Saturday, September 22, 2007

Broken Dream?

Last night, after 9 pm, I headed out for my scheduled eight-miler. This was to be a recovery run from the previous day's treshold run. I was holding back the effort and it was going really well, about 8:30 pace. Right after four miles, where the dirt road becomes a bit uneven due to rain-formed ditches and as I was turning a corner, all while thinking about what I had witnessed earlier in the day*, my right ankle rolled and I heard a loud pop, like the sound that bubble wrap makes when you pop the individual bubbles. Pain instantly shot through my nervous system and made me yell expletives left and right. I thought I had tore a tendon. I could barely put weight on the injured ankle.

I was going to head to the ER but recalled reading in The Purple Runner that it is better to jog it off to prevent significant swelling and further aggravation of the injury. So I attempted to jog, but was visibly favoring the right limb. After a couple of hundred meters, I was able to put full weight on the injured ankle without much discomfort. I was praying that it meant that the sprain was not a serious one. I was close to my barracks and made it there about five minutes later.

I iced the ankle and took an 800mg Motrin. This morning there was a third-sized golf ball lump on the outside of my foot, about one inch in front of the ankle.

My friend, the PT, gave me an ACE bandage and gave me directions on how to wrap my foot. Later on I attempted to run eight easy miles and luckily, the bandage held the foot in one piece and I ran sans pain. The dream remains intact and very much alive.

*What I was thinking right before the injury was how amazing it was to observe an orthopedic surgeon splint a broken humerus (in three pieces). What really impressed me was how calm he was while he cut the skin (nine inches), cut through the subcutaneuous tissue and carefully, very carefully cut along the flow of muscle fibers so as to avoid cutting through any vascular bundles and/or the radial and ulner nerves. He splinted the bone with two plates and 14 screws. The surgery took 2.5 hours.

6 comments:

Bridges Runner said...

You had me on the edge of my chair while reading this! I hope all is well and running 8 miles should confirm this:) Heal on...

Arcane said...

Wow. I'm surprised you were able to run on it again so soon. Popping sounds coming from muscles/tendons aren't a good thing. Hopefully nothing is torn.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, ditto with Fran. Be careful and take it light these night few days...

Quinto Sol said...

Thanks all for the kind wishes... the sprain ended up being a minor one. Yesterday I was able to log 19 miles without pain. Ironically, the uninjured ankle was the one which was sore at the end of the run; most likely it was due to me favoring the other ankle.

The Salty One said...

Phew!!!

Love2Run said...

Ouch, it hurts just reading about it! I'm glad to hear though that things are better and they didn't have to go in with the splint thing (more ouch!!) Take care.