Benched

I am a pretty short person...5'3"", 5'4" if I wear some decent shoes and slip a couple dollars to the height-measurer.  My petite stature had to adopt a "scrappy" attitude at a young age to have any hope to compete in sports.  I suppose this has shaped my attitude today.  When I feel pain, I don't typically stop what I'm doing.  I just figure if I'm still standing, it can't be that bad, and march on.  Some may call this tough, however, I'm pretty sure that the correct word for it is stupid. 

About 2 weeks into my running "rebound", I started to feel some sharp pains in the lower half of my legs.  Did I stop?  No.  Did I slow down?  I wish.  Did I decrease the mileage?  If only.

No, instead, this "scrappy" stupid girl increased speed, distance and then ran a race.  After that race, the pain got worse and I just shrugged it off to a hard race.  And ran again the following Tuesday.  I just about collapsed on that last run over a week ago and finally decided that I had better take a week off before walking became an issue as well.

Traipsing out to the boys' soccer games this past weekend did me in to the point that Monday morning found me making an appointment to see a doctor - a pastime I'm not real fond of.

I arrived at the orthopaedic office with optimistic hopes for shin splints and a prescription for a week, maybe 2 weeks of rest.  I climbed up onto the table, explained my pain and proceeded to be x-rayed, ultrasounded, tapped and hammered for what felt like 4 hours (in reality, it was 30 minutes). 

I waited expectantly for the shin splints diagnosis.

"You've got yourself stress fractures in both legs." The doctor nodded, tapping his computer screen.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked, after all the x-ray didn't show actual cracks yet, just swelling and fluid.

"Pretty sure." He responded confidently.  As it turns out, 75% of stress fractures do not show up on initial x-rays.  They hide out for a few weeks before rearing their ugly heads in the black and white images.

"Still, it COULD be something else, right?" I prodded again, sure there must be some mistake.

He looked at me, half smiling, half nodding back to his wall of diplomas and told me this big sob story....how after you are pregnant, your bone density is out of whack and if you overuse your legs, you are very susceptible to injury. 

So, I asked him what I have to do to get better and he told me that he'd like for me to wear a boot, BUT since I have the fractures in both legs, I'd have to alternate the boot all day long between legs.  He left the room for a minute and came back with this enormous black thing that I could fit my 2-yo inside of.  It actually comes with a manual.  Seriously not the boot I was expecting. 

"Wow, that is a lot bigger than I expected." I said out loud.  He simply nodded in response as his clever assistant got to work fitting the boot.  While I watched her, I wondered how long it would take me to move this thing back and forth all day long and where on earth I'd carve that time out of my schedule.  Guess I can stop eating....I was lost in these thoughts when I heard him say something about air casts.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?  What is that you say?  Air casts?"

"Yes, you'll need to wear an air cast on the leg that you're not wearing the boot on.  A long one, not a short one," he replied.

Oh, good grief.  I now started thinking about how my already limited wardrobe (thank you pregnancy) is becoming even more limited when he says that I'll need to stay off the road for 8 - 12 weeks.  SCREECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Back UP the stupid truck.

"WHAT?" I exclaimed, somewhat panicky. 

He nodded slowly to be sure that I got it.  I guess his definition for me probably falls in the "stupid" category too.  My heart dropped to my stomach.  I was JUST getting started.  It was JUST starting to get a little easier.  I gulped back stupid tears that do not usually come from my eyes and told him that I understood.  He told me that he'd see me in 3 weeks and left me sitting along with the assistant, who was STILL working on the boot. 

She finally finished up and I managed a laugh.  "I guess it's a good thing you put this on my left foot, huh?Probably pretty hard to drive with it on your right foot."

She gave me a hard look, "Oh, you're not supposed to drive with this thing on - they'll give you a ticket if they catch you."

Oh my goodness.  So, I'm going to have to alternate this thing between legs all day AND make sure it's on my left foot every time I have to drive somewhere????  Which is what I do all day long....it couldn't get much worse. 

But then I hopped off the table to go check out.  I grabbed my stuff and started to take off at my usual "mom-on-the-go" pace, except that I couldn't.  I almost tripped over myself and broke something else before I even left the exam room.  I limped to the check-out desk and scheduled my next appointment seriously choking back tears at this point.  How would I keep up with my kids??  As soon as I got outside, I quickly called a friend to tell her what happened so that I could joke about it instead of cry. 

I allowed about 37.5 minutes to throw myself a pity party.

And then, I toughened up.  Lots of people deal with worse things every day.  I WILL figure out a way to get around and do everything I always do with my kids.  I WILL rest up.  I WILL not be stupid again.  And while I'm at it, I'm going to start swimming which I have always WANTED to do and is now basically the only thing I'm ALLOWED to do.  And work on my abs.  Lord knows they need some serious attention.

Moral of the story?  Listen to your body.  It knows best.  I'm sure going to start tuning in.