I've just flown into the 3 week mark at 25 days into recovery! As time has passed, I've found it significantly easier to deal with the injury. While Weeks 0-2 were heavily peppered with tears, exhaustion, and questioning "why", I've settled into the routine of acceptance and the motivation to move forward. I was once told by a former coach that it takes your body 3 weeks (21 days) to establish and accept a routine. I've always thought of this when embarking on a new exercise routine (like when I started working out in the mornings - and I am not a morning person) but it seems to translate to any aspect in life. It is true that somewhere between day 14 and 24 of recovery the boot, the crutches, and the detour to normal life shifted to the norm.
When things were really rough (read: lots of crying) I decided to set three goals / rules for myself to target and focus my mind during recovery:
1) It's okay to cry. It's fine to let it out and feel helpless and overwhelmed. It's NOT okay to dwell in the tears, the helplessness, or the overwhelming activities. Once a good cry has done it's work, make sure to dry those tears and keep moving forward.
2) Set goals. Sure, the doctor-prescribed protocol has goals to work toward (like no crutches), but I need to set personal goals with short term rewards. I decided my goals don't need to be all about my foot - they just need to be "bite sized" and achievable.
During the second week (day 17) my goal was to make it to the beach, and watch friends play volleyball. I did! This past weekend, friends came over to make fish tacos. My goal was to learn how to make the perfect fresh margarita. In case you're curious, this recipe is potent and delicious. My current goal is to learn how to do polka dot nails.
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| Foot at beach! |
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| Perfect margarita |
3) Take all the help you can get. I've struggled to ever accept help from anyone on anything. It's just my personality. But when everything I do takes 3 times the effort it normally does, it's worth accepting a neighbor's offer to check my mail, or asking friends to visit - then take out my trash. If others are openly willing to sharing a little of my burden, I'm learning to graciously accept.
As an oversubscriber to the cult of "Doing", I wasn't dealing well with my inactivity, and a future summer of fun that had in an instant turned bleak. My weeknights and weekends are always non-stop. In fact, I'm probably always on the brink of exhaustion because I try to fill every day to the limit. For a snapshot:
Monday: AM row / PM home
Tuesday: AM SpeedX gym / PM yoga
Wednesday: AM row / PM home
Thursday: AM sleep in til 8! / PM Kickball then drinks
Friday: AM SpeedX gym
/ PM out
Saturday: AM row / all day beach volleyball
Sunday: football, any other outdoor activity
During my first few days on the couch (just after the accident and before surgery) I was already struggling with how I was going to survive the months ahead. Turning from tv to computer screen and back again, I couldn't conceive of another hour of idle time, alone on my couch. Then I stumbled on this little Pinterest pin which did wonders to reshape my perspective.
This is a detour. That's all this is. The world is not ending, I'm not out of sports for good, and it's only one summer that's going to be affected. This one little quote reframed my mindset away from "end of the world" to I'm fortunate to only have a detour to travel along.
This quote and perspective helped me define and establish my "rules for recovery" which I'll get to in a later post. It might sound silly to apply a framework to healing and idle time, but I've found it super useful when little things become overwhelming.
I'm also finding ways to "Do" while "Not Doing". For instance, I've never been good at painting my own nails. But now, I've figured out how to push chairs out on my balcony, get some fresh air, and paint away with no worry of running out of time for the nails to dry. It's also been way too long since I read books consistently. I didn't realize how much I've missed the sti
mulation of a good book (and I'm taking recommendations!).
While I'm on indefinite pause from all the activities I love and identify with, I'm finding ways to explore new interests, and enjoy the downtime that I've been given.
Headed to bed on Wednesday night with my last meal and sip of water before midnight. Surgery was scheduled for 1:30pm (with a 12:15pm arrival) the next day. Was afraid I'd be parched by the time it came around!
I woke up at 9 the next morning to quite a few missed calls. Turns out my time had been changed, but nobody had actually let me know. In fact, I was supposed to be "under the knife" at 9:15! They asked "when's the soonest you can get here?" Luckily I live just down the street, so I took a shower (had a feeling I wouldn't be motivated to do so for another 2 days) and headed off to surgery.
The best part of this mix up was I had no time to stress, or anticipate the surgery. The nurses took me to get changed, and then I had a brief meeting with my doctor and the anesthesiologist. As we wheeled down the hall into the OR, I started feeling really strange. A little woozy, hot but not too hot, a little cold...just strange. I mentioned it and the nurse joked, "that's because you're getting a cocktail!"
I think they do this to calm you down before you go completely out. I mean, it's pretty stressful right before you go into the room. An IV is put in your hand, and the anesthesiologist then needs to explain to you how that since you are out cold, on muscle relaxers, lying on your stomach, someone else needs to do the breathing for you during surgery. Luckily you're out cold for the whole tube-down-throat process, and the only after effect is a scratchy throat for about a day after. For me, I was told they were about to put me under, and then the next thing I knew I was waking up looking out a window.
I entered the hospital at about 10:15, and went into the surgery I think around 11:30. My brother and I were walking (crutching) out around 2 or 2:30. Pain was non-existent since the doctor had done a nerveblock - essentially cutting off all feeling to my lower leg. This has some risks, but the benefit is it staves off the true pain from surgery for anywhere from 12-24 hours. For me, it lasted a full 24 hours, which was glorious!
My brother and I took one last "jailbreak" from the couch for lunch before the pain hit the day after surgery. That afternoon, the nerveblock wore off and the pain was, for a brief period, pretty unbearable. I slept through a bit of it, but looked awfully pale and was extremely shakey. I upped the vicodin to 2 every 5 hours during this period. At night, I had serious trouble sleeping. We actually stayed up late (like 1 or 2am) playing video games. You may be thinking, "you should have been in bed!" but when in pain, feeling wide awake, there is nothing worse than tossing and turning - especially when every turn is discomfort. So, I went to bed when I was completely exhausted, and managed to fall asleep for a little bit.
