My last rundown post was all about positive vibes, but at the end of last week I crashed. After months of DIY-ing an injury with which I still felt lost and without guidance (“wear the boot for a few weeks” isn’t helpful enough and where is the effing physio appointment?), and on top of that an unsustainable situation with a very sick cat, I went into exhaustion mode. I was in tears half of the day last Sunday, totally drained.
After breakfast, my husband encouraged me to do some workouts like I normally do on Sundays. I went to do some hip mobility work, deadbugs, windshield wipers, and rotator cuff mobility. While I did that, my husband made a booking for me with a private physiotherapist in Cork. This is true love! He goes to the same clinic for his knee. I decided that whatever happens with the HSE physio appointment, I will still go for this private option, because they are sports focused, and for later if I decide to run again, they do running analysis.
So this week has brought very good things… but also very sad things. Let’s start with the positives.
This will be a bit long but… it’s been an eventful week.
Fitness activities this week
This week I’ve been to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and I’ll continue doing that for a while. The focus this week has been fewer reps, but the usual weights, and to work on form and range of motion. It felt really good!
Monday – gym day
I decided to start tracking my weights again. It’s valuable even if I mostly do upper body. Here’s what I did in the gym:
- Leg curls with resistance band
- Wall squats, 3 sets of 45 secs each (I only managed 36 secs last set)
- Chest press with barbell, 25 kg
- Tricep pullovers, 7 kg dumbbells
- Pushups from knees
- Dumbbell row 12,5 kg (both knees on bench)
- Lateral raise, 5 kg dumbbells (left knee on bench)
- Shoulder shrugs, 10 kg dumbbells (left knee on bench)
Tuesday – physiotherapy appointment
This day I finally went to see the physiotherapist. We had a fantastic weather with maybe 22 degrees (71 F) and a lovely sunshine. In Cork it was 27 degrees! Not the best when you’re wearing a boot, but I’ll never complain about warm weather.
The PT appointment truly was one of the best things that happened to me during these 2,5 months, and I feel like a huge burden has been taken off my shoulders.
He was young (to my standards at least, am I old or what?) but very competent. The first thing he did was to let me tell my story, what had happened. I nearly burst into tears for the fact that someone was ready to take the time to listen!
After talking about my injury journey, he assessed my foot and answered ALL my questions about what is normal with a stress fracture. This is something I’ve needed for so, so long. I’ve had so many odd symtoms in my foot and didn’t know what to think of it. With nobody to answer questions, my brain has of course gone haywire. My trainer/PT at home is THE guy for soft tissue problems and everything around strengthening, conditioning, injury prevention, later stage rehab and much more, but he’s not an expert at broken bones. He’s helped me with a lot of things, but I’ve generally been very alone for a long time with my worries about the foot, and getting some more support with this was invaluable.
We talked about recovery time, and he gave me an exercise program, roughly the same ankle mobility exercises as my trainer has told me to do. He also checked my crutch height, and showed me how to walk with the boot and one crutch. Now I almost actually WALK! I’m slow and I look crooked and odd, but I get around much more safely and efficiently than before.
And the freedom, people! Being able to carry things. Take my coffee cup to the office instead of being restricted to the kitchen. I love relaxing with my morning coffee in the office, while reading and browsing on my computer and planning the day. It’s the little things!
So now I have a proper plan, I’m more mobile, and I have more support. I’m immensely grateful and can let go of most of the stress around the injury. I finally feel that I can relax and look forward. I’ll see the physio again at the end of the month.
If you read this and don’t know my story – sports injuries can be very hard but are not supposed to put your mental health totally down the drain. It happened to me because of delay in diagnosis and proper help, and a lot of problems because of that. The not knowing, the DIY-ing, the uncertainty have been heartbreaking and exhausting beyond belief. But I might be seeing the end of it now.
Wednesday – gym day
My trainer must have telepathic skills. I had lower back pain all day, and when I got to the gym, I didn’t get any leg or hip exercises but instead windshield wipers and swimmers. All movements of the lower back & hip area work wonders for my back pain. So far I haven’t experienced any problems from walking with the boot, but rather effects of sitting too much.
Here’s my Wednesday session:
- Swimmers
- Windshield wipers
- Dumbbell chest press, 10 kgs
- Tricep pullovers with one dumbbell, 15 kgs
- Flyes, 9 kg dumbbells
- Barbell row, 25 kgs
- Seated shoulder press, 5 kg dumbbells
- Bent over raise, 4 kg dumbbells
Thursday
This was the most awful day since a long time. Read more at the bottom of this post.
Friday – gym day
I still felt drained, but managed to work up some energy for the gym. I did a good session, and we had good chats about all sorts of things – the other trainer had her 5-month-old puppy in the gym which was a lovely distraction! Here’s what I did – still 10 reps, working on form.
- Side leg raises with resistance bands
- Leg lifts (both legs) over dumbbell
- Chestpress, 25 kg barbell
- Flyes, 9 kg dumbbells
- Back extensions on mat
- Tricep pullovers with barbell, 15 kgs
- Upright row with 8 kg dumbbells (left knee on bench)
- Front raise, 4 kg dumbbells (left knee on bench)
This session was quite “easy” meaning I didn’t rep out on anything, some exercises were in fact quite easy, and I think he’ll give me some new challenges next week, which I’m very much looking forward to. But I’ve appreciated working on form and good range of motion, this is also important!
Saturday – rest day and relax
After the misery that was Thursday, we needed to relax and do something different so we went for a road trip to Kenmare and surroundings, in the eastern part of county Kerry (start of the famous Ring of Kerry). We had lunch and coffee in Kenmare and had a well-needed, restful day.
Sunday – strength and mobility at home
Today I’m starting to get my oomph back and to feel more normal again. I’ve done my usual Sunday workout with rotator cuff & hip mobility, core strength, glutes and I added a dumbbell exercise mainly for biceps but that also works a bit on nerves in the wrist and elbow area. It’s like a standard bicep curl but you start with your palms of the hands facing the floor and then turn them up halfway through the exercise. I’ve done this in the gym once and it’s similar to another exercise my trainer has given me to do at home for my problematic elbows (which are much less problematic now, by the way).
The bad things
You may remember about our cat Ester disappearing and coming back being very ill. We took her home from the hospital last Saturday. She was diagnosed with stage 4 chronic kidney disease but was expected to be able to live well with medication for another few months, up to a year. Knowing she had a life-limiting disease, our only wish was that she would be able to live a happy and as-normal-as-possible cat life for the time she had left. But already on the Sunday, she stopped eating again and went outside to her hiding place. You could see she was miserable and like she felt something wasn’t right.
On the Tuesday I had an e-mail conversation with the vet, and she would phone me on Wednesday morning but didn’t (it turned out they had some emergencies).
When we sat outside in the evenings, Ester came out from her hiding place and sat with us, and drank some water. On the Thursday I finally had a discussion with the vet, and we managed to get Ester in during the late afternoon. They took a blood test which showed the creatinine levels had totally skyrocketed, meaning the kidney function had severely deteriorated, in only a few days.
The only worthy option for her was to let her go. Our beautiful, bossy, peculiar, with-an-attitude, fluffy girl passed away around 7 pm. I haven’t cried so much in years as I have this week. The veterinary staff was so wonderful and understanding, and despite a quite chaotic evening in the clinic, they made everything quiet and peaceful for us and showed so much respect. They made a paw print for us to take home.
So this was a very mixed week. Most of it was overshadowed by the situation with Ester. But I’ll move on and look forward now, get the foot back to normal, remember all the good times we had with Ester, and we’re planning a lot of good things for the rest of the summer.
I hope you are all doing well. I’m joining the Weekly rundown link-up with Kim and Deborah, and I hope the next few weeks will give me positive-only vibes to share.
I found these videos helpful when it comes to sports injury and mental health:
How to deal with the mental side of being injured
Six steps to help you stay motivated and focused when you’re injured
And this blog post helped me a lot before I got help for my stress fracture:
Leave a comment and make my day