Injury Timeline


Sunday, July 26, 2015

Pimp My Scooter

I am coming up on 3 weeks post-op, and I'm feeling pretty good about things.

My new scooter arrived via Amazon, and the first important order of business was to pimp that sucker out!




Sheepskin cover for my knee pad?  Check!
Headlight (recycled from Nate's Ragnar gear) for nighttime bathroom trips?  Check!
Basket for carrying stuff and things?  Check!
Purple bike bell for warning both husband and animals to get out my way?  Check!

Now I can scoot in style.  I've also lovingly named my scooter "Trumpy" ( Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Pod People reference for all you non-nerds.)








This week, I found an inspiring blog post from one of my favorite female athletes, Amelia Boone. http://raceipsa.blogspot.com/2014/12/on-being-broken-rehab-and-recovery.html She injured her knee training for the Spartan World Championships and had to have surgery, and was out of the sport for a while.  I think a lot of things she said resonated with me.  When a huge part of your life revolves around being active, and you are sidelined with an injury, you feel like a part of you, a part of your personality and identity, is gone with it.  You have to find the things you love and have passion about that don't revolve around being active, whether that is taking up a new hobby or simply changing your routine.  It can be so easy to have a pity party, and sit around feeling sorry for yourself, but you've got to push through that and find ways to keep yourself happy.  Which is exactly what I did.







I have a home gym in my basement, with a TRX and a set of powerblock dumbbells.  I knew I couldn't do one of my typical workouts, but I just got a little creative and managed to work up quite a sweat!  I figured this foot injury was a chance to focus on some upper body strength, so I worked on my chest press, rows, shoulder press, 1-legged push-ups, tricep kickbacks and bicep curls.  I also found a ton of core exercises to do, included some 1-legged planking!  It actually felt really great to get back to some physical activity, after a couple of weeks of being couch-bound.  It's pretty amazing what a good workout can do for your body AND your mind.  And most importantly, I still can activate beast mode!






I also had a lot of outings (Nate calls them adventures!) this week too.  It's pretty important to get out of the house.  I saw three movies (Terminator Genisys, Ant-Man and Inside Out), went to two grocery stores and even cooked a meal.  My cousin Mark came through with my 3rd treat-of-the-week from Spain, which included chocolate covered figs with brandy, fig preserves, breakfast muffins, and tabasco infused olive oil!





A while back, I'd posted if there was a medal for the LisFranc injury, and all the bones I broke in my foot.  Turns out, there is!  Cuca, Todd, and Clara made me my very own personalized medal!


 













It's now been given a permanent place on my medal hanger!


All in all, Week 3 has had more ups than downs, which is a good thing.  My foot is healing, and I can feel it getting better each day.  Each morning, I test my toe wiggling skills, and they are improving bit by bit.  I am starting to get some movement back in my big toe even!    The cast hasn't been too bad, it feels like my foot is more protected than in the splint.  My toes are exposed though, and when I'm out in public I have severe PTSD of my toes getting bumped and sending pain shockwaves up my leg, so I try to keep them out of the way as much as possible.

Next week, I start returning to work, but I'll be mostly virtual.  I hope to make it in the office soon though, even maybe next week, because I miss my co-workers so much!  It was nice having actual, live, physical people to talk to.  I also miss all of my gym buddies at work.  I plan to still make gym appearances, but all my exercises will be above the waist.  Which, I'm finding, is a TON of stuff!  I think my mood will improve once I start to get back to "normal life" which includes going in to work AND the gym.  I'm still just really bummed that I haven't been able to hit the mountains this hiking season.  I had dreams of doing Olympus and Timpanogos.  I'm still hoping I can do the Color Run in my wheelchair though :)

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