Along the line, I was able to schedule more workout time into my week, because you know, if one workout a day was good, surely two were better. I started adding more proverbial sticks and plates to accommodate more interval training. Two pounds a week. I had a plan and I was sticking to it. Ramping up more and more. Wait. My left hip hurts. Oh well, no harm, I can bike for a while and not run. It was fall anyway. I really wanted to be able to run a 5k without stopping in the spring. So, I could bike then. No big deal. Besides, at that point I had eight successful months and was only about 30 pounds from the weight I always wanted to be. I had the calculations done when I would reach that. Quitting was not an option, rest was not an option. I was doing it. For the first time in my life I was doing it. So, I pressed on, ignoring the pain for three months, and taking high doses of motrin, until a slip on a simple blanket on a hardwood floor right before Christmas. My already painful leg would go out quickly, and although I never really fell, the pain I felt in the hip was excruciating. I would spend the next six weeks telling myself the next day I would wake up, be walking crutch free and be ready to go back to the gym. After all, it was probably just a hip flexor tear. This is what us medical providers do. We diagnose ourselves. That morning never came. I finally had it x-ray'd only to learn I would have a full on femoral neck fracture, which apparently had started as a stress fracture months earlier, and had now come apart.
That was exactly two years ago this week. I now find myself on the anniversary of the surgery that would repair my hip, reflecting on the months leading into this and the ones that followed. I remember every single thing about being in the hospital that night. The nurses asking me if I needed more ice when, in actuality, I didn't even realize I had ice on my hip because it was numb. To this day, the skin in the area remains that way. I remember the drug induced haze of watching what seemed like 100 episodes of "Chopped"on Food Network. The mocking of the crutches in the corner that would be my side kick for the six weeks that followed. The texting of a friend who worked night shift, who's sole task that night was to simply keep me a little more sane.
Mostly, though, I was angry. I had a plan. I had built my original plan into an epic workout adventure where I was doing things I had never done before. I had a weight loss schedule to keep. I had a 5k to run. In the end, I had to get my head around that I had attacked my exercise regimen with such vengeance, I had broken the biggest bone in my body. At the time, I wondered if I would ever be able to do anything I had planned. My leg hurt, my plans were dead, I could not even carry a simple cup of coffee to the living room because of the damn crutches, and I had no idea what I was going to do. This master plate spinner had found herself sitting in a pile of shattered china and broken sticks.
I had finally begun to realize that my physical endeavors had become as short sighted as my quest for carbohydrates to deal with the life stressors that came before that. Realizing I was sitting in the rubble of the broken plates and sticks was actually as eye opening as the day when I was 30 and ventured onto the scale only to realize I had hit 296 pounds. I had become so singularly focused on exercise and strict no carb dieting, that I was missing out on the other sides of being healthy. I had forgotten the part about feeding my own soul to find the happiness that I always thought was associated with being thin and fit. Ultimately, I was able to put the anger aside and look for other methods to feed my own well being. I started the day I got home with ordering the greatest pair of pink and white striped Victoria's Secret jammy pants. Not only was I going to recover, I was going to do it in a brand I always wanted to wear but could never fit in before now. In fact, as I type this I am wearing those very pants. A simple reminder of a new beginning.
I would attack my diet with new vengeance so as not to fall back into bad habits as I stylishly occupied the couch during that time, and yes, I would even make it back to the gym on post op day 10. I would crutch my way in and get in line with the little old ladies doing their cardiac rehab on the arm bike to get my tedious ten miles in. It was not the high intensity training I was used to, but it was not giving up either. Little by little I would work my way back, but seeing the process with all new eyes. I learned to train smarter and began to see that the little things I did for myself mattered as much as the scale. At this point, anyone who knows me will tell you I have now become a huge fan of the badass manicure and have been known to grab my 21 year old son and drive out of my way to Whole Foods just for a green juice, and to spend some time with a kid growing up way too fast.
As angry as I was at that time for feeling I had lost it all, I can now see it was such a necessary part of my journey. It taught me I had more than the black and white choice of over indulging with carbs on a bad day or obsessively exercising. I can incorporate so many other things into being healthy, most of which have nothing to do with food or exercise. So, yes, once again the plates are spinning, some of the original china had to be glued back together, and the sticks carefully repaired, and they may be spinning a tad slower than they were, but they are spinning, dare I say it, perhaps a little bit more graceful than they started out.
As for me....have I completely reformed my obsessive ways? To be honest, I am not sure that is possible entirely. Not running every single day is a difficult choice, but I don't. I have had to obsessively schedule my walking days just like I did my two a days in the beginning. I do take the occasional active recovery day, but an actual recovery day of no exercise admittedly needs to be pushed upon me, and will likely cause some degree of anxiety. However, I will do it. Tomorrow is a recovery day for me, the first I have had in several weeks, or so I was gently reminded of by a friend. I will make the conscious choice to spend one hour feeding my soul with amazing coffee in bed while olympics coverage before taking on a ten hour ER shift.
As to running my first 5k? Yes, this happened too in the fall of 2016. Well, if you count the Insane Inflatable 5k with my son, then yes. My loyal blog readers will tell you I have now turned to Spartan Racing, but being able to do that first one without stopping with my loyal sidekick by my side after my recovery meant a whole lot. Saturday, the day after my recovery day, I will host 50 others in a virtual 5k. It will be my turn to watch my Team 1 DOS motivational clients take on this distance, some for the first time, some after years of being unhealthy. I only hope that they learn from the journey as I have, that sometimes it takes an abrupt halt to the plan to see that sometimes our own short sighted plans are the thing that helps us to miss a much greater bigger picture. The best is yet to come.
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