I know that I seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth for the last year or so and I pretty much did, but now I am back. I toppled off a mountain but I am slowly starting to climb back up.
So this blog post is just meant to be an update about where I have been for the past year. When we last shared a thought here I was busting my booty trying to loose weight. I had this three year goal to be back down to my high school weight before I reach 40 in three years (okay so now it is closer to 2 years). I was working out at the gym daily either by myself of with a trainer. I had started Weight Watchers and became obsessed about every bite that went in my mouth. I really hadn't lost much weight but I felt better - happier, more energized, more excited about life, and just healthier in general.
Many years ago I learned how to play racquetball. I wasn't very good at the sport but I loved to play it. Over the years I had a hard time finding someone with a membership at the same place that I did, that actually had a racquetball room, and someone who could play. However a really great friend of mine that I worked with fit the requirements. And throughout the years she kicked my butt at the game on a regular basis. But then marriage, being sick, and a baby stopped us from playing. I really missed the sport and playing with Stacey. I was determined that one day I would win at least one game.
So once I started my goal to become healthier and loose weight I was really excited about Stacey and I being able to play again. I waited a few months, I wanted to make sure I was in shape enough that I could run that room for more then five minutes without falling out because of not being in shape. So I worked really hard at the gym and when it became apparent that I was ready to start playing again, we signed up for a court at the gym. We started playing and of course I sucked. It had been a really long time since I played so I had to figure out the nuisances of the game again.
As we played I really had no points but it wasn't from my weight really slowing me down, it just trying to get back into the rhythm of how to play. Well we had been playing for maybe 15 to 20 minutes (which is a really long time in racquetball time) when it happened. The thing I always feared would happen playing this game and no it wasn't getting hit in the face with the ball (Stacey did that to me years ago); I missed the wall. Now for anyone who doesn't know how to play racquetball, missing the wall probably sounds like a good thing. It usually isn't. The walls in a court or lightly padded and are typically used to break your lunge after the ball. And that is what happened to me, I lunged for the ball and expected to hit the wall, I even prepared myself to hit the wall. My right arm went out to cushion my fall into the wall but I put my hand too far up on the wall instead of even with my body and as I started to fall I was too far from the wall to actually hit the wall so instead I went down to the floor. My right arm that was hanging on to the wall too high up was slick with sweat and I only had the heel of my palm on the wall instead of the whole hand. So as I fell to the floor my left arm flipped behind me. I heard the breaks in my arm as I hit the floor. Once on the floor I had about five seconds on no pain and then the pain hit and that was it. The pain in my arm was horrible.
The hospital confirmed what I knew, I had broken my wrist and the top of the radius bone where it meets the elbow. I couldn't do anything, the only saving grace was it was my right arm and I am left-handed. I had surgery a couple of weeks later to remove the top of the bone in my elbow and to determine if I needed an elbow replacement. They didn't do the replacement, the doc thinks he fixed it enough to get me through another ten years or so before needing the replacement. A couple of weeks after the surgery I was placed in the robotic brace that control the way I straightened and bent my arm. About a month after the accident I started physical therapy. Doctor said it would be a year before I could start going back to the training and the gym.
I became very depressed, all that work I had done and money I had spent was for nothing. For many months after the surgery I couldn't even pick a glass up and hold it to my mouth. Still now my arm is very weak and I do not have the ability to straighten it out fully. The elbow also dislocated very easily.
So now here I am almost a year later and I have nothing to show for it but a nice scar down the side of my arm. I have not started going back to the gym, I stopped weight watchers so my eating habits are back to where they were, and I just feel miserable. Along with all of this I have really started having some anxiety problems.
A friend of mine sent me a facebook message a couple of months ago about what happened to my blog. And I thought well what is the point, I didn't get far on my goal and right now the desire to change myself is not there like it was then. But there has been some things that have happened to me within the last six months are so, I will get into those things later, and I have come to realize that healthy doesn't just mean running a mile in 15 minutes and only eating veggies and food that is good for you. Being healthy is the whole body, physically and mentally. So this blog is still going to be about searching for a healthier me, but the tone is probably going to change. I will probably reveal a lot of things that will be really hard and embarrassing for others to know but I have learned that writing is cathartic for me and maybe I can help just one other person as well.
But the ultimate moral of this blog is that racquetball is dangerous and when you fall make sure the wall is there to hold you up. More to come.....
Becky
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