Monday, January 21, 2013

latest and greatest ankle injury pictures







Day 3 Dr. office
bottom of my foot is totally bruised just by sitting down waiting.


Ahhh, comfort! Now I can put some weight on my ankle.



day 4 AM bruising setting in

bruising on the inside too


Day 4 PM,  more colors

day 4 pm
Day 5 more bruising- back to work

bruising more in the medial side

Day 7 AM one week after

day 7AM


Day 8, more swollen today- tried to walk around too much yesterday

Right ankle normal, left ankle still swollen (just after I took off the ace bandage)

What my ankle normally looks like

What my left one looks like on day 8

Day 9 am

day 9 am
Yay! You made it through all my lovely pictures.  I'm grossed out by them but at the same time it's interesting to see how your body reacts to trauma.  I never thought my toes would be bruised by an ankle fracture for example.

Recovery wise- I last blogged on Monday- 2 days after my accident.

Tuesday (day 3)- RICE and Dr. Appt where I got a boot.  I have to say, I love the boot.  I couldn't but any weight on my ankle/foot before and now I can so it's helping with walking with crutches.  The official diagnosis:  Avulsion fracture of my fibula. Basically, my calcaneofibular ligament ripped off my fibula and took a chunk of bone with it. It was really tiny in the xray. So this is usually treated like a sprain.  6 weeks and I should be good.




Wednesday (day 4)- RICE and got up more and got used to the boot and crutches.

Thursday (day 5) back to work- kept off my feet as much as possible, iced 2x during the day.

Friday (day 6) work- walked around for about 1hr without crutches- small victory.  Later that night, same thing.

Saturday (day 7- 1 week)  Rested, but feeling frustrated of not being able to work out and irritable cleaned the house with headphones on.  I did some ROM exercises, abcs and flexing it. Over did it, and hurt later that night.  grrr.

Sunday (day 8) RICED, babied it, crutches, etc.  I was able to bear weight on it and actually took a few steps before going to bed to try it out.  The only place it hurt was the medial side...strange- the opposite side from the injury. Hoping it's just stiff.

Monday (day 9- today)- I'm going to try just wearing the boot today and skip crutches.  Wondering if the pain I get in the boot is from just being stiff.  Although as I type it hurts and I haven't even been up in 30 minutes.  Probably need to elevate it!

So my goal this week:  to try to wean from the crutches and to increase ROM.

One week down, 5 to go (hopefully!)

Monday, January 14, 2013

That's not what supposed to happen!





my "before" shot- was planning a muddy "after"  shot. Note my cute little left ankle
So I had a fabulous week last week with running.  My IT band has decided to cooperate and I ran 13 miles with in the week  2 five milers and a quick 3.1 on the treadmill.  I was feeling great, so on Saturday the local running club (which I just joined finally) was having an 8 mile trail run- the weather was going to be in the 60s in January in OHIO.  It was going to be muddy and fun.  My running partner couldn't make it, and it was going to be in the woods so I didn't ask my dh if he wanted to go- since the boys wouldn't be able to see anything.  I figured I was just going to run this for fun, I  haven't run 8 since Indianapolis so it was just going to be a workout.

OF COURSE, that didn't happen.  The first part was going well, muddy, puddles, narrow trails exactly what I wanted.  Then it all fell apart.

I was heading down a narrow path on a hill, it was really muddy so there were roots that were kind of packed down and made for good steps down.  At the bottom of the hill was a small ravine with a bridge over it.  On the last "root step" I stepped, slid, rolled my ankle, heard a pop/crack and wiped out.  I landed on my hands and saved my face, but I didn't care about that at all, since my ANKLE was in so much pain, immediately it was swelling (crazily fast). I said every swear word in the book. I knew it was bad.  I'd take natural child birth again to that pain. 

  Everyone behind me stopped since I was blocking the bridge, but 2 guys helped me up and got me over to the side- other runners ran ahead to get help.    After the initial pain, it stopped hurting too much and just kept swelling.  One of the guys that was with me found a y shaped stick that I used to prop my foot up while we waited for help.  We talked about the Air Force marathon and various races and running groups in the area, anything, to help me take my mind of my now grapefruit sized ankle.  Runners kept coming by and asking if I needed any help, then commented on how it was swollen and bruising. I texted dh to come to the race to pick me up.

 The race director showed up pretty quickly and told us where they could carry me to get me to a car.  So Randy and Steve (my heroes) carried me up a muddy hill and across a huge field to a back parking lot of a nursing home and the race director picked me up in his car.  By then, the pain had returned, since it wasn't elevated.  The race director had the paramedics check me out at the elementary school to make sure I was ok.  They wrapped up an ice pack on my ankle and cleaned out my skinned knee (hadn't realized that until then).

My dh showed up and we headed to the emergency room.  I just got my flu shot last week, so when we showed up and a about 3 people have face masks on- i got super paranoid.  Yuck- I don't need the flu on top of this.

 Hours later...  I got my diagnosis.  FRACTURED FIBULA- but what it really was, as the ER Dr. explained, "Your ligament ripped off the bone and took a bit of the bone with it". Gross.  Really gross.  She explained that it would be treated like a severe sprain.  6 weeks before I'd be able to run again.  So I was given a lovely Air Cast and crutches and instructions on calling an orthopedist on Monday. 

Getting ready to leave ER. Love the sock- traction on both sides, but it keeps the toes warm so I'm still sporting it.
Nurse Chester
Since then, I've been on the couch with my foot up and taking various lovely pictures of my ankle as it grows and gets more colorful.  My cat, Chester, has been watching over me.  Sleeping next to me, yet not on my lap like normal.    I have found that my foot doesn't hurt, but my chest and arms are so sore.  I think it was the combination of falling and catching myself and holding/supporting myself on the hike out of the woods.  Plus, to insult to injury- since I skinned my knee I had to get a tetanus shot.  So 2 days after, I can hardly lift my body off the crutches to move.  So tomorrow is my Dr appt. to see what the real damage is. 

Anyone, dealt with a severe sprain?  I've been googling it like crazy.  I'm going to have to just wait to see what ligament isn't attached and if I messed up the others.   I'm also going to have to figure out what I can do to stay in shape.  Hmmm, core, arms, swimming? I guess more Qs for the Dr. 

So, my goal of running 13 13.1s in 2013 has been delayed- but the contest is still on! 

Ready for some yucky pictures?   Don't scroll down if you don't. Lucky for you, I had ice on my ankle at the hospital otherwise you'd see a grapefruit under someone's skin. 


18 hrs after
about 1.5 days after- can you tell where the brace was



AM of day 2 (I couldn't sleep with it elevated)

starting to bruise on the opposite side from injury  2nd day am








2nd day about 48 hrs since I did it.  (after icing) Getting colorful!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

13 13.1s in 2013 Challenge

Welcome to the 13 13.1s in 2013 Challenge 
for those of you who are 
"half" crazy!


Here are the rules:

1.  You must run 13 half marathons in the year 2013. These don't all have to be official races.  These could be training runs, too. (That can be any run 13.1 or over)  We all know that races get expensive.

2.  Keep track of your races/runs and times.  Email me them at the 1st of each month.  heather.m.winkler@gmail.com  I'll post them along and a link to your blog/race recap.  If you don't have a blog that's fine too!

3.  Post a link to my blog/this page on your blog (if you have one!) I'll post links to bloggers who are participating!

4. Have fun and at the end of the year you'll get some type of award- or at least bragging rights!


How do you enter?

Leave a comment with a link to your blog.  That's it.  This will be fun! 


Don't think you can do it? 
  • you don't have to do a race every month, you can bunch them up.
  • they don't have to be official races- training runs are good too!
 Here's some motivation for you:

Review: Athlinks

Disclaimer:  I am promoting  Athlinks  as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a  BibRave Pro (ambassador) , and check out...