Enough injury, already!

Friday morning I went to the gym at work. After about 20 min on the bike, my knee was feeling a bit sore (it really doesn’t like the bike that much, I think b/c of the strength differences between my legs.. ah, something I should be working on…) so I decided to do some weights and such. Did a half-hearted circuit and then some free weights for my arms. Didn’t really work up a sweat, but I had a decent long run planned for Saturday, so I decided that was ok. Back in the locker room, my badge fell out of my locker and I bent down to retrieve it. When I stood back up I banged my head on the open locker. Wow that hurt! I didn’t lose consciousness or see stars, but I felt a little sickly to see some hair hanging from the corner of the metal locker..

I went to the mirror and couldn’t see any blood, but there was a …chunk.. of flesh sticking up. Not alot, but something that used to be flat on my head was now sticking up through my hair. ewwww. I sat down for awhile and drank some water, just wanting to ensure I was ok. Often the thought of something can actually make me feel worse than the physical event itself – for example, I tend to feel faint when the tattoo artist traces on the design, but I’m fine once the needle pierces my skin. So I sat in the locker room for a few minutes, until I determined that I was more or less ok. I was glad I hadn’t sweated too much, as I decided to forego washing my hair 🙂

I headed up to my desk, and when a friend/coworker arrived, I asked for her advice. She told me that there was definitely some skin scraped off, but she wasn’t sure it was anything that needed stitches. She told me the spot was about the size of a dime. Another coworker who is going to school at night to become a nurse agreed: it didnt’ appear deep, but she recommended I go see a doctor.

I’m Canadian, so I have a deep loathing for the american health system. She recommended a doctor. I called, I couldn’t go see him b/c he wouldn’t take my insurance. Then there was some mini-crisis when I realized I’d forgotten my wallet at home, so I didn’t have my insurance card or my licence. Geez…. part of me wanted to forego the doctor’s visit altogether, but my coworkers really urged me to do it – particularly in light of the fact that it was a metal locker, and I had no idea when I’d last had a tetanus shot. So eventually I decided to suck it up, and off to urgent care I went. Even without my insurance card, they assured me they’d find me and bill me. A bit scary to think about, but I guess it worked in my favour this time..

Within a half hour, a doctor had neatly sliced off m dangly piece of flesh (hm that song from the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack is now playing in my head), cleaned it up, and the nurse had given me my tetanus shot. She told me my arm would likely be quite sore, so I decided to head home before the pain set in, and work from there as long as I was able. As it turned out, it never really got that sore on Friday, although I think I did run a bit of a fever. Not bad.

I woke up Saturday and decided to wait til later in the day to see if I should run. The doctor hadn’t put any sort of bandage on my scalp so I didn’t want to expose it to any weird particles or anything. I was feeling okay on Saturday until about 1pm, when all of a sudden I was seized with back pain. It hurt to walk. It hurt to bend over. It hurt to turn. I hobbled into my bedroom, which felt too warm. I tried to open a window and actually cried out when my entire lower back seized up. It took me a good minute to ease myself onto the bed, and then I couldn’t move without my back clenching up. I was seriously on the edge of tears, as I laid there and stared at the ceiling for a good 10 minutes. My bottle of advil was on the nightstand, just outside my reach. I actually asked one of my cats to go fetch it, then cursed myself for never havin taught them that trick. Finally I decided to suck it up, took a deep breath and rolled over to grab the painkillers. It was probably one of the most pitiful moments of my life, right up there with when I was going through PT for my leg, and the doctor asked me to lift my leg and I had no ability to do so. My body was foreign to me. Eventually I was able to get up, and I was actually surprised to find that being upright was less painful than laying down. I put on a ben-gay pain-relief pad I had laying around from some marathon goodie bag, and was able to continue my day, although any twisting or bending still hurt aLOT. At about 9pm I decided to go get a heating pad, so I walked over to CVS. The walk wasn’t too bad, although every once in awhile taking a breath would cause my back to spasm, and I’d make an involuntary little grunt. Thankfully there weren’t many other people out walking, b/c I think that would have scared them.

Getting to sleep was tough. Turning over was a painstaking process. Eventually though I was able to drift off. This morning wasn’t as bad, although there is still some pain. I really wanted to get out for a run, so around 10 I threw on some clothes and set out. I just wanted to see what I could do, I was fully prepared to come home within the first 5 minutes. It actually went ok, and I was able to run for close to an hour. Running itself didn’t appear to hurt my back, not near as much as simple things around the house, so that was encouraging.

I just wish I knew what the cause was — I honestly don’t think I hit my head hard enough to do anything, I’m going to assume this isn’t related to the tetanus shot (I never knew what tetanus was — it’s related to muscle spasms…..), but I can’t believe that the little circuit of weights I did on Friday could cause this much pain. Who knows.. I just know that I want to get past all these bumps and be able to get back to running again! I want to be healthy, I don’t know if my body is just so worn out, or what.