Be Thankful for the Minor Injury
The other day I was at Hanalei Beach with my daughters and Reece my seven year old was looking for some company to jump off the pier. We have jumped off this pier a hundred times ourselves and with friends. The distance to the water is about twelve feet give or take. One of the fun things she likes to do is wait for a wave and then as the wave is coming by jump into the wave. Needless to say when you jump into the wave there is a tiny bit more depth which was really critical on this day. Normally I am an ultra careful and conservative person who doesn’t take unnecessary risks. A lot of people think because I am married to someone who has a dangerous occupation (who is also very safe in his approach by the way) that I too am “radical”. Nope. I’m a Capricorn who susses it all out before leaping. Here comes the tiny swell, and so I take off my cover up and slippers, and jump with Reece following right behind. I’m 6′3″, and I barely got my hair wet when I landed. Nothing like jolting your body into 36 inches of water. I immediately looked to my left to make sure Reece was going to be OK. A lot of you have read my entries about my dealings with an arthritic right knee for several years, and a knee that doesn’t move that well heel to glutes or perfectly straight. Luckily, I landed in a perfect squat and my weight was evenly distributed between my left and right side. Having said all that I put a lot of impact on my right knee that made it very angry.
I admit when I landed I was a bit in shock and then concerned. Reece was rambling on about how sorry she was for the depth, and I just asked her to please not talk for a moment so I could collect myself. Truthfully I was doing physical inventory of my body to make sure everything was OK. That evening I was moving terribly, couldn’t sleep and then tried to get up to use the restroom, and thought I was essentially going to have to crawl in order to make it. As I lay in bed I started to ask myself what is the lesson in this, and also something else kept coming into my mind. How lucky I was that this was all that happened. I could have easily broken my leg or worse yet decided to dive in head first. The next day brought sitting with my leg up on a chair with my game ready icing system (awesome) and a pair of crutches on loan. Can’t stand crutches. My good friend Tiffany used her relationships, and got me an appointment with Dr. Sam Chen first thing on Monday. Thirty six hours after my mishap I was hobbling around with a nice limp, as my two year old was doing circles around me trying of course to tackle my right leg. Why do people always gravitate towards a sunburn or an injury? Brody my two year old daughter will barely give me a hug, but you can bet she was trying to love up on me all over my right side. Laird said “they can smell the weakness”.
Dr. Chen did a manual test on my joint to check the integrity of my ligaments and then looked at my X-Rays. He seemed to feel that I just bruised the knee and aggravated my already unstable joint. I sit here seventy two hours after my jump feeling so much better. I can feel my body trying to mend itself, and I am putting myself in every situation to allow that to happen. Positive thinking, tons of icing, acupuncture, natural anti inflammatories, and getting good help. The other thing I appreciate are my good friends (who rallied around me with cooked dinners and assistance with medical appointments), an amazing husband who took over the kids and house hold stuff to give me a break, and caring Doctors who give of their expertise.
Having these setbacks can be such a blessing and reminder about how lucky I am; fortunate to be healthy, to have my loved ones healthy and a jolt in my perspective about my everyday life. When I’m forced to sit on my butt because I cannot move, I have to look at what do I spend a lot of my time and energy on? Some of the stuff I busy myself with can wait or isn’t even that important at all. When I am out for the count with immobility I realize in that instant not much matters.
I had a Bible teacher in high school named Mr. Strickland who was an incredible teacher and he once said to be thankful for the setbacks because they come from the same place as the blessings.
Amen and here is to saying thank you and taking care of yourself (oh, and if you are going to jump maybe check to see how deep it actually is).
Best, Gabby