Still here. Still injured.

Had a surprisingly good weekend, considering how deep I was in a strong pity-party all week last week! Everything just seemed so…insurmountable. And I felt mad at myself for being mad about it? Ugh. It’s an ouroboros of pain, frustration, pain, anger, etc. Like- things are actually pretty fine, EXCEPT I am mobility-impaired and limping around with a fat and bruised ankle/foot, with an additional soft tissue injury in my leg. Not bad, right? Well, turns out pain has a way of really wearing down (any) tolerance that you have.

The weather is nice, I want to be out doing things, enjoying it! And…It takes me forever and a day to hobble around. It always hurts.

Friday was the real kicker. We got dinged with a lousy tax bill, on top of our housing taxes went up to over 2k (thanks, while we are both unemployed), I’m struggling to walk, my car died, our fridge is acting up, the one fun activity we were going to do blew up in our faces etc etc etc).

So, basically nothing was going right. We couldn’t even manage one lousy brewery visit to fill out some passports for a contest we were going to enter. The first one? Closed on Friday. The second one? Parking lot full. Third one? Got in no prob, enjoyed a drink and…they are literally the only brewery NOT participating in the contest. HAH. You gotta laugh at that. So, to sum up…Absolutely nothing worked. I am in the hands of a capricious and vengeful god, apparently. And the weather is so beautiful these days too!

Frustrating or what?

Luckily I had lots of great weekend plans with my friends, because man…I was in a dark place limping around in pain for two weeks straight (and counting!). We hosted a friend’s dinner with Ian being the chef (great at it too) and then on Sunday I watched a horse show our other friend was riding in, and then went riding myself. Felt more optimistic, being out and about, thought it was a lot of walking on my injuries for the day.

And today? Well, I’m still here, still hobbling around in pain. Hoping for the day sometime in the next month I can walk confidently up AND down the stairs, putting my shoes on, socks too! I guess a girl can hope.

Nothing new here…

Just limping around with a sprained ankle. People have suspected it is fractured, but I’m pretty sure it is a bad sprain. I can walk on it, and I have been riding, haha. The mobility is impacted and the ankle is very stiff, but generally it’s not that painful? My leg tendon that I twisted hurt WAY WORSE omgggg. Fortunately that has been improving through me rehabbing it/stretching it every day, which was absolutely excruciating to start with.

So, I continue to sit around, though I am more mobile and actually able to drive (it’s still a bit tough on my ankle given the limited mobility of it).

SIGH.

Injury journals

Still hanging around, still limping. I finally got it checked out at a private clinic (paid $130 for the pleasure) because I could NOT get in anywhere public to have it looked at–and I did have a lot of friends/family asking if I’d broken it. Nope, no break! Luckily it is a soft tissue injury, my ankle bruising and foot swelling are going down albeit slowly, and the excruciating pain I have been feeling in my shin area is muscle related…So, the fun news is that I get to stretch it and rehab it every day. You literally pay for it every day.

I was watching CSI and one of the crime scene techs makes a mention that there are five kinds of tears. It was weirdly poetic. And scientific? It’s true. You have grief tears, pain tears, happy tears. Actually now that I am googling, there are three types of tears. Emotional, basal and reflex tears. Apparently emotional tears are unique to humans. I feel like I have randomly cried all of them this week. I had to eat the $300 cost of a registered horse show I was supposed to be attending all weekend. We were going to camp, and horse show, and hang out with horse friends in the sun! Instead, I am in pain and hobbling around, feeling afraid of my vulnerability and sometimes collapsing and falling down because the pain is so great.

Yes, I cried a few angry tears this week. My stupid fault, stupid accident, expensive and stupid and just…I have cried tears of frustration many times this week, as well as pain. I’m wallowing in this weird, bitter irony of having the looming spectre of Oats being so injured with so many vet visits, rehab, wrapping, meds, more meds…To my own serious leg injury? WTF? Who exactly did I screw in the universe?

I’m still vaguely afraid of the stairs. Ian has been helping me dutifully all week going to the stables to lead, tack up and groom Mr. Oats. Oats has been a very saintly pony, not putting a hoof wrong while I ride (yes I am still riding, very, very, very carefully) lightly and briefly. I mount at the mounting block, and I also dismount at it to minimize jarring the injury.

I have been trying to walk more, with some success. It takes forever and it’s a painful combination of limping and kind of shuffling. With the leg stretching and Advil, I have enjoyed some more mobility. Getting socks and shoes on is the most painful part of the process and I do so very gingerly.

I am now a full week out from the accident, and still incredibly frustrated and angry, but I’ll live, I guess. I swear to god, I will not take my mobility for granted!!!

And when you fly too high you get…Grounded :(

Oh, I was riding a high. Having a blast volunteering at Victoria Beer Week (so fun, highly recommend both volunteering and attending) and then when my husband and I were walking home from the afterparty on Saturday, I tripped over a small parking barrier as we cut across the park going to our house and seriously injured my leg and ankle. DAMN DAMN DAMN.

We had such a fun time with the volunteering- we did Beer and Pizza night as servers, something Ian and I were very bad at (I dropped a slice of pizza on the ground, and spilled beer by bumping into the wall, haha) but you know? It was still super fun! The vibe was good and man, we were so busy! I prefer that when we volunteer- keep me busy. I don’t want to hang around, you know?

All the volunteers were invited to the afterparty at 10:30 pm, and also we scored free tickets to the final event ‘Touchdown’ so we went there a little bit later, enjoyed some beers, seltzers and ciders (Saltspring was outstanding, so good!) and then stayed later for the afterparty. All good right? Right….Except we drank too much, unfortunately. In an effort to curb the weight gain I experienced over the months in Mexico, I have not really been drinking for a few weeks- a beer or two once a week is it. I felt so good, so into it that I didn’t realize how inebriated I had gotten.

We enjoyed free food and beers, and then left our car at the venue and walked the 4km home. A bit of a hike but safety first! All was good (basically, we were staggering around so time flew)…And then I didn’t even see the small wooden barrier that rings the park across from our house, hooked my foot under it, and fell on my arm. I twisted my right leg so badly I couldn’t move. It hurt incredibly, so horrible. I scraped my hand a little bit but my leg…So excruciating. Ian helped me get up and I couldn’t weight bear at all. It was so painful I threw up.

The next day I was in a world of hurt. My leg and ankle were non-weight bearing. I had to crawl up and down the stairs. Officially…fucked.

Day 2

Day 1

My ankle and foot are swollen still, and my fibula is giving me a LOT of grief. But, I am sort of weight bearing (carefully), so I am hopeful that I will recover…if not quickly, I hope to recover in time. In the meantime, I am bored out of my mind and cursing out, in the following order:

A) beer

B) myself

C) the park barrier

D) the world, in general

God, what a stupid mistake!

When the dentist isn’t so bad

Because you have this little cuddlebug on your lap the whole time! Her name is Rizzo and she is a rescue dog from Mexico. She is only 1 year old, but she’s incredibly well behaved and the loveliest little pup. She stayed with me during my appointment and snoozed on my lap (well, lap and chest lol) and made the whole experience so much better. (well, that and the fact that my teeth looked pretty good!).

Rizzo, your friendly dog companion at the dentist!

She is in ‘good etiquette’ classes right now and her owner is looking to have her assessed by St. John’s Ambulance to be a support animal. I think she’s the right dog for the job!

More chaos part 2?

Went a touch radio silent due to a lot of different factors all colliding at once, unfortunately:

Man, bring me back to this!

Major stress at work/burnout

Bad flareup of my chronic disease, ruinining an entire week of my life again

Oats went lame and I had a total meltdown over it

Gidget had a really bad flare up of her reverse sneezing and went into dog-shock for a few days. It was really hard to see 😦

So yeah…It was a very challenging period of weeks for me, Oats and the family.

Some bright sides: Oats lameness was temporary! He had a small abscess (in the same spot as his 2018 big abscess that summer) and now he is good to go. We even had a working equitation lesson on Sunday and he was a champ though I definitely felt quite rusty.

Work is ok for now and I am counting down the days until I am off on holidays!

My disease is back in remission until the next flare-up, and Gidget has a vet appointment today to figure out our next plan of attack. I don’t really expect that they will have any answers but…We made it over 3 weeks ago when we desperately needed it, so I still am hoping for some kind of solution or treatment for her symptoms.

I guess even through the blackest days, there is still hope?!

Also a bummer, but one I really knew was going to happen: My jump trainer who I have been with for over a decade (?!!) is not travelling to coach us anymore. I totally get it, no issue from me but it’s also a bit sad to see the end of an era.

I’ve reassessed mine and Oats relationships after his serious injury and jumping for competitions just doesn’t seem that worth it anymore? We’ve shown for so many years and it’s not always about ‘higher/faster/stronger’ for me– it’s about enjoying the journey and our relationship these days. I still love horse showing, but it’s not all what it’s cracked up to be, you know?

Discipline

To my extreme frustration, my leg is totally fucked. Like…I can tell the delamination has started and that was something I SO wanted to avoid. I started having trouble walking this week 😦 and it hurts going up the stairs, going down the stairs, and riding. YAY.

All that shockwave and strengthening exercises? Five WEEKS of them? Did shit all.

So I’m headed back down the road to having 6 months off. Yay me.

On that note, I’m stopping any attempt at running for a week, no more walk-jogs, nothing. If I can’t walk anymore, it’s gotten so much worse than how it started. 😦 Funny I have to have the discipline to NOT do anything???

Chaos by invitation?

Some good, some bad. I was celebrating on Friday (I can still drink sparkling wine, so that was on tap!) about Oats having his first riding lessons (though with trepidation), my leg was feeling better and things were looking up!

They still kind of are, but I am struggling with my leg injury again. ARGH. It was actively hurting today at the walk, which it hasn’t been since I got injured so good-byeeeee progress…. I had to go back to walking. Love it. Five weeks and counting, and I have not made measurable progress?? Things were looking up last week and then boom! Hurting again.

At least Oats is doing ok (watch I say that and then god only knows…). We had our lesson on Thursday, he had Friday off, then we did a lighter day on Saturday and he was pretty bad. Spooky, jumping out of his skin, etc etc. Our canter was nightmarish. Sunday he was worse- much spookier, and we were able to bump up the canter to three circles and they were all terrible, ha. Monday was another light day (we are doing it one day with more work, one day back off, much like what I was doing with my leg rehab until it got fucked up again). He was quite nice on Monday! Edgy and spooky, but his canter (only 1 circle) was quite lovely and his trot did get smoother, though I did feel resistance at first and it wasn’t amazing- just better.

And the weather, well I guess I can’t complain THAT much but can we get some spring weather?? Soon? Anytime? It feels like Feb. every single day. Some rain, but otherwise quite a dry March- just cold, unseasonably cold. Struggling to get to 10 deg, lows of 1 or -1 every night. What gives??? I have gone back to wearing my winter coats, because I have been so cold.

I guess the Year of my Discontent will just continue??? Or something? Good things are happening, just not very quickly and not very much good I guess.

At this point, food has been my only friend and companion!!

And history repeats itself

Well, it wouldn’t be a pandemic year without more disaster, right? To cope with many of the stressors I picked up during this weird and terrible time, I started running more at lunch. Like, a lot more. In normal times, I’d run about 5 days a week, and I went to 7 with the odd day off here and there. Fine right? Yep no prob.

And then I started adding in 1 day of hills, and 1 day of speed work (gradually over the past 6 months) and everything was great! I bumped up my daily run amount and kept the intensity. All was going well until…Tuesday. I ran the hills, and it was extremely tough due to 5 days of severe windstorms this week. I finished a bit short, and must have aggravated my stress fracture from 2019, because when I ran on Wednesday, my calf felt tight and then on Thur? BOOM. No go. Limping. 😦

Yeah really don’t want to go through this again. Damn

So, that’s where I am right now. Forced time off and time to re-evaluate my injury protocl. And of course after two weeks of miserable weather, it’s sunny and not too cold out. Eff my life! Wah wah. I know I did this to myself, but I also know that I probably can’t make myself stop, either.

Post-Shockwave. Eight sessions on this bad boy. REALLY don’t want to experience that pain again. 😦

So who knows what the future holds for my bad leg AND the hot spot on the bone is the same stress fracture spot as in 2019 (got them in both legs last time, fun fun…). EFF. 😦 Can’t catch a break eh? At least Oaty was golden last night. Three weeks to go!

You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

From Samuel Beckett’s The Unnameable.

How I feel about this year, in a nut-shell. Basically a list of things that were taken from me, from us and not much else. How do you keep going? You keep going.

I keep a running list of things I desperately want to do when this BS is all over. Horse camping, riding lessons with Oats, a horse show, running in a race again, flying to Argentina for the holiday we cancelled, seeing my friends for happy hours…

In the meantime, what do we do? I started a 30-day yoga journey, from ‘Yoga with Adriene’ which I am really enjoying. Otherwise, I quit drinking for January and was successful with that! I also run every day at lunch, and have been adding in some Fitness Blender workouts with my puny and pathetic 4lb weights, 5lbs weights and my lone 10lb weight. Hey, that’s all I’ve got!

I also enjoy eating a little too much, since I don’t have anything else to really do or enjoy these days. Little Cesars for the win! I also spend a lot of time watching TV, and hanging out with Gidget and Tucker and my husband.

Otherwise, this entire past year is a freaking washout. Goodbye forever, that piece of my life.