy, and eventually adding in kicking and aquajogging. 3-4 weeks out, and I got into my routine. Oddly enough, save for the odd twinges while flicking through Instagram, I stopped missing running, mainly because I had forgotten what it felt like.<\/p>\n

I had found a new normal.<\/p>\n

But somewhere around week 4, frustration began to set in. I SHOULD<\/strong> be getting better, I said. And, I was. The random shooting pains when I took a misstep on crutches were no longer there, and the dull ache began to subside.\u00a0 While aquajogging and swimming did nothing for my heart rate, I found I could keep my heart rate up with the erg and AirDyne, and use the pool time to focus on therapeutic movement and people watching while I bobbed along in my (quite fashionable) Aquajogger. Side note<\/strong>:\u00a0I\u2019m not ashamed to admit it \u2013 I\u2019ve come to sort of enjoy aqua jogging (errrr\u2026 \u201cpool running\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1017\"<\/a>
All the cool kids do it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So when the doctor told me to transition off of crutches (he was frankly surprised I stuck with it all 4 weeks. #goodAmelia), I gladly accepted. Flung them aside like Crutchie from Newsies, and was ready to declare myself a healed woman. But I found that walking still wasn\u2019t COMPLETELY pain free. I chalked it up to muscle imbalances and lack of use on my right side, thinking that it was muscular pain, and would eventually even out and return to normal. But the more days I walked on it, the more the familiar adductor tightness return, and pain returned in the evenings while sleeping, or during the day while sitting at work.<\/p>\n

HOW?! WHY?! What did I do wrong? Did I push too much? Was the aquajogging too much? The walking? And the panic started to set in \u2013 did I refracture? Did I just undo all 5 weeks of recovery with 5 days of weight bearing?<\/p>\n

I spent several days in a panic. Silly, stupid Amelia. Give her an inch, she\u2019ll take a mile.<\/p>\n

So we redid the MRI. And, in the process, I learned a thing or two about MRIs. Apparently, there are shitty MRI machine (less powerful magnets) and good MRI machines (really powerful magnets). My initial MRI I had done on a shitty machine (unbeknowest to me \u2013 was the only place that could get me in), which showed a tiny crack. We did the follow up on the Rolls Royce of MRI machines, and there was good news, and bad news. Good news \u2013 bone showed thickening of the cortex, which means healing is happening (yay!) and I\u2019m being a good patient. Bad news \u2013 apparently the \u201ctiny crack\u201d was actually much, MUCH bigger<\/strong> than we thought (think – not a creek, but a river). And it\u2019s still cracked, which would explain why I still can\u2019t walk pain free.<\/p>\n

What’s more – it’s not your typical fracture – instead of cutting\u00a0transverse and perpendicular across the bone, it’s longitudinal<\/strong> – running down. Apparently, this is SUPER rare, with only 12 cases having been reported in literature (according to this this nifty 2016 study, thanks Google – http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4811848\/<\/a>). So, it’s me and the 80 year olds, breaking their bones DOWN the shafts. Call me number 13.<\/p>\n

Eff.<\/p>\n

So, the original prognosis, my hopes of soon getting unleashed into the world of weight-bearing, bikes, and ellipticals (who would have thought I\u2019d get excited about using an elliptical?!) have been dashed, and I\u2019ve battened down the hatches for a much longer recovery than I anticipated.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0968\"<\/a>
When I was confident I’d be back in record time. Pew pew pew, say the crutches.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No, I don\u2019t know when I\u2019ll be back to running. And racing. So please don\u2019t ask.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s ok.<\/p>\n

A girl who can manage to put that substantial of a fracture through the supposed \u201cstrongest bone in the body\u201d can certainly get through this.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not looking for sympathy. Not looking for the \u201cthis will make you stronger\u201d or the \u201ceverything happens for a reason.\u201d I realize life could suck way worse than it does right now. Objectively, aside from a broken leg, I have pretty fantastic life. I write this from a place of acceptance (ok, fine \u2013 some kicking and screaming and crying still. And some anger – wtf, docs?! HOW did you not see that?!), and an admittance that recovery isn\u2019t always a straight line. That our bodies heal on their own timeline. That I can’t WILL my bone to mend itself.<\/p>\n

And hell \u2013 that I wish I had a better magnet on that first MRI so I could have been prepared for just how long this stupid bone \u201cthat\u2019s stronger than concrete\u201d will take to heal.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I\u2019ve committed myself to a daily (sitting) meditation practice (5 days in! go me!), taken up adult coloring books, perfected the BeetElite<\/a>\u00a0gummi bear recipe, and I’m on the road\u00a0to giving myself a shoulder overuse injury from 6 weeks of upper body exercise and crutch use. Womp. Womp.<\/p>\n

Round 2 of crutches has commenced. Let\u2019s pray I don\u2019t have to go all 10 rounds with those metal bastards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 6 weeks since that fateful run where lightning bolts shot down my leg. When the initial MRI was taken, and my sentence was given (12 weeks until running, etc.), a part of me held out hope in the back of my mind that the doctors were just being conservative. C\u2019mon \u2013 I\u2019m the … Continue reading Recovery: On realizing you aren’t superhuman<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rehab","category-spartan","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRecovery: On realizing you aren't superhuman - Race Ipsa Loquitur<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ameliabooneracing.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/superhuman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recovery: On realizing you aren't superhuman - Race Ipsa Loquitur\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s been 6 weeks since that fateful run where lightning bolts shot down my leg. 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