'Twas on a fateful Wednesday when it happened

Dzien Dobry (Good Day) my dears, it is @synrg coming in with an update. I had been going to this rock climbing gym for a couple months, getting into it, loving it, but also finding it difficult - in the way that structuring your life and organizing yourself in those 24 hours; it was becoming apparent why some people don't exercise or do anything physical - they don't have the time or they don't make the time. Devoting time to oneself takes time away from those 24 hours and if you don't make it a priority, it often gets squeezed out of the picture.
I was going hard for a while, then got caught up with some work stuff, renovations but found myself still getting out at the end of the day pretty regularly.
Well a couple weeks ago I pushed myself to get out there earlier, go for a climb during the day as opposed to the evenings or at night right before the gym closed which tended to be my usual thing. So I biked to the gym, took my boots off, put my climbing shoes on, did one climb and slipped. Kind of in a bad way, normally slipping and falling there really isn't an issue with that since there are very nice soft padded mats for you to fall on and not get hurt. The problem is that I hit something on the wall on the way down. Generally you are pretty aware of how you are going to fall and when you are going to fall but this all happened so fast.

In hindsight it was clear I should have warmed up more but some sense of 'confidence' or something caused me to forego that and just start with an 'intermediate' difficulty climb and the whole way up I was feeling like ... a bit out of it... should have warmed up better on those easier climbs. I mean if I had done any number of things differently that day things would have turned out better I suppose but when I fell and hit the mat I knew something was really wrong. I couldn't put ANY weight on my left foot. I hobbled down the stairs on one foot using the guard rail and when one of the gym staff saw that they immediately helped out getting me an ice pack and cruthes, they were pretty well prepared for this sort of thing and even let me borrow the crutches (they didn't say for how long) but they said they had plenty so I am just going to assume ... they're allright with it because I definitely need those crutches now, for the next two months or so, maybe less. But the doctor said I had pretty well smashed my talus bone. It's not the typical place that people break the ankle, the talus is directly under the ankle and distributes the weight or something? Anyways the foot is full of bones and I managed to break one of them and "not a good bone to break" according to the first doctor. I looked into it and it did indeed seem a bit freaky because that bone breaking can result in disrupted blood flow and that bone dying... but the doctor said thankfully, even though it was clearly broken, it wasn't overly displaced which was a good thing.
A couple days after that I had an appointment with a more specialized Orthopedic doctor who agreed that even though it was 'quite fragmented' as he put it all the pieces were in the right places and they couldn't really do much better with surgery, so my best option was to put a full cast on it and no weight bearing for 2 months, which even though kinda sucks I was hoping for that option. I mean I don't think there are many people that often want surgery in these types of situations.
Anyways there was a lot of pain for the first days, still doesn't feel GREAT. While I was waiting for the Orthopedic Dr. Sanders I stared at the poster on the wall in the hospital room describing how the body repairs a bone breaking and I just kinda sat there in awe for a bit at just the task that the body completes... Like for example the first stages are the body clearing out old fragments of bone via swelling and inflammation. And then of course repairing the bone itself. I was really thankful not to have had this any worse. Part of me is a bit still shocked that this all happened and I dealt with a lot of questioning myself like is there something wrong with me that this happened, I didn't fall "that" far... but then thinking back more clearly picturing how it happened it was a severe impact on my foot on the way down, I cringe even thinking about it. But beyond all the unfortunate circumstances, if we are willing to look for the silver lining in things we can find them instead of looking at the negative side of things.
It has been quite a humbling experience, you might think you have sympathy or empathy towards other people dealing with pain or handicaps but it really hits you hard when it's your own experience. Also it has put some things into perspective, what is really important, what it means to have a working body... I mean I don't think I totally wasn't thankful for that before but also for sure there was more care that I could have put myself through just we get caught up with our day to day lives and living the same way and it's easy to slip into less than ideal routines. I'm not sure if this happening was even some sort of subconscious thing at play, telling me to slow down in certain ways, I'm not sure. It is the fact at hand though. I guess moral of the story is if your gut is telling you to slow down or that something isn't right maybe take a step back and reasess the situation? I dind't feel right on that wall like I was saying... but on the flipside if we are always in our comfort zones all the time that isn't a good thing either. Anyways, just take care of each other, be kind, be thankful for everything that you have as simple as it may be, an 'attitude of gratitude' brings oneself to much more appreciation and the potential to experience greater happiness, since we are focusing on the things we already have and not focusing on sort of 'external' desires. Not to say that we can't desire or wish things to be different either, but being caught up only on future desires/wants is foregoing our current happiness for the idea or thought of something off in the future. I mean if you see it and you want it for sure go and get it but just have fun doing it, breathe and don't get too cocky.

Pardon the graphic imagery but you get the idea. Now I have a cool fiberglass pink cast and on two separate occasions my family members came and asked me ... so... uh, why pink? Referring to my colour choice which was usually reserved for u know girls and whatnot... I just told them it was the most ridiculously ridiculous thing to happen so I had to comemorate that with the colour choice. However when I really think about it it seems like pink is the most healing colour I mean when we are all in the womb well everthing is probably pitch black to be honest and we are almost like formless timeless beings but yeah one could say it's also very 'pink' and regardless of what it is this foot could definitely use some healing action as I definitely felt pretty broken up there for a while, still do but I'm still here, you're still here and that's what matters.

Maybe at some point I'll get another picture with my hot pink cast but right now I can't be bothered with that you'll jusy have to make do with the sight of my internally bruised and swollen ankle right now to flash into your mind just as you are about to peacefully fall off to sleep.

Thanks for popping in my friends be safe enjoy yo'selves.

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