Still Waiting and Recovering

It's been almost 4 months to the day of my foot surgery, and guess what...I'm still waiting and recovering. It looks very different than a few months ago, but at times it feels very much the same. I still hurt, I still worry, and I often don't see things getting better. 

(Now, before I go on, I have this disclaimer that I really do have the best husband and best friends in the world and they have been there every step of the way. However, this is how I've been feeling lately, and I feel that writing and getting it out there is the only way for me to move on).

The race season for everyone else has begun and many have run their first, or even second or third marathon of 2014, and yet still I sit and wait and recover. I knew it would be awhile and I thought I could handle it, but lately I feel like I'm doing a sucky job of it. In all reality, I'm very very sad. 

I've been going to physical therapy twice a week for 8 weeks now. I never miss, I always work hard, I do my home exercises (most of the time) and I try to cross-train with swimming, biking, and walking. I've even signed up for a sprint triathlon in August, thinking that would give me a reason to "train." I'm "progressing" according to the PT.

However, I'm missing running. Not just getting out there, but the peace and sanity it provides me. The quiet that I get in my brain that never ever stops (not even when I sleep). I feel lost and confused inside my head; day and night. I can't escape the twinges of pain, the aches in the foot, or the knowing that I can't run the way I want to....the constant reminder that I am "fixed" but yet still broken. 

Lately, I have felt like giving up running, fitness, and being active entirely. Why bother, why care... why even try?  It seems pointless because it seems there will always be a next step in my recovery. 

I often feel like I'll never be recovered and my friends will outrun me, even outgrow me, and once again I will be alone in my broken body and alone in my thoughts where the demons will devour me. (Maybe that explains the dream I had last night with fighting the snakes and demons that never seemed to stop!)

Within all this darkness and sadness, a quote that my dear friend sent to me plants it seed in my mind...I can feel it trying to take hold...to root itself into the sadness that some days consumes me... and every once in a while I feel the hope.....

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." ~Anne Lamont

*special thanks to Caolan for the quotes from Anne Lamont... visit her blog at http://www.chronicrunner.com/

Waiting and Recovering

Being injured sucks! There's no two ways about it. You sit on the chair day after day with your injury staring at you in the face, with the twinges of pain, a constant reminder that you're not better...yet.

Now, I'm trying to stay positive, and it's hard. Really hard. I have an amazing group of friends cheering me on, sending me love and healing. Which helps some, but it's still a struggle. 

I'm not one to sit still. I absolutely hate it! I'm always bouncing around the house, bouncing around work, I just bounce! However, yesterday, things changed. I fell. I was managing my way around the kitchen in my knee scooter and tried to turn. The wheel caught and it fell, and I along with it. Of course what's the first thing that hit the ground, my right foot. Yes, my foot that just had surgery 7 days ago. My foot that has a bone anchor in it holding my Posterior Tib Tendon in place.  Amazingly, I didn't curse as I went down (very quickly). I think it was something more of a painful primal scream. Everyone came running into the kitchen and I just sat there....in too much pain to even cry.  I managed with some supervision from my husband to get into bed and elevated my foot and iced it for the next few hours. This morning, I called the doctor explained what happen. Tomorrow morning, I will be heading back for more X-rays to make sure nothing came undone. That thought terrifies me! I don't want surgery again. I don't want to be out longer than I need to be. So I wait and hope I just irritated things and with rest and following rules things will calm down. 

This is my recovery spot!

It's no longer about wanting to run. Don't get me wrong, I really really want to run, but it's about getting my life back. It's about not being in some sort of pain 24/7. You see, this injury has been going on for over 3 months. In a sense it's defined me as the"injured runner". What's really sad, is that I have left that happen. 

I have a lot of work to do to get myself in a better mental place, and it is a lot of work. I need to be a patient patient and let myself heal physically. I need Ito let people help me and ask for help. But hey, I have another 2 weeks off of work to work on all of that...So the journey continues....and as my friend, Caolan, has reminded me...