Keeping Injuries in Perspective

Over the last week my spirits have fluctuated between sadness, anger, frustration and acceptance. I am generally an upbeat person, I don’t complain about the little things (well, maybe my son’s cat, Thor, who meow’s incessantly and rubs against my legs when I get up at 4:00 am to use the bathroom…yuck!)

I have an injury, I have worked very hard over the last several months, since October actually, to add a great deal of lean mass, keeping fat at a minimum, and to be able to compete on May 7^th, I will not be able to compete now.

Some people keep telling me I can, I appreciate their encouragement, but they are people who have never done this, so they don’t realize that you cannot stop lifting weights for the last 5 weeks prior to a competition.

The training at this point is rigorous; it is intense, twice a day, hard, nothing easy. I am already getting soft, it won’t be possible.

I tell myself to keep it in perspective. My rib is going to heal and I will be fine. What about the Olympic athlete who has trained all their life only to be injured just before the Olympics? Their lifetime dreams are shattered. What about the woman who loses her child in the first few months of pregnancy, she may never recover emotionally from the loss. And the bicyclist who is hit by a car and shatters their hip, they may never ride or even walk again.

Things like this help me to snap out of it, really to just get on with life. I think lack of sleep doesn’t help matters, that’s when I have pain, during the day it’s only what I would describe as discomfort. The pain sets in when I lay in bed and attempt to move, it radiates throughout, keeping me awake. When I do drift off, then shift I am again awakened with the pain pulsating through my body.  I have a shorter temper, I think about it all the time.

It’s been a week. How on earth people spend an hour every day on a cardio machine, day in and day out just boggles my mind. I am only doing it to maintain some form of caloric expenditure, but I ache to lift again.

I broke my rib

Yes indeed. I thought I had an oblique strain and boy was I wrong! If you read my post yesterday I was discussing how injuries are a fact of life when you train hard.


Sometimes the facts of life and not very pleasant.

I know exactly what I did, and it was weight training. I felt and heard a "pop" when it happened, but went on with my training although it was a bit uncomfortable. I thought it was a muscle pull or tweak.

I have said many times that I am a beast and I am, I guess I don't know my own strength. I also have an extremely high pain threshold, so it takes a lot to make me cry or complain.

Tuesday night was very uncomfortable, and I couldn't go to the gym on Wednesday. Wednesday evening sleeping wasn't quite as bad, and I did go to the gym on Thursday but all I did was some cardio, and slow cardio at that.

Thursday was a holiday for me and I had a facial and hair appointment, and I planned to get a lot of things done in between, along with driving out to  the hospital to see my father. But it didn't happen that way, the pain became very intense, sometimes waves of nausea came over me, especially as I attempted to get into or out of my car. Even grocery shopping hurt.

At one point I  couldn't get out of my car because of the pain and I sat there and cried, in pain and frustration.

The facial felt wonderful, and afterward I called to see if my doctor could see me, I explained the situation and they had me come in.

He sorta of laughed when he walked into the examining room and said "OK, what happened this time?"

I explained what I did, the pain, the symptoms and he felt it. I asked if it was likely I broke a rib weight training and he said "Typical no, but you are not a typical person, and you don't do typical things, so we should have an x-ray. It is more likely you tore an intercostal, but it would feel the same as a fractured rib."

He gave me orders along with a prescription for vicodin and I zoomed off, the radiologist was closing in 10 minutes! Good thing I have a super fast car. I got there at 4:59, they closed at 5:00.

X-rays were taken and they were to have the radiologist write the report and fax it to my doctor first thing Friday morning. I guess he felt sorry for me, my doctor called my cell before I even got home, and I only live 7 miles away.

I broke my 10th rib, that's a small baby one near the bottom of the rib cage. But baby or full grown, it hurts like a son of a gun!

I asked him when I could go back to the gym and his response was:

"Unless you make a miraculous recovery, it will be 4 to 6 weeks."

Again, for the second time that day I sat in my car and cried, only this time I cried a lot longer.

So what's the picture above have to do with a broken rib?

David came home and I was standing doing dishes, and crying yet again. I can't train, I will lose all my hard earned muscle, I will get fat.


And I cannot compete in May as I planned.

So I went out and had a cheeseburger, french fires and a glass of Pinot Noir.

And I cried, yet again.