My how time flies!

I have a new fitness goal for 2015, so I thought I'd start a blog as a place to discuss it and record the journey.  That led me back to this blog, which I'd totally forgotten about!  Wow...reading all of this (particularly about the foot injury) really brings back memories.  A lot has happened since I last wrote here, so let me see if I can't hit on the major events since then....

Late October of 2012, we closed on a new house in town and moved in by the end of the month.  We started working on fixing up the house and farm in Gaston for sale.

December of 2012, I walked the Rock n Roll half marathon with friends.  It was hell.  I will NEVER do that again.  If I can't run a half, I'm not doing it.  Physically, it was incredibly painful (all over, not just in my foot) but mentally, it was unreal.  Had it not been for my friends who walked it with me, I would never had made it.  Huge props to them!

May of 2013, I was signed up to race the Canby Gator Grinder tri, but I opted against it.  I was having back, hip and random leg issues.  I could not get into a running groove without injury.  I tried crossfit but I was having too much pain (particularly back pain).  Multiple doctors and x-rays later, diagnosis was that I had two or three degenerating discs in my back.  They said I'd have to give up running.  I didn't buy it.  I felt like if I could get stronger in my core, it wouldn't be an issue.  I started Pilates with a classically trained instructor in April of 2013.

Late May 2013: We closed on the sale of our house/farm in Gaston.

June 2013: We took our first real vacation since our honeymoon in 2003!  We went to Kauai for 10 days and it was fabulous.  Neither of us had ever been to Hawaii and we really enjoyed it.

July 2013: Re-joined Leanness Lifestyle, now called Leanness Lifestyle University (LLU).

October 2013, I ran the Girlfriend's Half marathon in 2:23.  Not a PR, but I finished feeling VERY strong and happy.

December 2013, I ran the Holiday Half in downtown Portland in 2:11.  PR.  Take that, degenerative discs and lisfranc joint!! Score a win for Pilates!!

January 2014: Finished LLU Lifestyle 180 course at 138 lbs (down from a start of 163).

May 2014: Raced the Canby Gator Grinder and got second in my age group.  I got motion-sick from the swim (which explains why I threw up on the bike leg a few years ago!) but still managed a decent overall time.  Looking forward to rocking 2015 with Dramamine on my side. ;-)

Also in May 2014 (a week post-race), Rick shattered his lower left leg in a slow-motion motorcycle crash in the woods of south western Oregon.  Surgery one was May 18th to have an external fixator attached to his leg.  Three weeks on the couch (literally) in prep for surgery two on June 5th.  I was tasked with a LOT of home-care for this poor guy over the next few months.  To say 'it was a challenge' just does not do either of us justice. But we made it through.

October 2014: Ran the Portland Half Marathon in 2:20.  Not my fastest by any stretch, but I was not well trained at all so I'm pleased with the time given the circumstances.

November 2014: Rick is finally done with crutches and has started working with a PT at Adapt Training in Beaverton.  HUGE improvements!  We both have big plans for 2015.

And this brings us up to date to today, late December 2014.   There were a few other major events (volunteering to cover a second job at work, the announcement of our merger, etc) but most of what I documented here is directly related to my fitness journey.

For 2015, I have a number of goals but the big one and the one that has prompted the revival of this blog is my goal to streak.  Starting on January 1, I plan to start a run streak.  This means that I will run every single day.  I will run at least a mile (in the beginning, there may be some run-walking done as I adjust), every day.  I was given a runners world daily calendar for Christmas that prompted the idea and then I bought a spiral bound journal to help it a long. I will use the journal to record the specifics every day, but when I'm feeling verbose, I'll come here.  Goal 1 is 7 days in a row starting January 1st.  We'll take it from there....

Freedom!!

I should have posted about this sooner, but last Tuesday I finally got my hard cast off!!

My doctors appointment went well.  He was examining my foot (post-cast removal) and said that I was healing well and had good mobility.  He said that the good news was that I could swim tomorrow.   The bad news was that I was still months away from running.  In fact, after having done some additional research on lisfranc joint injury recovery, he said that it could be 6 - 9 months post injury before I was allowed to even start running.  Joy.

But the good news was very good.  No more cast!  Swimming!  Working on assisted walking!  Biking on the trainer in a couple of weeks!  All good!

After my appointment, I went home and scrubbed the crap out of my foot and lower leg.  I expected to be hairy (it makes sense!), but I was shocked at how much dead skin had built up in there.  It was NASTY! I will say that the first night of sleeping with a naked foot on soft, clean sheets was pure heaven.  Except for fear that I'd hurt myself, I would have slept great!

Then I got on a plane for Florida.  The first real advantage to this injury was getting to go straight through security with no line and lots of people to help me.  That was a super change of pace!  The rest of the trip was annoying, but uneventful.

In Florida, I finally got a chance to get a little exercise.  I've managed to half hour swims of a little more than 1K yards and it's been wonderful!  I'm even managing to walk on it a whole hell of a lot more than I expected at this point.  My doc's goal for me was to be walking with only the boot and possibly a little without it on soft surfaces by my next appointment in 6 weeks.  That would mean a couple of weeks of using both crutches for support, then a week of just one crutch and then a couple of weeks of just the boot.  I'm already comfortable walking with just one crutch and occasionally (for short distances) without them at all.  Yay me!  I am gauging my progress on pain, and I've had very little.  I'm supposed to be stressing that joint to build it up, so this progress is kind of mandatory if I expect to feel anything.  Both crutches with the boot never gets sore on my foot...I just get tired!

Anyway, I'm glad to be making progress!  Here are a few photos:

My foot immediately after cast removal...icky!

First attempt at kicking in the pool.

My newly pedicured toes in the lovely walking boot that I get to wear around.

Thankfulness

I am thankful for baby wipes, the 'cast condom' and sleep.

Baby wipes:

These things are the only thing keeping my poor toes clean.  I can't get them wet because they are really too close to the bottom of my cast, so I baby wipe them every day or so.  I even painted my toenails for awhile but ended up removing that because it looked so odd when my foot was purple from blood flow.

The 'cast condom' - or a Curad cast protector

This thing is great.  It's a thin rubbery membrane that has a hole at the top that just barely fits over my cast.  You stretch it a bit to make it fit and then it sits tightly against my leg just above the cast.  It's reusable as long as I'm careful.  I've gotten about two weeks of showers out of each one (two in a package).  SOOO much easier than plastic bags and tape!  There are also covers that have a plastic ring at the top, but those wouldn't work for me as I need to be able to kneel in the shower and that ring would make it impossible.  After my shower, I lightly dry off the cover and then hang it from a towel bar until next time.  Thank you, Curad!!

Sleep.

This kind of needs no explanation but I'm going to explain it anyway.  I typically do well on about 7-8 hours of sleep a night.  What I am finding that since the injury/surgery, I needed at least 9 hours and sometimes 10.  I mean, I needed it.  If I only got 8, I was dragging ass all day.  I expect this is from my body's attempt at healing.  But this isn't why sleep is on my list.  Sleep is here because sleep is what I do when I just can't take it anymore.  Sleep gives me sanity.  When I'm asleep, I'm a normal person.  I'm not hobbling, I'm not banging into doors with my crutches, I'm not hopping, I'm in no danger of falling over, I'm not sitting all contorted with my foot in the air, I'm not driving around looking for drive-thrus because I can't carry anything in my hands while on crutches, and most importantly, I'm not thinking about 'how much longer I have to have this stupid cast on my leg/foot'.  I'm just a normal person asleep.  And of course, each night that I go to sleep, I wake up one day closer to my next appointment and possibly a walking cast.  Sleep rocks.

Speaking of drive-thrus...the other day I was laughing at myself when I realized that I needed a drive through  grocery store.  Up until this injury, I spent my life avoiding drive throughs, sitting and parking too close to buildings.  I would intentionally go into restaurants or dry cleaners, stand whenever I could and park at spaces far away from entrances just to give myself more activity.  Now I'm thankful for drive-thurs, chairs and my disabled parking permit.  How depressing.  Thankfully, it's temporary!

Mobility's a B1tch

Tomorrow it will be 5 week since I injured my foot.  That's 5 weeks with zero weight-bearing on it.  I've got a minimum of another 3 weeks and then I'll have another doctor's appointment.  I don't really know what will happen from there but I'm hopeful (without being too hopeful) that I'll get a walking boot of some sort.  We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm beginning to master the ability to be mobile.  When I leave the house, I drive my beat up little 20 year old Honda Civic with my left foot while my right foot remains elevated on the passenger seat.  My crutches fit nicely across the back seat.  When I park, the crutches come out and I can get around at a good clip.  I've developed a pretty decent level coordination with them, and honestly, I don't mind them most of the time.  The greatest problem is that it is virtually impossible to carry anything while 'crutching'.  I've got it down to where I can carry two small things, one in each hand, and still crutch well enough.  This is how I managed to buy a lipstick and a pack of baby wipes at Walgreen's the other day.  (Look for a future post on bathing to learn about the baby wipes!)

Knee Scooter by Drive

When I am at home, I drop the crutches into the corner and jump on the above knee scooter.  I do this because on the knee scooter, I can have my hands more free.  I'm still somewhat limited because it still needs to be steered, but it's better than crutches.  We live in a 1 level ranch that is fairly spacious inside, so I can manouver fairly well.  It is useless in four places - the kitchen where I don't have a good turning radius, going to the basement, my closet and outside.

Hands-free crutch by IWalkFree (rented from Goodbye Crutches)

When in the kitchen, needing to go to the basement, in my closet for any length of time, or outside, I switch to my hands-free crutch.  I actually call it my 'peg leg'.  I had to make some alterations to the platform on which my shin rests to accommodate my cast in comfort, but it works well.  I can walk with it without using my hands (except down stairs...I still need my hands for that) and it works on uneven terrain like the back yard.  It's physically a challenge to operate it...particularly outside, but it makes some things SO much easier.  The only problem is that my leg is wedged in there really tightly, so after a few hours, it aches and I need to straighten it and stretch out.  It really is a HUGE help though and frankly, could be a total game changer for some people.  I haven't felt the need to use it outside the house yet because I'm mostly OK with using my crutches, but I can see how it could be very handy.

While all this is working out OK and generally I'm fine with it, I do miss walking.  I find that sometimes I really need to talk myself off the ledge and think patient thoughts because I've still got a minimum of 3 weeks left and quite possibly more.  This is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one!

Fun photos for posterity

What my toes looked like while I still had the splint on:

What my new hard cast looks like (sort of - color is a lovely rich purple in real life):

What my foot looks like inside this cast:

What my foot looks like on the inside:

Post-Surgery

Wow.  I have a pretty high pain threshold.  I also have very little tolerance for any narcotic pain medication, so I tend to get pretty stoic about pain.  And for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me how painful a foot could be.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I had my surgery on March 15th.  Everyone was super nice and super efficient.  I was highly impressed when Krissy was able to get an IV going on me on the first attempt.  That's never happened before.  Apparently, my veins are 'valvey' which has proven highly painful and annoying in the past.  Not this time.  Smooth as silk except that the IV site did start to ache at one point.  The anesthesiologist was great, too.  I felt like I was in good hands!

I remember nothing of the surgery at all. I awoke with this odd sensation in my right foot, but little awareness to much else.  My doc came by, but I only barely remember the conversation.  He did say that it went well and he gave me two films of the post-surgery xray to keep.  As I became more awake, I realized how nauseated I was.  It got worse.  And my foot started to really ache, too.  Over the course of my recovery, they gave me three doses of whatever pain med was in my IV (it made me loopy and nauseated) and a Vicodin by mouth.  They wanted me to demonstrate that I could eat and that I could pee before they'd let me go home.  By then, my husband was there and he said I looked green.  I managed to put down a little applesauce but kept refusing the offer of crackers or muffins.  When Krissy came back, she remembered that I was paleo and asked if a little jello would be OK.  I agreed since I had to eat something!

My husband eventually got the go ahead to take me home and I spent the whole ride trying really hard not to throw up in the car.  I finally got a chance to look at those xray films and I had THREE huge screws in my foot!  No wonder it hurt like hell - clearly there was some bone drilling going on there.  The nurse said that a slight fever was common with bone work like that but to monitor it and if it went up, to call immediately.  She also said that the pain would get worse before it got better as the localized numbing agent they gave me wore off.  Oh fun.  The doc told my husband that I'd completely torn the ligament from the bone in that joint.

I spent the next 4 days basically on the couch in a lot of pain and trying not to throw up everything I put in my mouth.  I avoided taking any additional doses of the meds and survived on Tylenol and Advil (after approval from my doc).  The foot pain was intense.  I slept in the guest room so that I wouldn't keep my husband up and there was no danger of him accidentally banging into me.

Now it's 6 days post-surgery.  There is still quite a bit of pain, but at least now it's manageable.  Everything that I do takes forever.  Putting away dishes, cleaning the kitchen, showering, cooking, etc.  My husband has been doing it all for days, so I'm trying to pick up a few things here and there, but wow...  I have my crutches that I use when out of the house, and when in the house, I mostly use a knee scooter.  I'll write more on the scooter later, but it allows me more use of my hands than crutches do.

I know that some day I'll both walk and run again...but honestly, that's very hard to even imagine at this point.  Ah well, each day brings new improvements, so I'll survive.  I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other (so to speak)...right?

Training Plan

I know that my surgery is only two days away, but I can't help but think about how I'm going to get back into shape once this is done.  Many people with similar experiences (and one who is a PT who deals with injury rehab all the time) have told me how important it is to maintain as much of my muscle mass as possible.  My calf is going to wither away to nothing and there is very little I can do about that....BUT, there are lots of things I can do to maintain the rest of my strength.

My plan will be to do a lot of upper body workouts, lots of core stuff and even a few lower body workouts that are floor-based.  I've got one or two from my old collection of FIRM videos/DVD's that I need to pull out.  I also have plans to remain as active as possible.  This means doing a lot of things for myself around the house.  It also means traveling by crutches whenever it is practical to do so.  I may even consider a lunch time walk out around the tiny lake out behind my office building once the weather improves.  I know it'll freak people out to see me out there by choice, but I often freak people out so I'm not concerned. ;-)

It has been a very long while since I've done any workout videos.  Once I've had a chance to preview all the ones I think might work, I'm going to create a little training plan for myself.  I expect that they'll be fairly short in length, so my goal will be do to at least one per day with a pretty significant focus on core stuff.

Someday, I'll get to swim again...but until then, this will have to do.