Patience? Never Heard of Her

Minutes after I heard the results of my MRI, I got my first piece of advice from my coach:  Write down the word "Patience" on as many post-it notes as you can get your hands on, then stick them anywhere you'll see them.  At that point in time, I laughed in the face of him and Sonia, my beloved athletic trainer, and informed them that if I tried that, those post-it notes would more likely get torn up after a few days.  Then burned.  Then the ashes would probably get buried next to the track next to my dreams.  No, I am absolutely NOT dramatic and I do not overreact to anything at all ever.  I told myself that I would be patient, but I also somehow got it into my head that I would be allowed to run immediately after I got back from winter break.  Not only did I not get to run or even get on the underwater treadmill when I arrived back, after trying the elliptical for ten minutes and having pain on that, then trying the bike for ten minutes and having pain on that, I was informed that I would be limited to no activity at all or arm biking.  Having been thriving in my state of denial all break, getting jerked suddenly into the reality of my injury was extremely unpleasant.  Turns out spinal injuries are not a quick fix, and there is no definitive timeline for how quickly they will recover.  Also, if your back hurts while you're biking, you should not just assume that it's muscular pain and continue biking for the entirety of break without telling your trainer or she will NOT be thrilled with your actions.  Forgive me Sonia, for I have sinned.
So, that brings us up to last week when I was laying flat on my back in bed wallowing in self-pity and depression.  Being stuck on a bike was bad enough, I thought, and now here I was unable to do anything at all, betrayed by my own stupid body.  There were a few days where my only time at practice was the twenty minutes spent hooked up to the stim machine, and my first day "back" from my brief break consisted of ten minutes on the arm bike.  Had you told the Lyssa of last summer she would one day in the near future be excited to be on the arm bike, she likely would have choked on her carb drink and possibly verbally assaulted you for saying something so ridiculous.  I told Sonia that I missed even running on the small underwater treadmill and her reaction was similar to if I had confessed to missing gastric ulcers.  I am not a patient individual, but the learning of patience is being forced on me right now whether I like it or not.  I allowed myself to be cross and mean and miserable for a few days after learning that my spine had not and would not heal on the timeline I wanted it to, then after a chat with my therapist, Clint, came to the conclusion that being a vindictive, angry shrew trapped in the body of a twenty year old woman would not make my recovery come any faster and would certainly make the time that I waited for it to come much less enjoyable and full of self-pity.  Since 2018 is the year of skincare, mental health, and good grades, there is no room for self-pity on the agenda.

Here's a super cute pic of my spine, the white spot by the arrow and to the right of the spinal cord is BLOOD IN MY VERTEBRAE (!!!)

Remarkably, when I took several days entirely off, my back started to feel better.  There was no miraculous overnight recovery, as I'd hoped for, but there was a gradual decrease in pain levels over the last week.  After a few days of only stim, I begrudgingly took to the arm bike.  Today, my pain levels were between 0-1 out of ten all day with no increase due to my rehab or arm biking, and I was allowed to move up from twelve to fifteen minutes on the arm bike.  Even last week's Lyssa would have been irritated and anxious about doing fifteen minutes on the arm bike and calling it a day, but the Lyssa of this week is working on gaining a fresh new perspective, being patient with her body and her recovery, and being happy and excited with the small steps taken forward rather than focusing on where a body without injuries could have taken this indoor season.  An injury is frustrating, heartbreaking, and difficult, but it doesn't have to be the end of your world or your running career.  It will take time and patience (patience, patience, patience-I've heard that word so many times over the last month and I definitely have a love/hate relationship with it), but you can always come back.

#NoMakeup #JustWokeUp

Some things that have helped me over the last few weeks:
-Acknowledge that it's okay to not be okay.  When something that is such an integral part of who you are abruptly gets taken away, you are going to have a lot of emotions, and most of them will probably not be pleasant.  Don't stick yourself in a negative cycle for the entirety of the time you are injured, but it is acceptable to take a moment to be frustrated or disappointed or to yell some cathartic curse words while your roommates aren't home.
-Find a hobby to throw yourself into.  Take challenging classes.  Do everything you're allowed to do in terms of cross training, rehab, and recovery.  Figure out a way to fill your time and distract you from dwelling on the thing you'd rather be doing.
-On the instruction of my boi Clint:  Identify the values that you take from running that make you enjoy so much and find a way to integrate them into your life and daily activities.  For example, if the value you take from running is accomplishment, you could instead focus on academic accomplishment and achievement until you're back to running.  Additionally, Clint has instructed me to journal about what I'm doing to integrate those values so I actually have to consciously make an effort to think about it and do it.  10/10 would recommend.
Also, since writing this post, I had a chance to meet with the team doctor and look at my MRIs.  Hooray!  It was actually super interesting for me to see what's happening inside my body instead of just throwing hateful thoughts out in the general direction of my spine.  They identified the stress reaction because of  the blood pooling in my vertebrae.  On the images I included, my bones show up as gray and my spinal cord and liquids show up as white.  The white in the sea of grey on either side of my spinal cord is blood, indicating that there was damage to the bone that my body was trying to repair by sending blood and nutrients to.  Way to go, body!  Additionally, I learned that had I waited to say something, this injury could have been much worse.  Initially, I was somewhat bitter that I spoke up because it meant that I got removed from practice when I was convinced I could've run through this, then Dr. Campbell started throwing around words like "spondylolisthesis" and suddenly I felt much better about speaking up.  I also felt slightly more charitable towards my body for not doing THAT to me.  For those of you keeping score at home who don't have a weird obsession with the body and exercise science (@ Myself), that term describes a condition in which, due to cracks forming in both pedicles, the vertebrae slips out of position and can pinch or damage the spinal cord.  Huge shoutout to my body and my wonderful trainer for shutting me down before we reached the point of vertebral slippage, because as much fun as that is to say, I doubt it's at all fun to experience.