Lazy recovery time

Recovery is hard.  I mean, sitting around all day with your foot up, watching the Tour de France, followed by marathon sessions of Mad Men, True Blood (after the children have gone to bed) and Portlandia is really hard.  Actually, I'm so sick of sitting. Couch, arm chair, in bed.  Ugh, Can I just walk already?  I miss getting up and grabbing a cup of coffee, water, etc.

Buster made my whole lunch, cut the apple and everything!

DH, Buster and Cub have all been so helpful.  The boys have made me breakfast almost everyday, and even lunch when DH was mowing the lawn.  I think they've done an amazing job for being 9 and 6. 


It's sad when your big activity for the day is taking a shower.  Although, I did wander out a few times. One trip to Target with the boys.  I have to say I love the scooters.  The boys both wanted a little ride on my lap which worked for about 5 minutes.  I only managed to bang into a few clothing racks (totally embarrassing when you have to go in reverse with the loud "beep, beep").  I think everyone stared at me though, but thank goodness I had that heavy splint on. 

Sleeping with a huge splint on also is extremely annoying.  The first few nights were ok, since I was on pain meds that knocked me out. After a few days though, it was rough.  I don't like sleeping on my

back and I move around a lot at night.  So,  finally managed a way of resting my splint on a pillow so that I could comfortably lay on my side.  Also, getting up in the middle of the night with crutches kind of sucks. 

Ok, so enough with the complaining.  On a positive note, pain has been minimal.  My incision site on the medial side is the one that hurts but I knew that one was going to be bigger.   I didn't know how much bigger since it was wrapped up for 12 days.

Yesterday, I had my follow up appointment.  Here's what I wanted to hear: "Incision looks great, wear your boot, until you can walk without it. No need for crutches anymore.  Feel free to start PT and go ahead and start spinning.  Run when you are ready." 
Here's what I got:  Incisions look great, wear your boot for 3 weeks, no need to start PT yet since they won't be able to do much for you right now, no spinning unless you want a world of pain, crutches as needed. boo.

He did tell me exactly what they (Dr and Resident?) found.  I had a menscoid legion between my fibula and tibia from a high ankle sprain (assuming that was with the initial avulsion fracture) that wasn't the source of my pain but they took it out anyways, they cleaned up the inflammation in my ankle joint called synovitis, and took off 2 bone spurs that were on my talus and my tibia that would bang into each other (otherwise known as kissing spurs) when I flexed my ankle.
 

All the inflammation was from the spurs not arthritis like he thought.  My cartilage looked great, no lesions.  I'm extremely happy about that since I never believed I had arthritis. I had the symptoms, yes, but I couldn't wrap my head around having it.  I probably would still be in denial even if he told me I had it.  

So, finally got the splint off.  I have a tiny little incision on the lateral ankle side and a bigger than expected incision on the medial side-about 2 inches.  Leg hair shorter than expected (thank God!), and I could actually flex my ankle a little bit (enough that Dr was impressed I do that much after splint).

last of the Oompa Loompa Skin plus some lovely stitches

Pampered ankle with steri-strips and nail polish!

So I get to use my boot again, the ankle is in a different angle now so I'm feeling the incision area more, crutches still.  I can at least put my foot down with minimal pressure on it but it's a start.

Cub's first 5k

Just like mommy!

I am so proud today! My most memorable race to date.  I finally got to run a 5k with my son, Cub.

  We'd plan on running one last fall after the Columbus Half marathon but since I was injured that was out.  It was hard to be a cheerleader when I wanted to be running it with him.  But finally I got my chance, it was a fundraiser that my running partner had organized.  It was pretty low key and I'd planned on running 9 on Saturday so I ran 6 before the race and then the 3.1 with Cub.

We showed up an hour early-which in a way was good since I got to show Cub how to do a sprint start on the track for one of his Cub Scout arrow points.  Then he got his soccer ball out and practiced running down the field and kicking goals for about 30 mins. 

When the race started, I had to hold Cub back a bit, since he wanted to sprint after the other kids who'd gone out too fast.  We managed to pass all of them in the first mile or so as they slowed down or stopped.  He was so cute since he kept wanting to look back and see where his competition was.  I told him to always look ahead and focus on the next runner.  He was such a trooper.  I think he was getting almost annoyed with me since I kept asking him how he was feeling or if he wanted to slow down.  I'm glad I had an extra water bottle so he kept hydrating since it was a hot one! 

Here were his/my splits:
1 mile:  8:06
2 mile: 8:38
3 mile : 8:56 (hill)
overall time: 26:30 for Cub
Overall:  9th overall/ 61 finishers
Age Group: 1st!

I'm so happy/proud of him.  It was so much fun running with him.  I can't wait for many more races in the future.  He wants to do a 10k next, but I think were going to wait  awhile for that.  The only training he did was soccer practice/games.

Here are some pictures from the race.  Enjoy!

  Hydrate!

Love how in sync we are in this one

Leaving mommy in the dust

Victory!

Happy 8th Birthday, Cub!

2 weeks old

1 year

18 months

2.5 years old, meeting Buster for the 1st time

4 years

5 years

6 years

7 years old

My big 8 year old (with friend's hands)

People always say that you will have a hard time remember what your life was like before children.  I can't imagine my life without my Cub.  Happy Birthday, sweetie! 

New role

Cheerleader.  Not something I usually do but I don't usually watch races, usually I'm running in them.  I found myself this past Friday cheering for my son in his first 5k ever.  We'd planned on running it together this summer when he wanted to start running with me.  I promised that after the Columbus half that I'd run it with him...I hadn't planned on not being able to run it.  I was a bit bummed to say the least. 

Earlier in the week, I'd been inspired by going to the gym and even though my heel had been hurting all day the darn treadmill called my name and I managed to run a grand total of.... 1/4 mile.  Woo hoo! Limped the whole time and called it quits after 3 minutes.  I felt like such a loser.  Some chick was doing a run on one of the other treadmills and was going at a decent clip (although I'm sure I could have run faster if I were healthy) (I can't stand that I'm so competitive) and had to walk to the bike.  Grrrr.  The bike and I are not friends.  It sucks.  Anyways, the next day my heel was hurting like crazy again, so lesson learned...I'm not going to be able to run a 5k in a few days.

Back to the race.  It was a perfect night for a run!  damn, PF sucks!  My dh was out of town and even if I could run it no one was around to watch Buster so I guess it was meant to be.  Our friend, Kevin, was going to be running it with his oldest son (and classmate to Cub) so we planned that Kevin would run with the boys.  Thanks, Kevin!  Cub had dressed up as Harry Potter in his quiddich robe/uniform, we decided that running with a broom might be problematic.  A lip pencil made a wonderful lightning bolt scar to top it off!  We got there with plenty of time to get his packet, potty break, stretch and to be in a children’s costume contest.  There were some adorable costumes- I am just not creative. That and I never give myself or the kids time to design anything!  So time to go line up, saw some of the regular locals and could guess who was going to win (and they did). 

After they started, Buster and I walked back to the finish line, and it was getting a bit chilly so we went back to the car for about 15 mins. Buster loved it since he finally got to pig out on his candy that he’d gotten from a friend at school.  I managed to munch on a few candy corns as well… must remember that I’m no longer running so no need for those calories.  I felt a little bad that we weren’t on the course but it would have been impossible to get back in time to see the end.  We headed back to the finish line after our candy fix, cheer on the first finishers and wait…Finally they show up, Cub is looking pretty tired but when he hears the music and us (I hope) that he was able to finish.  32:35.  Awesome job for a 7 year old!   They had a great spread of food for the runners after the race- good since the race was over supper time!  We hung out for a while long enough for the awards.  Cub managed to get 2^nd place in the 0-8 year old age group!  His buddy got 1^st place.  They both were super excited- no doubt both boys will continue to run for years to come!  It was bitter sweet- I wanted to run that with him but I so happy that he did such a great job! 

Now I have a goal:  Jingle Bell run, Dec. 3^rd with Cub. 

On a completely different note:  Like my new design for the blog?  I could not for the life of me get rid of the brown box that went behind my title.  I tried all the templates that were offered to see if it would go away.  Nothing seemed to work, except for putting my own picture there.  It’s huge.  Sorry about that, really don’t need a huge picture of me, but I guess it does have my boys and me after a race so it’s fitting.