Healing from a stress fracture
I may finally, finally be sort-of recovered from the stress fracture in my right foot. Healed, even? Maybe? Hopefully?
I did Day 1 of the Couch to 5k run yesterday, and while my foot often felt weird, and at times not pleasant, it did not ever “hurt” (i.e. stabbing, sharp pain that made me wince, scrunch up my face, and cry out). I have also been able to hop on it barefoot, albeit very gingerly (this is apparently a key test to see if your foot has recovered – thank you hours of Internet research!). I actually stood up just now to try this – I landed more on my heel than on the ball of my foot, so I am definitely still “babying” it. IDK. I think of that guy in my running group in 2014-ish, back when my plantar fasciitis was intermittently bad, and I was worried about re-triggering it by going hiking in Spain. He was like, If you can put one foot in front of the other without agony, then you’re fine. I think about this advice re: pain management and injury recovery ALL the time. If you’re not in agony, you’re fine. If you can put one foot in front of the other, you’re fine. Could this also be… a life philosophy??
In any case, I was walking 5-10 miles a day when I was in California/NYC (sometimes up to 15!) and my foot was definitely never in agony. It was fine, even! Normal! Never “normal” the way my left foot feels, but definitely not bad. As always, it mainly hurts when I stand up after sitting for a long time. My USA walking mileage, more than anything, is what made me think I could experiment with transitioning (slowly, carefully) back into running.
Being injured provided… interesting opportunities. I watched Caroline Jordan injured foot videos, and cried at how motivating and cheerful she was (not ashamed!). Being injured is about finding a new way to move! It’s a new opportunity to move in a different way! Think of how much stronger you’re going to be, when you come back from this injury! Thank you, Caroline!
How did I hurt this foot in the first place? I’ve told this story oh so many times now (to oh so many interested and disinterested audiences), I might as well tell it now to this patient and neutral blog. I suspect I first injured it doing a star-jump filled Fitness Blender workout on Oct 23rd (based on my journal). “Hmm,” I remember thinking, “I hope I didn’t fuck up my foot.” I definitely still went for runs afterwards, and wrote down things like “foot feels a little weird, hope it’s okay.” Then, the first week in November, I went for a run while visiting a friend in Portugal. I wore my beat-up ancient walking shoes, because I’d forgotten to pack my running ones. If there was a for want of a nail a shoe was lost moment, this was for sure it. Boy, did I fuck up my foot! Boy, did it hurt!! Walking around in sandals for the rest of the weekend surely didn’t help either. The number of times I fantasized about time traveling to this moment and shouting, DON’T DO IT! STAY HOME! Did I initially fracture it on the 23rd, and this Portugal run made it worse? Who… knows…
My theory at the time was metatarsalgia. I went to a physical therapist, who gave me exercises to do. I told him “it feels better the more that I walk on it… the pain is worst when I get up after sitting for a long time, or first thing in the morning.” He stated confidently, It doesn’t sound like a stress fracture to me – a stress fracture would be the opposite – i.e., it’d hurt the more that you walked, not less.
I bought new shoes. I bought a ton of weird pads and inserts, all of which just felt incredibly uncomfortable. Spend, spend, spend! Maybe if I spent enough money, on the right kind of thing, I would heal. I went to a reflexology session, which I thought would be like the videos I’d seen on YouTube, of just REALLY intense pressure applied via sticks and other scary-looking tools. My thinking was that this would help break up the scar tissue – I remain CONVINCED that my excruciating foot massage in Chinatown NYC 2015 is what healed my plantar fasciitis for good. God bless that Chinese man with the iron-like thumbs, who applied pressure on my heel with absolute NO MERCY… god bless him indeed. But this reflexology woman was nothing like him (for the best, I suppose). Instead, she was extremely gentle. She was like, The pain in your foot corresponds to your lungs, which is also the site for grief. I’d had something sad happen in September, so her saying this really blew my mind. My God! Was my foot a metaphor? Was the healing journey for my foot… also a healing journey for me?? If XO Jane still existed, I sure could write a killer of a personal essay for them! The reflexology lady also told me to keep me kidneys warm (she suggested buying these special jackets off of Amazon – they look like bullet proof vests). Also, to do “relaxing things that calm your nervous system.” When is that ever NOT good advice?
I finally went to the emergency room the final week in November, based on my GP’s advice. What an experience that was! Let’s not get into it in too much detail – instead let’s be thankful for the NHS, how overloaded they are, etc. I definitely observed a LOT of similarities between overstressed, unsupported, under-served medical staff and university teaching staff… let’s diplomatically leave it at that. EVERYTHING is getting crunched, squeezed, tightened.
In the emergency room, the doctor said that because the pain was on the bottom of my foot, rather than the top, it couldn’t be a stress fracture. What could it be, then? I moaned. I just want to know what it is! He smiled tightly and told me to go request an X-ray from my GP clinic. But my clinic doesn’t have an X-ray machine, I cried. That’s why they told me to come here. They’re lying, the doctor said. (When I repeated this over the phone later to the GP receptionist, she audibly gasped.)
I eventually managed to get an X-ray – you know me, of course I thought of The Magic Mountain while this was taking it place! A few days later, my GP received the results and explained them to me. There it was: the evidence, in black and white. An explanation for this mysterious, months-long nagging pain.
It was indeed a stress fracture.
Thankfully, because this isn’t an essay for XO Jane, I don’t need to come up with a conclusion about how women are never believed in health care settings, or whatever. Or about my healing journey lol. Or about the mind-body connection – it is indeed extremely interesting to me how much better my foot started feeling, as soon as I’d confirmed what the issue was. Truly, knowledge is power. Yay science. Another thing that helped was reading about the Fear Avoidance Model on some message board somewhere, filled with agonised posts by injured long distance runners (nothing like moi) who were absolutely losing their minds about not healing from their tibia fractures. (Along with spending money, online research was another way I tried to give myself a sense of control – maybe, just maybe, a solution was out there somewhere, if only I looked long and hard enough…). Anyway, I like how the flow chart (via the preceding link) is encouraging you to avoid PAIN CATASTROPHIZING – instead you must choose the path of NO FEAR. Reading this helped me to firmly adopted this NO FEAR mindset when walking long distances in the US. My foot is healing, I would think, trudging block after block in New York while snow hit my face. My foot is getting better. Did I heal myself with my mind? Am I basically Teal Swan? Clearly!!
Anyway – my foot is thankfully better, even though my jetlag (as always) is bad. On a more reading related update, here are the current books in my life that are keeping (have kept) me busy:
LIFE AND FATE
by Vasily Grossman
My current bedtime book (i.e. I read at least ten pages before falling asleep). My God, finishing both this AND Stalingrad is sure going to feel like an accomplishment! I feel EXTREMELY validated having read Stalingrad before this. Otherwise I’d have been like, who are all these people?? Life and Fate reads like you are thrown into the midpoint of a story, because you pretty much are.
MY DEAD PARENTS
by Anya Yurchyshyn
A memoir which my sister read and enjoyed. I’m a little over halfway through. It’s basically a detective story, in which she tries to piece together her parents’ lives before she knew them – i.e., when they were happy people. It’s fascinating to me how the family is such a universal building block for storytelling – see Little Women, see Anna Karenina, see the Shaposhnikov family in Stalingrad and Life and Fate. And definitely Anne Tyler (reading Grossman has made me realise how Anne Tyler is SO influenced by the Russians – how had I not realised this earlier?? She even studied Russian literature at university!!).
THE BEE STING
by Paul Murray
I thought this was really impressive. I read samples of the 5 shortlisted Booker novels (which I’ve never done before!) and for what it’s worth this is the one that I liked the most, so I bought it to have a nice long book to read over the holiday. I thought it was really well-done, particularly the mother’s section. I knew that this book had achieved something special when reading the father’s section made me feel physically sick – I don’t think I’ve felt that unwell since watching Brokeback Mountain. That’s a big marker of success for me – when a book makes me feel something, so intensely. How does one teach this?? (Answer: it’s not teachable!)
THE CORRECTIONS
by Jonathan Franzen
Re-read this after finishing The Bee Sting, after reading an interview with Murray in which he stated he was inspired by both Franzen’s novel andAs I Lay Dying. Wow! I thought. Two of my favourite books of all time are basically ‘family’ novels! How had I not seen this before? Wait… was The Corrections still one of my favourite books of all time? Had it aged well? According to my records, I last read it in 2010. I’m pleased to say upon rereading it again is that Gary’s chapter is still an incredible piece of writing – definitely the stand-out of the book. Such a fucked up and funny depiction of a horrible relationship. I was obsessed with this chapter in high school (was a part of me fascinated by its depiction of materialistic middle-class life? That will never be me, I might have vehemently thought, writing Smashing Pumpkins lyrics on the last page of my notebook). I can say that some things haven’t aged well – the sections from Alfred’s POV are boring – the talking poop is a bit cringe (though I’m sure it’s metaphorical) as is some of the stuff dealing with race. But overall I would say this stands the test of time as an essential 21st-century novel, particularly in its depiction about the relationship between children and technology (eerily prophetic). And the emphasis on Alfred’s obsession with privacy also reads as eerily prescient in today’s surveillance-as-capitalism age. I’d love to read some critical essays/close readings of this. Overall, I don’t mind Franzen at all for being such an angry grump – no offence taken at all when people are like not my cup of tea (though I do think it’s weird when people are like I HATE HIM and haven’t read, like, a single word?).
Onwards and upwards. Here’s to a decent 2024.