If you know me, you know I don’t take it easy. Being told to rest while sounding nice and easy is not something I do well.
I thought I was taking it easy in resuming workouts and doing less than usual around the house and with the kids, but it still wasn’t easy enough and I ended up opening up one of my incisions by doing too much too soon.
Taking it easy is something I’ve never been good at. I want to rush back to where I was and when recovering from injuries or illness that’s not always possible. Sometimes it takes getting kicked in the ass to learn my lesson. It shouldn’t, but it won’t be the first time for me.
In college just as I finished a good season of indoor track, I ended up with a stress fracture in my left shin (officially the tibia but for general lingo the shin). I took the standard three months off from running and began running again, only to still have some pain in my left shin and also in my right shin. My logic about the other leg hurting was well it’s going to be sore because I haven’t run in awhile.
But I soon learned that not only had my original left shin stress fracture not healed, but I also had a stress fracture in my right shin as well. I was a mess with not one but two stress fractures at the same time.
I took an entire year off from racing to come back: missing outdoor track after the initial injury, then the cross country season in the fall and the indoor track season. I could have come back for that indoor season but decided to remain extra cautious and take off racing for one more season.
The extra time off and very slow increase in mileage paid off. In my first season back racing in a year, I came back faster than I was before my injuries. I had my best season of cross country and earned All-Region honors and placed in the top 50 at Nationals. I got to compete in the New Balance Invitational in indoor track and ran a personal best in the 3k and had an even better final season in outdoor track, setting personal bests in the 5k and 10k.
I was disappointed and frustrated to not be able to race for three straight seasons but it made me a smarter and better runner. I learned to focus on quality miles rather than quantity. I did a lot of cross training to stay healthy and listened to my body more. And as a result I ran the best I ever ran.
So I need to use the same approach for this “injury” that hasn’t healed. I need to take it easy and not do as much. Turns out normal recovery from a mastectomy does not include resumption of hiit and kickboxing workouts even when such workouts are modified and feel fine. It wasn’t until mid-workout when my sports bra was soaked in ooze (aka pus) that I realized shit my incision is open. Yeah it was scary and gross.
Sometimes it takes an oh shit moment to learn a lesson. I fell on my ass again by doing too much too soon. I came back from my stress fractures and ran faster than ever so I will come back from this latest setback smarter and better than ever!
#breastcancerbattle #breastreconstruction #bilateralmastectomy #surgerydrains #openincision #doingtoomuch #takeiteasy #stressfractures #xcrunner #runninginjuries #momoffive #onetoughmother
