Obviously I’m daydreaming about 6 minute miles and century rides and the kind of long brutal training days that leave you just a puddle on the couch blindly searching for calories to shove back in. (I paint a pretty, enticing picture of the sport, no?) I have been fantasizing about the kinds of weekends I hope I’ll get back to this summer, where I’m in the saddle by 6, ride till my legs are just about fully cooked, only to dismount and take off running, so that many hours and miles later I drag myself home zombified (undead smell included) just in time to eat and sleep and do it all over again Sunday. (Huh, swimming hasn’t factored into those fantasies…but I actually miss that too.)

I’m yearning for all of the above, and for jittery race mornings, and triumphant finish lines, and hell yes podiums; but having my mobility totally upended by crutches has scaled back my fantasies to some very run of the mill activities. And since I’m in the recent habit of list-making here, I thought I’d enumerate some of those formerly unremarkable, beautiful things I can’t wait to do again:

Walk my dogs

Usually Scott and I divide dog duties pretty evenly but with hudreds of pounds of furbaby to care for – both of whom were my idea – I’m of very little help in the canine department right now. Scott is handling morning, afternoon, and late night walks and park time all by himself and it’s so much work. I hate that he has to do it on his own and while he brushes it off I know it’s asking a lot and even impacting his hours at work. I let the dogs out in the front yard to bathroom some but it’s a small city yard and they need walks and park time every day to be happy healthy hounds and I’m of no use there.

That’s a lot of stress on Scott, but it’s also making me crazy because I love spending time with my dogs – that’s why I convinced Scott we needed them! Sometimes being the one who handles morning walks is stressful, and they always drag out their evening pee to much aggravation, but I hate that I can’t take care of my puppups. I have some friends who have been helping us out by taking them to the park, and I tag along with them and sometimes with Scott, but I end up needing as much help as Birkin and Daenerys so it’s no picnic for anyone involved. (I am however so grateful to Ralph, Chandler, and Andrew for their help. [And thankful to Birkin and Daenerys for being lovable enough to attract all these helpers!])

Walk to work again (listening to my books)

I live in downtown DC because I am a city girl (snob) who hates cars and loves the District. Between traffic and the Metro’s shortcomings, it’s practically as fast to walk to work as to drive, bus, or train, and so, I walk. Whether to my office – about a 40 minute stroll – or Capitol Hill – 25 minutes to the Senate and 40 to the House – I walk. And I use that time to be alone with my Audible books and podcasts and this very pretty city. I love that time to myself in the morning and evening. My job is all about networking and always being “on” (and that’s true too of my side hustle teaching) so walking everywhere allows me to decompress – to either get my head right for the day, or shake the day out of my head. And I get through so many books walk-commuting!

Now I’m taking Lyft to and from work. It’s expensive, it’s environmentally wasteful, and it gives me anxiety. I don’t want to be in a car with a stranger that many times a day. (Mostly men, a number of whom have been creepy and one was downright threatening meriting a formal complaint.) It’s harder to listen to my books over the noise of whatever talk radio drivel or top 40 banger the driver has blasting and these rides in no way afford the recharge/discharge alone time I so treasure. Every time I hit “request Lyft” on my app I feel immensely nostalgic for my previous commute – even for all the times I’ve had to do it in DC humidity, or rain, or wind or snow. I’d take just about any weather walking over the back of someone’s car trying to ignore the dulcet, misogynist tones of Steve Harvey and Howard Stern.

MY JOB

I live in the city because I love this city and I do my job because I love my job. I’m an attorney and lobbyist (making me everyone’s favorite person) and my work on average consists of 2-3 days a week on the Hill meeting with Members of Congress and their staff on different health policy issues. My days on Capitol Hill often call for hours of walking between offices, frequently hoofing it back and forth between the House and Senate (about a half mile each way) and then followed by receptions and fundraisers in the evenings. There are days I’m on my feet for upwards of 12 hours and easily cover five or six miles.

You better believe that is not happening on the crutches.

I’ve tried to make do best as I can with calls instead of sit-downs where possible – but my work requires relationship-building and that happens face-to-face, not over the phone. A few times I’ve crutched to one of the Congressional cafeterias and posted up for an afternoon and asked staffers to come to me. This isn’t a great solution though because staffers’ schedules are tight so they don’t want to leave their offices, and a lot of the issues I work on require more privacy than a busy lunchroom affords.

And evening receptions are out of the question as the only thing more uncomfortable than crutching long distances, is standing on one leg for an extended period of time. Sure it’s been nice to have my evenings back but the FOMO is real and I fear the opportunities I’m losing to get to know the Freshman class of lawmakers. Plus DC is still an old boys’ club so I never stop feeling the pressure to go the extra mile. (Not usually a problem by me!)

This predicament has been particularly cruel as the new Congress gets sworn in. Swearing in, or open house day as we call it, is a lot of fun – especially when the most women and most diverse Congress in our country’s history are being inducted. If my normal day is miles on my feet office-to-office and capped with evening events, open house day is that on steroids; double or triple the miles covered and fetes attended. And it’s awesome. (And the last one was less than awesome.) And I could not do it the way I’d looked forward to doing when my party won back the House.  (And the last two years have been hard.) Of all the times to not be able to do the job I love  this feels particularly vindictive.

Walk  around my neighborhood 

I don’t have to say much here, I said most of it above. My city girl love of walking extends to strolls around the neighborhood. Ok my neighborhood is a little shooty, but it’s also historical rowhome-y and beautiful. (And if you can make it just a few blocks west it gets much less bangbang-y.) I love walking in DC; it’s pretty, it’s healthy, it’s environmentally and fiscally economical.  I love that I can walk most of the places I want to go. Granted I define “can walk” more liberally than most of my friends – if I have the time I’ll walk up to an hour to wherever it is I need to go just to be outside in my city. Now my “walkable” radius has been reduced to about three or four blocks from my house. (Not nearly enough blocks to get out of shooty range!)

TEACH

I’m still teaching my Thursday morning bootcamp (or “bootcrutch” as one of my students named it) but I gave up all my spin classes, and I have to ask my bootcamp regulars  for a lot of help during class as I can’t demo moves or even set up my own bench or space. In my normal, non-injured life routine I get pretty worn down teaching 4-5 classes a week, waking up early to train other people, and I often find myself dreading the 5am alarm and wishing for more mornings off. Now I can’t wait till Thursdays when I have a reason to get up and out before the sun comes up. It’s absolutely been my favorite morning of the week through this recovery. It’s like an hour-long return to my old life before limping back home to this sedentary, lonely existence.

Open doors

Doors are my nemesis. Especially heavy doors, that open away from me. They fill me with anxiety. Sometimes I literally cannot open them and I embarrass myself trying and those are the moments I really feel helpless and like an angry broken animal. (And for the record, women have been much more courteous about opening them. I’ve had several groups of men just stare at me from the opposite sides of doors to restaurants and offices that I clearly could not manage. Chivalry’s not dead, it’s just female.)

Enjoy a snowday

We got actual snow in DC! Not one of our usual over-hyped underwhelming dustings. No, we  got ten inches of fluffy powder, and a proper snow day with school and office closures all around. (In addition to the less-than-great shutdown. #snurlough) People were so excited, posting fun videos from their snowy runs, playtime with happy snowdogs, snowball fights on the Mall, the Capitol in full winter mode, while I was at home sitting and eating my feelings, growing increasingly bored and round. (Hey I may at least resemble a snowman at the end of all this!)

Eventually I had to get out of the house so I insisted on joining Scott at the dog park, but the streets were bad so I also insisted we walk. (Crutch.) It’s only three blocks and I wanted at least that much activity. It was slow-going though and in no time my arms were screaming, because it turns out crutching through a foot of snow is tantamount to shoveling it. The powder weighs down the crutches every step and within a block – a very slow block holding up a very patient man and two less patient hounds – I regretted my hubris. But by then it was too late to turn back and I don’t know when to admit defeat anyway so I stubbornly persisted.

In the end I was happy I got outside and got to see Birkin and Daenerys loving the snow with a big group of their four-legged friends, but I won’t call crutching through it and feeling like my arms were going to fall off the same as “enjoying” a snowday. And as difficult as that was, it was leaps and bounds better than the next few days when the powder melted to slush and then froze over rendering leaving my house actually impossible.

Sleep

I know I said in my attempt to itemize every possible silverish lining that I was finally sleeping and oh how wonderful it was, but that’s over now.  I think I was just catching up on a long-accumulated sleep deficit for the first couple weeks, but now that I’m back in the black I’m also back to hours of insomnia. I don’t get enough sleep during my regular unimpaired life – about 5 hours a night at least during the week – but all of the training means when I do lay my head down I’m tired and I find sleep. The past two weeks my head hits the pillow and…nothing. I stare at the ceiling for hours. If (when) I wake up (several times) in the middle of the night, where I used to fall back asleep quickly, I’m back to wide awake contemplation of the ceiling. Several times I’ve given up and ended up just reading for an hour or two at 3am. (At least I’m making an early dent in my 2019 book list. [Everyone should read Where the Dead Sit Talking!])

My routine life

It’s really simple: I like my life. I like my job. (My day job and my teaching jobs.) I like my city. I like to train. Hell, I love all of the above. And I love how I make it all fit together day in and day out.

My routine is totally exhausting, with too little sleep and too many obligations. There are plenty of mornings I that I don’t want to get up before dawn to teach, and many days that I don’t want to have backtobacktobacktoback meetings in various far away corners of Congress. I’m frequently tempted to skip evening training sessions, or to run screaming from nightly work events* in favor of sweats and Netflix and a sensible bed time.

But I love the little life I’ve built, my career, my sport, my city, and I haven’t been able to live even one single part of that life these past six weeks. The luster of having my evenings back, obligation-free, wore off almost immediately. Maybe in a few months I’ll be longing for that free time again, but right now I can’t wait to feel worn down and depleted. I can’t wait to do so many normal, small, simple, taken-for granted things again.

 

I’m sort of afraid to go back and reread my mental spiraling from a few weeks ago. From what I recall of the emotional and wine-heightened blur in which it was written and published I was not in a good place. That night I was a ball of white hot (wet) rage, crying every few minutes and thisclose to selling every piece of tri gear I own on Craigslist. Fortunately I don’t think there’s much of a market for child-sized tribikes and spandex and so Koopa Troop and Warrio and my wardrobe were spared.

I’m not going try and hold myself out as a measured adult in control of her emotions here, you know me too well for that and it’d be a lie, but I am faring marginally better. I don’t think I’ve cried since that soggy Wednesday night. (I mean I don’t think I’ve cried about this; I’ve cried plenty about other things like every Subaru commercial I’ve seen this holiday season and every time I’ve played the newest Hamildrop. [Keep reading for more on my musical theatre past…and future?])

I’ve also become moderately proficient on my temporary prostheses. Actually after 8 days at my parents very much non-ADA-compliant home in the very much non-ADA-compliant country of Mexico I’ve gotten pretty good. I’ve traversed sand, and dirt, gravel, and cobblestone, my parents’ second story kitchen and pool, and faced all of that several margaritas in.

Drunken levity aside, a week into the crutches I received some unwelcome additional clarity from my orthopedist about my recovery and in short this is going to be a very long, slow road back and she is not enthusiastic about an Ironman in July. She doesn’t know the race (IM Lake Placid) is the very last Sunday in July and didn’t rule it out so I haven’t pulled the plug yet but I had been trying to haul my wallowing ass out of the depths of self-pity and that cynical message was tantamount to her swatting me several rungs back down the mental health ladder. The small light at the end of the tunnel that had been expanding narrowed again to a barely visible pinprick of light. But like I said, I didn’t cry this time; the small part of (small) me that retained some measure of hope for 2019 must be calcifying. Hopefully my bones follow suit.

She expanded on the no-swimming-no-nothing orders in response to my request to swim sooner than 6 weeks out if I stick with a pull buoy and avoid pushing off the wall explaining that some doctors would allow that but she’s seen people with this sort of fracture end up with chronic, life-long pain and improper healing so she tends to be more conservative. Hearing that I first entertained thoughts of second and third more permissive (reckless?) opinions but I quickly abandoned that fantasy. I need to accept this situation rather than seek out someone who will tell me what I want to hear. I’m just going to do what she says. I do think she’s being overly-cautious given that the hip was already improving and there is no pain when I swim. (Or cycle or anything but run for that matter.)

See I’m trying to be a grown up and accept and not fight lest I ruin myself for good. My doctor did put it well saying, “time off now pays it forward for later.” She sees a later in my future, so long as I don’t asshole it up now. So I’m following her orders and I’m trying to stop being a whiny baby about it.

To that end I’ve been compiling a list of positive things that have happened or anything that has cheered me even a tiny bit since this diagnosis. When someone says something that gives me even the smallest boost in spirits, that grows the far away end-of-the-tunnel light just a little more, I’m trying to take note of it. So in no particular order, another, less snarky, non-comprehensive list of things that made me feel less shitty in the last three weeks:

• Damn do I have a huge community of support. This is number one and the only item in a particular order. Members of the three different tri teams on which I race, fellow trainers and clients at the several gyms and studios at which I teach, work colleagues who know how crazy I am in my non-working hours, friends from now and from every part of my life, strangers online who have found my blog and feed, have all reached out to send well-wishes and share their stories. I feel bad for myself but I do not feel alone.

• This low point in my health may get other people to commit more to their own health: A number of friends and strangers alike have messaged me that they’ve decided to see their doctors about niggling pains, vitamin d testing, and to address things they’ve put off addressing.
• Even more people have reached out and thanked me for being so honest and raw [read: ugly] in my last post. Whether injured now or previously they identified with all of the doldrums and less charitable sentiments, and unless they’re just lying to me no one seems to be holding my unpretty selfishness against me long-term.
• I’ve been able to speak to a few people who have been through this very injury. They agree, it’s a pretty miserable one, but they (mostly [eventually]) recovered fully and they came back.
• Speaking of people with hip stress fractures -though his was in a different spot – Jan Frodeno! He was forced to withdraw from Kona after winning 70.3 Worlds in an epic race in South Africa. I’ve been seriously creeping on his feed lately. He’s back to training, and perhaps he is still tilting at the the mental windmills from it but he’s putting his best face forward and I will try to emulate, after all this is more his whole life than it is mine and he has slightly more to lose.
• People are sending me so many puppy pics. (People get me. [Or I’m simple?]) My first peg-leg Saturday I even organized the whole day around going to meet a friend’s 5 week old Bull Terrier puppy. I’ve always had a thing for bullies and I’d never held a dog that young. It was pretty magical.

• Revisiting new passions! I’m taking a musical theatre class starting in January. I’m terrified. I have the same butterflies when I think about it that send me running barefoot into the nearest portapotty on race mornings. (I’ll try to get that under control though as I don’t remember actors being equally easygoing as triathletes about anxiety-related BMs.)
• Another one of those passions is that I’m writing more! Two blogs within a few weeks of each other?! (My mom and Kim must be so proud! [The rest of you may be horrified.])
• I’m sleeping, and holy moly have you all tried this? It’s great!
• People saying one day down helps put the time in perspective. (Whereas proclamations that ‘I’ll come back stronger’ just make me want to cry and punch something.) After getting the crutches on a Wednesday afternoon, blogging like a maniac Wednesday evening, I received several texts Thursday morning declaring “one day down!” So simple, so mollifying. (Then I did the math and died a little inside when I considered there were 55 more to go, but one day at a time works.)
• I have reason to skip early mornings and late nights during this darkest, coldest part of the year – when I get back to it the days will be getting longer and lighter. Someone said this a few days into my crutches-sentence and it was like the clouds parted.
• My bone density is okay. My Vitamin D is not, and there are further complications there that I’ll expound on another time, but I’m within a normal density range for my age. That. Is. HUGE.

• Great suggestions like using Calm or Headspace app. I have Calm, I used it once, and I will try to use it more, especially to get more of this sleep thing I’d been missing out on!
• I’m seeing my friends (and husband!) more. I’ve been doing dinner and drinks and at regular hours not smelling like my usual post-gym/pool half-assed application of old spice.

• And yet, I don’t have to shower every day! In these first few weeks it’s been an every other day affair including while in Mexico. I just told myself I was doing my part for the limited water table in Baja. (Shhhhh. Just let me have this one.)
• Laundry is much easier and much less disgusting. Less, uh, damp.
• I took a real vacation. Scott and I just got back from 8 days visiting my parents in Mexico and I took the opportunity to do absolutely nothing. Usually when we’re there I run on the beach, yoga with my mom, take a day trip to a little city where we snorkel with the whale sharks. Any time I vacation anywhere I try to make it active. But for the first time in I can’t even say how many years I took actual time off. I sat by my parents’ pool the whole damn week and read and snoozed and indulged in mid-day adult beverages.

• My dad was inspired to tell me a pretty crazy story from his own childhood. That man has lived a thousand lives in his 66 years and every time I get a tidbit from his adolescence it’s a treat and a trip. This time around it was the nonchalant revelation that he spent almost two years on crutches as a child. TWO YEARS! After having his leg crushed by a bag of grain 50 gallon drum of kerosene at the age of 8. He endured horrific-sounding surgery following which the chicken mesh holding his glued-together femur in place had to be periodically tightened via screws in his leg. The 1960s weren’t so long ago but medically it’s been a billion years. I never knew this story and thanks to my overwrought angst he felt compelled to share.

• A reminder to never take anything for granted? Did I get complacent and assume my body would hold up no matter what? I don’t think I did, but after two stress fracture-free seasons (a feat I credit in large part to Josh’s guidance) maybe I was getting too comfortable in my own bones. I don’t believe in fate or karma though so I’m not really buying that, but I know that if and when I’m allowed to return to training I will savor every minute of health.

Still, if I’m being honest, and I usually am, I still have a sense of lingering foreboding, or finality. That I won’t get my legs back. Or my confidence, or the will to keep trying. I’m trying to shake this sinking feeling that I’m going to do everything “right” and it’s still going to be this protracted struggle from which I’ll never truly heal. Maybe I’m just chronically disposed to hairpin trigger flights of despair. (I do convince myself every time I get a soar throat that I’ll never sing again and so far my neighbors’ wishes haven’t come true on that. [Although my musical theatre teacher and classmates may argue when I meet them in a few weeks that if I ever had anything in the vocal department, it’s long-gone.])

But singing of that, I’m trying to unstick myself from confused considerations that maybe I’m just emotionally done with triathlon, with this whole unexpected jock phase of my life. Maybe I’ll find my voice, literally, and I can be done with this sports stuff and just be a weird theatre kid again.

I don’t know how to process those thoughts; undeniably a part of me is excited and relieved by them. (Maybe it’s the heavily-and-frequently-concussed part of me.) But sitting with and typing those thoughts here brings me back to the verge of tears too. I just want someone to tell me the right answer. How can I want to be totally done with it all and want so desperately not to be done at the same time?

I suspect this is part of some blahblahblah natural emotional Kübler-Rossian progression. Three weeks ago I wanted to set fire to or sell thousands of dollars worth of bicycles and spandex. Today only half of me wants that.

And I am looking forward. I haven’t dropped out of Lake Placid and knowing I can’t do Boston, and probably can’t do Ironman Virginia 70.3 (the race formerly known as Rev3 Williamsburg) I’m scoping other early-summer options. Plus I’m spending money like a real optimist purchasing a new saddle and shoes on Speed Sherpa’s team day at Conte’s Bike Shop a few weeks ago. I apparently do still plan to 140.6 this year.

Even plans to go through with the fulls I’m registered for don’t feel fully hopeful. The threatre-kid on my shoulder is saying, ‘sure sure, you give it one last go to get it out of your system for good and then I’ll meet you in the green room.’ But then the jock on my other shoulder is giving the theatre kid a wedgie and whispering that this setback is just the very thing to propel me to my Kona-qualification. Nobody is in any agreement in here and I’m tired. (More sleep please!)

I don’t know which of my archetypes will win. I don’t know which I want to win. I don’t know if one needs to win. I just want to keep putting one crutch in front of the other and get through the next five weeks with the small bit of sanity I previously possessed somewhat in tact.