Last September, I decided to break my ankle. Woke up and decided, today is a great day to end with surgery. :-) Ok, not quite. I joined a social touch football league with my friend, Xan. I haven't played football since elementary school, but was like, eh, I am a girl, what will I actually be doing during the game? Not much. Oh, how wrong I was.
I missed the first game of the season because I already had travel plans to go see my sister up at my uncles' house in PA. Game two was the weekend after. I was all excited to go! Xan had told me how much fun she had the week I was gone and how cool the team was. I got there and tried to meet everyone and get to know the rules. I truly had no idea what I was doing when I first stepped on the field. I watch a ton of football, but social touch football is like a completely different game. We were low on girls, so we were playing a lot. Start of the 2nd half, my team was on defense. Everyone just told me to kind of be in my zone and if anyone was gonna get the ball in my zone, touch them. Sounds easy, right? Again, not so much.
Quarterback drops back to pass the ball. I have one girl and one guy in my zone. Of course, they decide to pass to the guy. I'm not far away, so I start to go towards him as the ball is in the air. As he is getting the ball, he starts to fall. Well, I am going straight for him, expecting him to continue to go forward, but he is falling. I catch up to him and basically shove him to the ground and as I am doing that, I step forward with my right foot. Yeah, he is on the ground where my foot wants to go.
Let's fast forward past that detail (still gives me the shivers seeing the event happening in my mind) and I am on the ground after hearing my ankle snap, loudly. Everyone crowds around me. I am in agony and my ankle is no longer in the right place. My foot is pointing to the left even though my ankle is straight. That's no good, medically speaking. :-)
After what seemed like an eternity (on a 90 degree day), ambulance gets me, I go to the hospital, and I have surgery to repair the 3 breaks in my ankle. I come out with 8 pins and a plate in my ankle. Awesome.
Fast forward to now...
After a couple of months of crutches, a couple of months of physical therapy and now a couple of months of normal life...I'm doing ok. Ok basically means I am able to do all of my ordinary life stuff, period. I haven't tried running...no tennis...no rigorous gym workout. But I can jog up the stairs, I can wear some heels (with a bit of pain, but its worth it, I swear!), I can talk Wrigley on longer walks (he is so excited about this!)
But I still FEEL that I broke my ankle. I may always feel it. They say once you break something, it never will be quite right again. Don't know, guess I will see in the future. I just hate that I feel it all the time. It is never far from my mind. I guess I am being a little stupid and petty. I am generally whole again and I just be thankful for what I have. I don't swell up all the time, the scars are starting to fade, etc. But I HATE, HATE, HATE the fact that I still feel broken. This is coming from a girl that never sprained, broke or really injured myself in all of my years of competitive sports. Never. And now, in my mid-thirties, playing in a social league, I totally screw up my ankle. So, I don't have the best perspective. I have always been in one piece, happily whole. Now, I don't feel that way. I feel vulnerable. I feel limited.
Today I walked Wrigley around the lake for the first time, post-break. If I kept moving, it didn't feel bad. I could almost kid myself into feeling completely normal. But then, another dog would come along and Wrigley and he would want to sniff and greet each other. I would start walking and the discomfort would appear...teaching myself not to let Wrigley be social. :-) Those reminders just kill me. And of course, after getting home, sitting on the couch, I just have to flex my foot to feel discomfort again. And when it rains for any extended period of time, I feel every cm of that plate.
Perspective...4 months ago, I could hardly believe that I would get to where I am today, walking around and feeling fairly normal. So, I do need to really accept where I am as the gift it is. But it is hard. Especially as time marches on because at some point, the pain might just stick around forever. And that just is hard to accept. I tend to be a pretty driven person and I usually get what I want and I tend to control what happens to me. I don't have control over this and I don't like it...at all. Not sure what will happen. Today was a great triumph...I walked Wrigley on a long walk. It is also a reminder of what my life might be...having to deal with some pain and stiffness when I do things like this. Hard to accept.
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