Recoveries (warning: graphic content)

Never, ever, ever, ever, give up.

I haven't actually written much here or otherwise about what my recovery has really been like.  I keep meaning to but mostly it's been kind of shitty and I try not to dwell too much on that.



When big life stuff happens my tendency is often to try to rush the process.  I know that there are going to be all the feelings and I want to try to have them in as quick a succession as possible so that I can have gone through the process straight to acceptance.  It would be a very convenient thing to do if it were possible.  But instead there have been all these wild ups and downs particularly as I've been able to get back on skates and play a bit.


The first most difficult thing has really been to quit comparing my recovery to anyone elses.  Kim Janna from Terminal broke her leg at The Big O this year (about three months after me) and before I had skated my first full practice word on the street was that she was already back to full contact.

"wow!"
"what an athlete!"
"you knew she could come back from that fast!"
"she must have rocked that PT!"

Or last year when Scald Eagle broke her leg and got back into the game in just six weeks.  Same thing.  The assumption is that the recovery is primarily influenced by the work effort of the athlete.  I am by no means implying that these skaters are not great athletes.  If I had abs like Kim Janna I would never wear a shirt either.  But not all broken legs are created equal.

 

In one of my self pitying moments this summer I Googled "broken leg roller derby" and ran across this horrifying article and the accompanying photos.  The skater pictured is Kaitlin "Muffin" Krause of the Mile High Club.  She's a great skater, great athlete and she also couldn't walk for 7 months after this photo was taken.  7 months.  Anyone can see why.  Her whole damn foot was on backwards.

However my foot was not on backwards.  It also wasn't a clean non-displaced fracture.  It was somewhere in between and so while some comparisons seems reasonable really none of them are.  And PT is great but it's not a panacea.  There are 1000 different ways you can break a leg and 1000 different ways any particular person's body might respond to that.  After 9 months there's a lot I can do.  I can run a mile (not too fast), jump up stairs (not too many), skate a full practice (sometimes).  There's also a lot I can't do.  I can't skate more than 3 days a week (or sometimes even 3 days a week), I can't sprint, I can't hop on my left foot, I can't tell you how it's going to feel tomorrow or next week, and I can't walk down stairs without pain. The truth is that while I can try to make goals or plans I really don't know how long a full recovery is going to take and I have to stop trying to guess.  And I wish people would stop asking me to guess.


Next week I go back in for more surgery.  Of everything mentioned above the one really unacceptable thing is being more or less unable to walk down stairs.  Derby or no derby stairs are a thing you have to be able to do in life.  My joint is too tight and so not only is there not enough flexion my foot is essentially permanently collapsed because otherwise I'm not able to move normally.  The flexibility has to come out somewhere and right now that's my arch.  My surgeon believes that removing my hardware will solve nearly all of this problem and if it doesn't there are a couple of other things she can try (in this surgery.  There won't be two.) 

So I'm headed back into a full on recovery.  The surgery should help and will be easier than the last one but it's still more pain at a time when I'm really tired of having to deal with pain at all.  This whole broken leg thing is no joke.  I had to really think hard this week about what it felt like to be able to skate often enough to really be good at it again.  I keep taking out my favorite memories of my last weeks on skates and they've become pretty tattered over the months.  I long for fresh victories.