Mental Health Check In, Feet First

This post is less about nature and more about what happens when you are no longer able to enjoy it in the way you normally do. There are times in peoples lives where things change, either slowly or rather abruptly. This story is about a rapid change.

On July 16 I experienced my first ever major injury in my entire life. I was in the last stretch of my summer vacation, in the peak of my physical fitness and doing just about anything I wanted. I had just returned from a major hiking trip in Colorado, I was swimming, biking and working out nearly every day. I was finally doing more creative projects at home. Then I sprained my ankle. I hurt myself having a really good time with friends doing things we enjoy doing but not really thinking about whether or not its safe. When I say I sprained my ankle, I mean I sprained it really really bad. Post emergency room visit and several thousand dollars lighter in my bank account I was home safe and sound. I am very lucky that my injury was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. However, it was a leg injury which came with its own set of baggage. What resulted afterwards has been a really new eye opening experience into the mental and physical changes your body goes through post injury. Since I am a scientist and I love data I decided to track my recovery with my Garmin watch, a journal, and weekly photographs.

Phase 1 No activity

My daily steps before and after the ankle sprain.

The first thing that happened is that my activity went from the highest it has ever been to near zero. The first 48 hours after injuring myself I was home bound on the couch with my leg propped up in a cast. Luckily I had an amazing friend that offered to come stay with me and help, because I was incapable of doing anything. During these first couple of days I didn’t really feel anything, everything was pretty new and I was taking some pain medicine so I really just felt numb overall. The reality check hit me by the end of the second day. I knew at that point that this was going to be a long recovery and many of the things I liked to do I wouldn’t be able to do for a while. This was a very hard concept to grasp and it was immediately frustrating. Suddenly my house, which was normally quite lovely, felt like the last place on earth I wanted to be. When my friend would leave my house at night I would be alone in bed with the dog by the side. I could hear the cars go by and the cats walking around. All I wanted to do was walk, to get up and walk to the kitchen or walk outside or anywhere. The desire to walk was so intense it felt as if my legs were crawling with ants.

Pictures of bruising, because we know that’s what you came here for

This picture was taken 7 days after the injury and is about when the bruising and swelling peaked. It took a while for the bruises to appear and they stuck around for a while after.

Hello toes!! This photo was taken the same day as the previous one (7 days post injury). Throughout the day if I didn’t elevate my foot blood would pool in my ankle and toes and make my foot appear black and blue. It would go away after I iced and elevated my foot only to show up again the next day.

Phase 2 Trying to get by

As they say life goes on and the world doesn’t stop just because you do. Part of some summer training I had to do required me to attend a class for one week in downtown Austin. Since I couldn’t drive and there is no cheap or widely available parking near the location, I decided to ride the bus. Every morning a friend would come pick me up, we would ride to the bus station, we would unload my “knee rover” on to the platform and we would ride the bus downtown. Once we got off I had an approximately 1/4 mile walk to the door of the building. This last leg of the journey was aggravating sometimes and grueling on others. The sidewalk along the way was under construction in parts, which required me to get off the scooter, carry it several feet over exposed gravel and then get back on it on the other side. There were areas of the sidewalk that jackknifed at obscure angles which were hard to navigate, and a seriously tough uphill climb towards a stoplight. I crossed the street every day at a crosswalk and almost got run over on two separate occasions by people who ran the red light through the intersection. Having never experienced anything remotely close to a disability in my lifetime this was an eye opening experience. Our world is just not designed for people who don’t walk on two legs. I remember throughout my life seeing people in electric wheelchairs driving in the lane of traffic rather than on the sidewalk and I have always wondered why they would do that. I now realize its because city sidewalks suck ass and cant accommodate even the most normal sized wheels. Wheels that are supposed to be able to go anywhere, cant operate on a regular sidewalk.

During weeks 3-6 I was not allowed to walk on my injured leg but I could stand momentarily or put a little bit of weight on it. This posed some interesting problems as I live on the second floor of a building. Every day, several times a day, I had to walk up stairs and then back down again without putting weight on my ankle. I also started back to work as a teacher during this time period and was not able to stand or move around the classroom with any real efficacy. Also, I still couldn’t drive anywhere.

This photo is 16 days after the injury. The bruising is still pretty bad and the swelling is about the same.

Phase 3 Unforeseen consequences

The initial results of the injury were really simple. Lack of mobility led to a lot of inactivity and overall decreased mood. What I didn’t realize is the longer term effects of a mobility affecting injury. Instead of gaining weight from lack of activity I lost nearly 7 pounds from loss of appetite and probably a bit of muscle loss. Though I was at home all of the time I didn’t do any creative projects at all. I would sit in front of a sketchbook or computer and be unable to write or draw. I didn’t write a blog post for nearly 5 months, I didn’t draw for the same amount of time. After I was cleared to exercise again I had to deal with the massive loss in muscle mass that had occurred from my inactivity. I re-joined my running club only to find that I couldn’t even keep up with the slowest runners. The momentum that I had gained over the past few years of maintaining a habit and keeping up with hobbies was completely gone.

It has taken a lot to crawl back from this injury and I commend every person who has ever had to start anything in their life. The hardest part is getting started but the even harder part is continuing when you feel like it doesn’t matter. When you feel like you are going to fail anyway. Its been 5 months since the injury and I can say that it wasn’t until month 4 that I felt like myself again. Here is to hoping 2020 is injury free and full of more adventures to come.