Okay, maybe not running, but I’m back to my shuffling. So WooHoo and yay me!
Admittedly it took me two days more than I was saying it would. I swore I was going to get back out there on Friday and do it, but woke up so sore that I just couldn’t physically do it, and then I just lost my nerve. I know it sounds stupid for me to be scared to go for a shuffle/jog after only a little tumble, and it’s really hard to put into words the stupid irrational fears I have in my head. But I’ll try.
Three and a bit years ago I left my house in the morning to go to work. It was my fifth day at a brand new job, a job which I loved and was so excited to be going to. I stepped out on the path and there was broken concrete under my foot, which I hadn’t really noticed before. Hadn’t noticed until it came out from under my feet and I fell down. Hard. I smashed my wrist up, both bones, right up near the top where I couldn’t just have it wrapped in a cast. No, I had to do it hard and ended up with a plate in my wrist.
That alone was enough to scare the beejeezus out of me. I was too scared to walk alone anywhere because I didn’t want to fall over again. I went from being a girl who would wear heels everywhere, dancing for hours in stilettos, to someone who was too scared to walk with even flat shoes on, like I had on when I actually fell – that’s the weird part, I was wearing damned flat shoes when it happened. That broken wrist was just the start of the crappiness that followed though. I ended up with full blown pneumonia a week and a bit later – a result of the surgery on my wrist, and then it was almost a weekly trip back to the doctors having blood tests and ultrasounds to find out what was going on with my body after that – think liver and kidney problems. Then started the therapy to get movement back in my wrist – almost (actually sometimes moreso) as painful as breaking the wrist. Finally two months later I got back to that job I loved, but by then just getting to and from work was a struggle in itself.
But the worst, was the constant feeling of sadness and despair that came with all of this. Took me a while to really talk to the doctor about it, but eventually I was diagnosed with full blown depression – something I’d been fighting for years, but never done anything about because of the shame that I associated with it. But when I went to the doctor one day and just couldn’t actually get any words out because of the tears that were choking up my throat. I couldn’t explain what was wrong with me. I didn’t know why I wanted to cry all the time, why getting out of bed every day was a struggle. How just looking at the scar that I now had on my wrist could leave me sitting in a pile of mush for days and make me want to vomit. That was probably the best doctor visit I ever made, because to be honest, I don’t know where I’d be today if I hadn’t gone to the docs.
This is just a quick overview of the crap that happened all at the same time. I know it wasn’t all caused by the broken wrist, but every time I think of falling, I just associate it with bad things. Very bad things. It’s stupid. It’s irrational. But it’s just something that’s so hard to get over. I’m trying and the fact that I actually got back out there today and did a jog (a slow and careful jog, with Mick right by my side the whole time – even though he caved earlier than I did…) shows that I’ve come a long way, because three years ago I would have gone back inside, shut the door and not gone back outside for a week – and that’s after sitting down and bawling for a few hours. One day, I’ll be able to get back up after falling, brush it aside and just keep going. But until then I’ll just take it one day at a time and keep trying.
But the positive thing to take away from this (very maudlin – I’m sorry, it wasn’t where I was going with this post, it just kinda came out) is that…
I jogged again today.
