Showing posts with label broken foot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label broken foot. Show all posts

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Another anniversary

A year ago, I was out running a planned 18 mile run in training for a marathon. Only at mile 6, my foot broke (I didn’t know that’s what that pain was) and I was 4 miles from home. That ended my marathon training, of course, and I started the rehab process again.

Today, Kent and I volunteered at the Kansas City Triathlon as running marshals. Unfortunately, Kansas City had torrential rain today, and the triathlon was changed to a duathlon: 1 mile run, 20 mile bike, then a 20k run. 

Kent and I were put in separate spots, I couldn’t see him or any other marshals and there were no spectators where we were. So, I stood alone in the rain and waited and waited for the first runners to appear. Let me tell you, those elite athletes were really moving! 

I made it a point to cheer for every runner as they passed—my thinking was that I’ve always done better when someone cheers me on at a race and even if I’m not yet in racing condition, I can sure return the favor. So many of them thanked me for cheering them on, for being there, and boy that was humbling. Yes, it was miserable weather and I was cold and wet even with my running rain jacket on. But I also hadn’t run a mile, biked another 20 and then been running another 12ish miles in that weather.

This was a good way to mark a not great anniversary. Next up, I’m going to be talking with a personal trainer in the Kansas City area. I’m ready to gear up my training for the marathon I missed last year. I want to be in my best possible shape for that (and NO broken bones).

Thursday, December 31, 2020

2020 in review

Last year I was so very glad to see 2019 end. It had not been a great year for me, and I had high hopes for this year. I had some running goals, some health goals, work goals, etc. Yeah so that didn’t exactly go as planned, huh.

What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before? 

  • In January, I was 35 miles away from a major volcano eruption in the Philippines. What I thought were little flies biting me were actually pieces of volcanic ash bouncing off my face. At the time, we had no idea if we would be able to fly back to the States as Taal kept rumbling. Hard to believe that was this year.
  • I ran the furthest I’ve ever run as I trained for my first ever marathon (not quite 18 miles, more about that later).
  • I ran two virtual half marathons. Ugh, virtual races are just not much fun.
  • My third metatarsal in my right foot broke right up high in the neck while running. 
  • And of course I’m living in a time of pandemic (or to use a more Biblical term, a pestilence). 

Did anyone close to you give birth? 

Grace Elizabeth was born January 25, 2020. I'm still incredibly honored that she shares a name with me, and I am so glad I’ve gotten to visit her and her parents twice this year. I wish it were more.

Did anyone close to you die? 

No. But I’m definitely affected by the COVID-related deaths this year. I don’t see how you can be a normal human being with any kind of heart and not be affected.

Did you suffer illness or injury? 

Yes. Once again I broke a bone while doing the sport I love. This thing has taken forever to heal, which is very annoying. I’ve also had nerve pain from the top of my right foot shooting down into my big toe since last March. None of the orthopedists I’ve seen are concerned so while I have a scheduled nerve conduction test in April, I’m continuing to work out. If the weather ever cooperates, I will bike and run, foot pain be damned. 

As with the broken pelvis, I’m using a bone growth stimulator and will be for another 130+ days.

What countries did you visit? 

In January, I spent three weeks in Manila for work. Volcano and the start of the pandemic aside, that was a really cool trip and I’m glad I got to see a part of the world I probably wouldn’t have gone to on my own dime.

What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020? 

A vaccine for COVID. 

I’d also like to break a pattern that seems to be emerging in my life:

  • 2017—cancer diagnosis
  • 2018—bone fracture
  • 2019—cancer diagnosis
  • 2020—bone fracture
  • 2021—??

What dates from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 

  • January 12: Taal erupted 
  • January 25: Grace was born
  • February 3: I turned 60
  • February 14: we met Grace
  • March 13: my city locked down for COVID and we began working from home (I will be working from home at least through the end of June 2021)
  • May 6: third metatarsal broke
  • August 22: got my hair cut short and went blonde 

There are other events but the dates aren’t etched—we got to see Grace and her family over Labor Day weekend but sadly have had to cancel all other trips. 

What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

In April, along with probably every other sewist in the country, I fired up my sewing machine and cranked out nearly 100 face masks for friends, family and in one case, the family of a friend (that family lives in Ireland so I can truthfully say my masks were international!).

One real bright spot this year, or I should more accurately say two bright spots are our COVID kittens. I'm so glad we got them. 

I also decided to give veganism a try. Originally I planned to try for about a month but here I am, nearly at the six month mark and I think I'll stick with it. Health-wise I already had great numbers for cholesterol but saw huge improvement there anyway. My LDL dropped from 70 to 35, which made me blink! 

And I busted through a big hang up of mine when SheFit asked me to send a photo of me wearing their bra to be used in a social media campaign. 

But honestly this year has felt like I’m just marking time. I’d planned to train and run my first full marathon this year both as a way to say screw you cancer and to celebrate turning 60. I was very disappointed when the race went virtual but of course on May 6, it was all moot anyway when my foot broke. 

I did run two virtual half marathons, and I don’t think I’ll do that again. It’s just a real slog. 

What was the best thing you bought? 

I wrote a very long post about things we bought this year to make our home comfy and cozy.

Where did most of your money go? 

And of course, that post also describes where our money went (as it sure didn’t go for traveling). We did have a lot of medical expenses but not nearly what we had in 2019.

What did you get really excited about? 

I didn't know it was going to happen, but my mother, sister and brother surprised me so much I staggered when they were all at a restaurant to celebrate my 60th birthday. That was absolutely surreal and wonderful.

I was so excited to be training to run that marathon. I’d done a lot of research to find one that was not horrible in terms of the route but also not hard to travel to, and Grandma’s seemed like the perfect one. Plus it’s in June so I knew I could get in a proper training schedule since I wouldn’t have to do most of the training in winter. And I’d found a running coach because I wanted to train safely and sanely.

So words are inadequate, I cannot tell you how heartsick I was when I broke my foot. I sat in that urgent orthopedic clinic and knew, I just knew that it was broken and that I would not be healed in time to run the marathon. I’m not much of a crier, but I teared up there in that office.

And in November when it looked like I had a non-union fracture, I was crushed. I’d already been researching bikes so that same day I got that news, I went to a local bike shop and ordered a bike. I’ve been able to ride a few times but I need it to be a little less windy and I also need shoe covers to be able to ride in the Kansas winter weather.

For the second year in a row, it’s been a really hard year. I sometimes feel as though I’m digging a hole in dry sand only of course the sand will not stay out of the hole so I keep digging, digging, digging, all for nothing.

What book(s) did you love this year? 

I continue to be an indiscriminate reader (escapism at its finest) and devour all sorts of fiction, especially science fiction, some fantasy (I’m very, very picky) and a fair amount of post-apocalyptic fiction. 

However I don’t advise reading Station Eleven when in a foreign country as a pandemic starts (yes, I thought I would re-read it when I was in Manila and COVID-19 was breaking loose in China and Southeast Asia—not my best plan). 

What song will always remind you of 2020? 

Once again, I’m boring. I’ve been listening to the Housewerks playlist on Spotify. This song cracked me up last spring.

Friday, December 4, 2020

Neural flossing or what’s next with my foot

 Yes! Another update about my foot!

I saw the fourth doctor yesterday—this is the one who’s a foot/ankle specialist. He reviewed my MRI and examined my foot. He said he thinks the bone is healing based on what he sees in the MRI. The pain/discomfort where the bone broke is almost certainly due to how it’s healed. Because it’s the third metatarsal, and because of the way people walk, the bone has a tiny upward curve now. That’s not a malunion. He said the pain that I feel on both sides of the healed broken bone are the second and fourth metatarsals experiencing a bit of stress. It’s nothing to worry about. So that was good.

But I’ve had nerve pain radiating from the top of my foot down through the big toe since mid-March. I’d gotten seen for that right before lock-down and nothing showed on the x-ray. I re-laced my shoes, so the laces didn’t cross that top boney part and tied them quite loosely as sometimes runners have pain from overly tight laces. 

That didn’t help, unfortunately. Fast forward to today and I have the shooting burning pain through my big toe, up toward my ankle now also and pins and needles across the ball of my foot. That nerve pain caught his attention. He’s referred me to get a nerve conduction test and an EMG. He warned me those are not pleasant tests but said they’ll help identify any issues with how my nerves are working.  He also asked if I were using Voltaren (which I am) and, he said, some people have found relief with CBD oil. Well I don’t have CBD oil, but I do have a lotion and some ointments. 

He also recommended I do neural or nerve flossing for my foot, which may help with the pain. I’ve done something similar with my piriformis when I was in PT for that a few years ago, and found some tutorials on foot neural flossing on Youtube.

So the referral has been placed. Now that I’ve had a hot minute to think things through, I’m going to ask for those tests to be scheduled in January. As Kent says, we are in the stage of life where we’re probably going to hit our deductibles every year so no worries there. Plus I’d like to see if the neural flossing and various gels and ointments help. I won’t lie, the idea of that EMG test horrifies me, needles in my foot? Plus electric currents? YOUCH.

Bonus kitten picture collage of Annie. Both kittens are growing and doing well, no signs of parasites any more and they're still snuggly purr machines. Annie tends to flop around like this a lot and is proof that cats are liquid.



Wednesday, August 26, 2020

About my foot—an update

I broke the third metatarsal on May 16 (the break is in the foot, not the toe but it’s the third metatarsal). It broke clean through and as I wrote then, my orthopedist put me in a walking boot and continued following up with me.

I saw him June 23, when he said I could ditch the boot and use the carbon plate, and then again on August 4. At that point he said I could stop wearing the plate but I wasn’t cleared to run for another three months. I'm to see him then.

I’ll admit I tried a couple of trots (cannot call them runs) and my foot hurt, so I stopped. Things improved and I thought great, this may take a lot longer than I want but I’m on the mend.

Except in the last few weeks, I’ve had a shooting burning pain on the top of my toe on the same foot. Basically, it hurts when I point my toe. So if I were in child’s pose, my toe would hurt like the dickens. Since that wasn’t a broken bone issue, I got an appointment with the podiatrist I saw a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately about four days ago, the broken spot in my foot started hurting again. Ugh.

I saw the podiatrist today and told her about both things, and about the weird pain I’d had on the top of that same foot way back in March right as lockdown started. She got an x-ray of my foot and yep, she said, you can clearly see the break.

She thinks that painful spot on the top of my foot may have been referred pain from the third metatarsal as it was in the process of breaking.

The burning pain, she said, is almost certainly nerve pain. The medial dorsal cutaneous nerve runs from that bony spot on the top of the foot to the big toe and the next toe--it splits and each toe gets a nerve. She said that nerve has probably been aggravated by all of this and by the micro adjustments I make when I walk due to the broken foot. And it's true, I'm not walking normally, I can tell.

What’s less clear is whether it’s healing properly or not. She said there’s a chance I have a delayed union, or possibly a nonunion fracture. Because I was diagnosed over three months ago with this broken bone, she said she can prescribe a bone growth stimulator for my foot.

Well I’ve been there before with my pelvis so I know the drill.

She also wanted the records from my orthopedist so I jumped through those hoops to get those over to her. Once she’s got the original x-ray and dx from May 16, she can prescribe the bone growth stimulator. I’ll see her in another month when we’ll get another x-ray. She said we may need an MRI to see what’s going on, but we aren’t there yet.

In the meantime, I’m still not running but she did say it would be OK to use our indoor rowing machine. Rowing is boring but if that's my only option, then I guess I will be bored.

Monday, July 27, 2020

DNS so clearly DNF

On Friday, the window closes to submit marathon results for the Grandma’s Marathon this year (which is all virtual).

What to do with this?
I, of course, will have nothing to submit thanks to my broken right foot.

This is the first race I’ve not started, let alone not finished and this is hard for me.

I had a lot of meaning and significance invested in this race: the end of active cancer treatment, finally healed up from the fractured pelvis, also I’m 60 this year and that sort of seemed appropriate, to run my first marathon the year I turned 60.

Well that’s not happening. It’s hard to stay with the feelings, because they mostly suck and are centered on loss, failure, and fear that I will never be able to get back to the running I love so much.

So here I am, seven months after paying the fee to run that marathon, looking at a jacket I will never wear. I didn’t earn it and I would always feel like a fraud. Honestly, I'm not sure what to do with it.

DNS—did not start
DNF—did not finish


Tuesday, July 7, 2020

What a carbon graphite plate looks like

This is what's in my right shoe.



Even though it's very slim, it still made my right leg longer than my left, so I asked for an insert for my left shoe. And it helps, they're much closer to the same length now.



This isn't the most comfortable thing to wear. Imagine wearing shoes with soles made of wood. Your foot can't bend and it alters your gait. I look forward to ditching this as much as I did ditching the walking boot.


Monday, June 1, 2020

Where I am

Me for another 23 days
I saw the orthopedist last Tuesday, and the news was not at all what I hoped for. While this isn’t a bad break, he’s said I need to wear the boot until my next appointment—that’s not until June 23.

At first, he said no exercise at all but then relented and said anything that didn’t put weight on the foot was OK. Rowing is not OK, even though I told him I was pushing from my heels. That’s because he said it would be too easy to start pushing with the whole foot. So I have no aerobic exercise option right now because walking is also off the table. Well other than getting around the house.

At my next appointment, assuming things are healing well, he said he’ll put me in a carbon plate orthodic insert and I will be able to walk. I’m hoping rowing will be allowed then too. Running is prohibited for at least two months and more likely three months.

Long story still not so short, I can’t run the Grandma’s Marathon this summer and I won’t be able to rebuild my running in time to run a marathon this year. I’ve suspended my coaching, which hurts because I was making so much progress with him. I told him I will be back assuming I heal OK and remain gainfully employed, and he should look for me again in late July or early August. My goal at that point will be to regain my running fitness and look to run Grandma’s Marathon next June.

(this is related, bear with me)
I’ve been seeing a psychologist through the breast cancer center because having the breast cancer diagnosis and all the various treatments retriggered the post-traumatic stress disorder I have from being a childhood sexual abuse survivor. I met with her two days after I broke my foot and was pretty clearly distraught about this situation. We stopped the cognitive behavior treatment and instead she’s had me focus on staying with my grief, anger and despair over this. That’s very difficult, it’s so much easier to stuff those things back in the closet and slam the door shut. But that’s also not the way to peace and healing for me.

I’ve been writing what I feel and this weekend realized that this is yet another loss on top of already losing things that matter to me. While I haven’t actually lost running, I am concerned that a second bone has just broken while doing the sport I love. Sure, my pelvis fracture was due to too heavy a running load. I don’t deny that. But this foot bone was not. I’ve trained safely and sanely and paid strict attention to any niggles or pain in my body. I had no warning from my foot, not a twinge, at least not until the bone just broke.

When I was in my early 30s, I had a career-ending injury—I was a musician (oboist) and developed a terrible case of tendonitis in my right thumb, which spread to my hand and up my arm to my elbow and shoulder. And when I say terrible case, I mean I couldn’t sign my name to a check kind of terrible. I went through six months of physical therapy and about six months later, tried to play again. The tendonitis immediately came back. I lost something that had been part of my life since I was 10 years old and completely shaped my identity. I don’t know that I ever acknowledged that loss or felt any of that grief, except on the inside.

That’s been my fear, that I will lose running—something I love, that leaves me feeling calm and relaxed and as though I’ve accomplished something.

Monday, May 18, 2020

People keep asking me

Is it a stress fracture?

Which is annoying me all out of proportion to the question. I know why people are asking, they’re genuinely concerned, that’s all. But I got the same question when I fractured my pelvis and so now for Broken Bone 2.0, it’s annoying. Plus I'm cranky because I'm in pain.

Also I didn’t know what the difference was between a stress fracture and an acute fracture. I mean the bone is broken either way, so what difference does it make? Still, I was curious so turned to Dr. Google.

From this article I learned the following:
  • Stress fractures usually cause a progressive increase in pain that is worse with activity. This lines up with what happened when I fractured my pelvis. It started hurting a few weeks before that last race, and then boom, I could no longer walk. I think it was breaking for a couple of weeks.
  • Acute fractures typically have a sudden onset, with swelling and ecchymosis (otherwise known as bruising). And this is what happened to me on Saturday. I had zero pain in my foot and then boom, I had a lot of pain. Once I got home and took off my shoe, my foot started swelling and it’s still swollen. Normally my feet are scrawny bony things but right now you can’t see a dang bone across where my toes come into my foot. It’s Puffyville all the way. 
There’s a potential for something called a Lisfranc injury of the foot. Two months ago, I went to Urgent Care because of pain and swelling on the top of my foot. It hasn’t fully resolved so who knows, maybe that’s going on too.