One more happier note

My employer is quite active with charities and frequently buys tables at charitable events and then offers the tickets to the employees.

In April, I won two tickets to the Dream Gala, which supports the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. It was super swanky, people were dressed to the nines and the entire event was amazing and magical.

I was so proud of both my employer and Kansas City—that event raised over $1.8 million! 

On a happier note

Kent and I were in Boston/Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago for a dear friend’s 40th birthday celebration. We had the best time catching up with that entire group—I still think the most wonderful thing about having lived in Boston for five years was the friends we made.

In Detroit

We flew just two days after I’d gotten the news I had a pelvic fracture, so I reluctantly called Delta and arranged wheelchair assistance in the airports. That felt so weird, but honestly I’m glad I did it. I’m good with crutches and my arms are quite strong but airports are big, and people are oblivious. Delta was fantastic—I’ve been a loyal customer for years and this only solidified my loyalty.

I didn’t take many pictures. It’s hard to do that on crutches and honestly I was more interested in being fully present in the moment.

Pleasant Bay

My amazing husband

Ready for our friend's 40th birthday party!

Another view of Pleasant Bay

Establishing that mind/body connection

I mentioned in my update post that my orthopedist told me I need to rethink the mind/body connection so that I pay attention to signals my body sends when something’s wrong. It would be more accurate to say I need to start paying attention. I’ve spent my entire life disassociated from my body, so I can’t rethink something I’ve never done. Unfortunately, I’m a pro at ignoring signals from my body.

For instance:

• I took a hard fall from the top of a pretty tall slide when I was 9. Remember, I was a child in the dark ages when our playground equipment had zero safety features, and the playgrounds were hard-packed dirt, not the cushy stuff used today. I landed flat on my back and knocked the wind out of myself. My lower back felt awful, sort of unstable, but I didn’t tell anyone I’d fallen or that my back hurt. That night I remember lying on the daybed in our basement in Bryn Mawr watching the moon landing and thinking I wish my back weren’t hurting. It’s pretty much hurt ever since.*  
• When I was 19, I had all the symptoms of appendicitis for three weeks. I finally went to the clinic because I threw up (hate, hate, hate to throw up) and was in surgery three hours later. My surgeon later told me that if I’d waited one more day, I would have died. My small intestine was compromised, I had an NG tube for about 5 days and a 7-inch long incision.
• I went on to have four abdominal surgeries in five years and had a fair amount of pain and discomfort in my lower back (same place from that fall). But what’s the prevailing advice if you have back pain? Do more core work, you’ve got a weak core and once that’s strong, then your back will be good to go. I cannot tell you how much ab work I’ve done over the years. Point in fact, my core is rock solid. That back pain never went away, and I never thought to mention it to any doctor I ever saw. More about that in a moment.
• I had an MRI a few years ago to see why my ears were always plugged up. When I met with my ENT to discuss the results, he asked me how often I had sinus infections. Never, I said. He told me that I had a raging sinus infection right then and showed it to me on the MRI. That was a recalibration exercise for me right there as I realized the face melting headaches I’d had all my life were in fact sinus infections. That particular sinus infection took two rounds of antibiotics to cure.
• About that back pain. The same MRI that diagnosed my pelvic fracture also diagnosed mild degenerative disc disease in L4-L3. Guess where that is? Yup, the same spot that’s been hurting me all these years.
• And of course, I ran a 10K on Memorial Day this year with a fractured pelvis. Yes, I was in pain—enough pain that I had to walk a fair amount, enough pain that my average pace was 90 seconds more a mile than usual, enough pain that I was nearly puking the whole way through. I still didn't stop. Once I ran across the finish line, that was it. I haven’t walked normally since then.

Right this second, I’m trying to pay attention. I say trying because this is hard. Now I feel all the aches and pains, all the discomfort and it’s not pleasant. OK that’s an understatement. I’m in pain and not just from the fracture. I don’t like this at all and to be honest, I long for that disassociation because at least then I don’t hurt.

I’m sure if you aren’t wired this way, I sound utterly insane.




*By the way, I'm not dissing today’s playgrounds—I couldn’t have taken the fall I did if the slide had been both shorter and made of that industrial plastic used today. I was basically skiing down the slide with sand under my shoes. I didn't get enough sand for that trip, caught an edge of my sneaker at the top of the slide and flipped right over. I don't think you can ski down today's slides that way.

An update

I saw the orthopedist yesterday afternoon. This was the first time I’d seen him (I saw the physician’s assistant in the urgent orthopedic clinic on May 29, which is also when I had the x-ray taken—I had the MRI on June 1).

Good news:

No proximal femur fracture or stress reaction, no right hip effusion, hip cartilage is normal, ligaments are good, and gluteal tendon attachments are good.

Not so good news:

I’ve got a nondisplaced transverse fracture of the right inferior pubic ramus with extensive bone marrow edema and adjacent edema in the inferior fibers of the right obturator externus muscle (which is consistent with a low-grade muscle strain). I also have mild right hamstrings origin tendinosis and left hamstrings origin tendinosis, both with no tearing.

What’s next?

Well this is the hard part. No exercise, zero exercise for the next six weeks. I think I probably blanched at that part. He was really clear though. He told me that I won’t be running for three months (best case) and that I need to rethink and reconnect with the signals my body sends me. No running through pain, no ignoring it because next time, it might be far more catastrophic and completely end running for me. He just did a hip replacement on a 28 year old female, he said, who ran through the pain. Yeah, I don’t want to be that woman. And to be honest, this is about what I expected. The internet is a wonderful resource, and Dr. Google had warned me this would almost certainly be a lengthy recovery.

He’ll take more x-rays in six weeks to see how the bone is healing and I may be cleared then for some very light exercise (think upper body). But yeah, no running, he said, unless I’m being chased by a rabid dog.

For now, I’m on crutches as I need them. I can sort of gimp around the house on one crutch but it’s dicey at work—people don’t always realize I need a bit more clearance coming through. But I expect to be off them in a couple of weeks. I can put weight on the leg now which is a huge improvement. What hurts is bringing my leg forward, or doing anything that involves moving left or right.

Stay tuned. I’m determined to recover completely from this and in the meantime, I guess I’ll have to learn to be patient.

I’m not very patient

I am sitting here on a Sunday evening, nearly a week after getting injured. I don’t have a diagnosis yet, I don’t have a treatment plan yet, and I’m frustrated.

To be fair, I’ve had an x-ray and an MRI, and I do have a follow up appointment on June 11. But that’s a week off and in the meantime, I’m supposed to stay off that leg which means staying on the crutches.

But on Friday, we fly to Boston to see our friends. It’s a short trip—out on Friday, drive down to the Cape, celebrate a friend’s significant birthday Friday night, all day Saturday and Saturday night, then drive back to Boston on Sunday and fly home. And to complicate things further, we’d originally booked non-stop flights from Kansas City to Boston, only Delta changed the outbound flights and we now change planes in Detroit.

I may not have elite status any more on Delta, but I do know the airports. Let’s just say that Detroit isn’t a great airport if you have mobility issues. Plus our connection time is pretty tight. I've reluctantly booked wheelchair assistance in Detroit.

I have to say, that feels so weird. But I’m also realistic and even though my arms aren’t sore at all from using these crutches, getting from one gate to another if we also have to change concourses would be an ordeal (and we will almost certainly have to change concourses).

Mostly I miss running. I sure hope that on June 11, I get a diagnosis and a plan to get me running again.