A STORY ABOUT UNCERTAINTY, MY BROKEN BACK, & SMALL VICTORIES!

A STORY ABOUT UNCERTAINTY, MY BROKEN BACK, & SMALL VICTORIES!

 August of 2019, I BROKE MY BACK! YEP, you read that right.  I haven’t told this story because I didn’t know it was part of the story! When I fell off the Twister obstacle in the Spartan Beast race in Aspen last August, I knew I was hurt, but I didn’t realize how bad.  I went to the doctor for an x-ray as soon as I got home.  I was told I had compressed my T8-T11 discs, but nothing was broken. I thought, well, that’s a relief! I carried on with my suggested treatments & severe pain. 

 In February of this year, I considered stem cell treatment for my back because I was still in quite a bit of pain.  But I needed an MRI first.  I went in for my MRI & when I got the results back, I was shocked, upset, & relieved.  Shocked because I found out I HAD BROKEN MY BACK when I fell, upset because 7 months later I was just finding this out & was very concerned that I had done things unknowingly that perhaps made my back worse AND I had asked for an MRI in August but was told I didn’t need one, & relieved because I finally felt justified for the amount of pain I had been in.  I experienced all the feels! I did, in fact, have a compression fracture in my T8 vertebra (that was mostly healed by this time), a couple of bulging discs, along with the compressed ones. But hey, just a few additional points of consideration. (Needless to say, I fired my original doctor & went to a different one). 

 I share this part of the story now because, as I reflect upon the amount of uncertainty being felt in the world, it mirrors the emotions I have felt about my back.  It is similar because I have asked: how long will this pain/distress last, when will I be able to do the things I love to do again, what can I do that will help vs. hurt, what is my best course of healing, & how can I show myself & my body the most amount of love at this time? For 8 months, these have been questions I asked myself many times a day (I haven’t stopped asking them yet).

 This week marks 8 months since I fell & broke my back.  The 1st doctor told me within 4 months I should feel better.  That was not true at all because that timeframe was not based on the whole story or the truth… I still have aches and small amounts of pain.  I ask myself the above questions daily & do small actions to test my levels of strength, mobility, & abilities.  It has been a slow road to recovery, but this week I have been able to do things that I have not been able to do since before I broke my back.

 This week while the world has been uncertain & whirling in wildness, I have had some small, ok, BIG victories! A few of my goals during recovery have been to run again, do heavy carries again, & complete a full Vinyasa yoga class without pain. I have been able to do all of these within the last week! Today I was even able to do a hilly tire drag, with a 25-pound weighted vest for 3.5 miles! It’s taken a lot of time, patience, hard work, perseverance, resilience, self.love, & baby steps to get to this place.  But I am HERE!  I have put in the hard work to rebuild my body, little by little, & come out on the other side STRONGER than ever.  I still have a long way to go, however, I am celebrating how far I have come because small successes add up to big victories! 

 There is no quick fix to healing a broken back; there is no quick fix to right the world. Sometimes we will do things that cause more damage than good because we simply don’t know better, but we will do better once we know better.  Sometimes the timeframes don’t fit our desired reality & we have to alter them along the way. And uncertainty will reign for quite a while, but just like I allowed my body & heart to be my guide through the unknowing of what was going on with my back & why I was in so much pain, answers will come, we will grow stronger & we will rise together in a new reality with small & BIG VICTORIES!