If it ain’t broke don’t fix it...

Difficulties are meant to rouse you, not discourage you. The human spirit is meant to grow stronger by conflict. Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records. Today let your test become a testimony and your pain become your power! Invite adversity in. Always remember....A wounded deer leaps the highest. - Rex Crain

The phrase “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is used a lot and growing up I heard it playing sports. (Yes, for you sticklers out there, I know “ain’t” is not a word…lol)

Whether it was playing basketball and shooting the ball the "correct" way, or having the "correct" stance in baseball while in the batters box.  If it worked, I saw no reason to mess with it, despite a few coaches thinking otherwise.  Maybe that’s why at a certain point in High School I stopped playing those sports.  I didn’t want to “fix it”. (or maybe I just wasn’t any good…haha)  Same went with swimming.  I went with what worked for me, but realized in college I couldn’t do that all the time.  When the coach said to do it this way, it was a rough adjustment, since what I was doing WAS actually working, just not fast enough.  So if I wanted to get better, I had to “fix it”.  Of course it would usually work, but thats another story.

 

When it comes to body parts….you gotta fix it whether it's broke or not.  I had my appointment with the sports doctor last week and the X-Rays were clean, despite the pain.  So this week I had my bone scan.  Went to the hospital to the Nuclear Medicine department for my test.  First off, as I joked on facebook earlier in the week, I have never heard of “Nuclear Medicine” being a part of the hospital.  I meant, I always figured nuclear was something that blows up in a bomb….hey, as those that know me, I never CLAIM to be smart.  :-)

I arrive on time and as I’m sitting with the front desk person going over information she informs me that I’m going to head to the back and they take some pictures and inject some dye in me.  Then I am to come back in 3 hours for the bone scan.  Well, the look on my face and the fact I said, “I’m sorry, what was that” seemed to confuse her. 

Receptionist - Did you not know that?  

Me - Gee, what part of my facial expression or comment gave it away. 

Receptionist - (after giggling at my comment) They should have told you when you made the appointment…Do you want to reschedule?

I laughed and said that was fine.  Granted it was a bit annoying, but it made it worse that that day may have been the busiest at work for me.  At this point I needed to know what was going on with my body and delaying would just drag things out, as well as frustrate me more than I already was.

As most things usually do, it all worked out ok (Hence the reason I find it silly to stress out over things you can't control)

 

Wednesday arrives and I have my follow-up with the sports doctor to find out if I won the lottery (ok, so maybe just for the results of the tests).  He comes in smiling asking how I am, and of course in my usual sarcastic self tell him that I’m great, just figured I stop by because I’m bored…lol

He takes out the chart and the first thing he says to me is “well, you have a lot of things going on here.”

Going into this, I was obviously hoping nothing would be wrong.  But as each day passed, the pain kept getting worse and worse.  It was annoying to walk and I also was failing miserably in “hiding” my limp.  The past week more and more people were noticing and asking what happened, what's wrong, why you limping...

Now in the same sense, while I hoped nothing was wrong, I was at the point where I sorta hoped he didn’t say I was fine, because obviously I’m not. (no comments from the peanut gallery from those of you rolling your eyes at that one…lol)

Started with the foot…..good news, there is no stress fracture that showed up.  I immediately put my head down and said that’s not really good news.  He actually said he understood what I meant.  But for the bottom front of my front and top side of my foot, I have something called metatarsalgia, which is severe bruising of the bones.  Then he threw me a curveball.  I also have a stress fracture in my lower leg above my ankle, which confused me, since I really didn’t have any pain there.  That is, until he started poking around to feel….ya, funnnnn.  Right leg completed and said that it will need a boot and to stay off of it until further notice.

And just for fun, to throw a little twist in….now to the left leg.  I knew I had been having some issues w/my leg giving out on me recently and I thought it was my LCL, but my ligaments seemed fine.  He said that I have a stress reaction in my fibula, below the knee.  Seems a stress reaction is not a fracture, but a precursor to one.  I guess meaning that if my stubborn self kept running, it probably would have turned into a fracture.  Of course I had no plans to run, since it hurt just to walk.  Now lets be honest here, if I had no pain walking and just had a bit while running, I would have kept going….heehee  I mean I did I have pain at times even before the marathon but still went through with that.  He did actually ask if I had any plans to run, which I thought he was trying to be funny.  (For those of you wondering....the answer to that question is a hellll no)

 

So here is my new fashion attire.

 

I’m going to be sporting this for awhile.  It even has the Dee Brown "Pump it Up" part...Not sure it would make me able to dunk a basketball though...lol.....I go back in 3 weeks for another follow up.  If my left leg gets worse, he is leaning towards adding a boot to that leg as well.  JUST DANDY, maybe I should grab some bunny ears, a big red nose and a long tail so I stick out even more.  Have I mentioned I don’t like attention???  But as my friend Kim mentioned to me….The spotlight makes me shine. (Not sure I believe her)  Well, a lot of times my redheaded fair skinned self just likes to stay in the shade.  Teehee

I'm not alone and have had permission to vent at times.  One of the most cheerful and upbeat people I have ever met, Morgan, has a stress fracture which kept her out of running the Cleveland Marathon sent me a message and said she heard that we're twins now.  I told her I wanted to be just like her.  Unfortunately she has been a trooper for 14 weeks now....Hey Morgan, since your's is your left leg, do you want mine so you can have a matching set?  :-)

Of course at this point I may start to carry flyers around with me, that way when someone comes up to me and says “Oh my, what happened to you?”….I could give them the flyer and save both of us the time….hahaha  Ok, that didn’t mean to come off as rude.  The amount of people that have asked that is rather funny actually.  A lot of it is my fault since I spent so much time trying to hide the limp people didn’t see that much wrong with me over the last few weeks.  Heck, alot of people didn't even know I ran a marathon.

I'm kind of going with the flow for now.  I make jokes to make light of everything and have heard a few people tell me I'm awfully chipper for having this thing on.  Well, first off, it could be alot worse, it's only a boot.  Granted, it's annoying, but I'll live.  Second, I think having the past 3 weeks to "deal with it" has helped soften the blow since I sorta expected it.  Ya, it sucks that I won't be able to run just as the weather gets nice along with having the chance to run with some really great friends.  But I'll get over it, I always do, life goes on.  I'm used to it.

 

Right now I’m allowed to swim, as long as I don't push off the walls.  Luckily I’m like a fish out of water.  I just need to get back into the mindset I had, since I have not done anything as far as working out in about 2 weeks so I don't want to fall into the "lazy stage".  I don’t specifically have anything to “look forward to” as far as a specific event, and possibly won’t do another event in 2011.

 

There's always next year...lol   Ok, so it's really not that bad.  Just got thrown a curveball by the man upstairs and how it goes for the next few months is how I swing at the curve.  I can sulk and whine....and swing and miss....or figure out a way to go with it and work around da boot....and hit it out of the park.

 

Until Next Time…