A Bunch of Disparate Things

In the interests of fact-sharing, allow me to present the following:

• Scott bought me this vase and it is perfection:

 Alas, it doesn't photograph for shit but trust me, it's lovely.

• On the topic of my calf tear, it's still sore and tight, but it's much improved. I know that pops (which I felt and heard?!) are generally associated with level 3 tears but, unless I have a ridiculously high pain tolerance, I can't possibly be experiencing that degree of injury. Yeah it was very painful and I couldn't put weight on my leg for a day. But there has been no visible swelling. Admittedly, I've been managing this injury extremely proactively. I've done resting and elevating and icing and stretching and myofascial massaging (with handmade arnica salve) and lightly stressing. I've meditated on its dissolution.  I'm drinking tons of water. I find it hilarious that I have a runner's injury. Honestly, if there is one thing I NEVER do it's sprint. My girlfriend, who has experienced this in both calves over the last 2 months - also for the first time - says it's age. Um, that has to be wrong. I'm sorry, but I'm not old enough for this decrepitude! I have an appointment with my chiropractor who does active release. Till then, I'll continue to watch and be deliberate but, so far so good.

• I found a black Empreinte bra online for 60 CDN (including shipping and after currency exchange). That's about a quarter of what it would cost me most places. This technically means I have 3 bra reviews in the works. The next two are about bras that fit. I'll let you know how the Empreinte works when I receive it. One thing's for sure, if it doesn't fit me, I will sell it. These bras really retain their value, especially with tags. 

• I'm back to where I had to rip back from, weekend before last, on the cowl sweater:

Not the most shapely thing at the moment but we'll have to see... I do think that my tension looks alright (for an unblocked stockinette tube). Generally, I pride myself on even tension. Certainly this isn't my opus on that front, but you'd have to have seen it before I put hours into moving those stitches around. It looks pretty good when compared with that.

So that's where I'm at. What's up with you? Are you crafting? Any new things (bras, homewares) you wanna brag about? Let's talk!

Torn Up

So, I gardened for an hour and a half (btw, didn't even touch the backyard) and, on my way to return the tools to the shed, I managed to pull my calf?! I actually heard a sickening pop. Holy cow (no pun intended), that is painful. And how I managed it, walking steadily after merely gardening is beyond me. (Yeah, gardening can be intense but it's just bending and crouching and leaning and pulling.) I've been elevating and icing and using arnica pellets and my arnica salve and walking carefully and stretching etc. Alas, I don't think this bodes well for a long weekend of errands - and whipping the back garden into an impressive state. Mind you, having lived through the terror of pertussis, I choose not to fuss overly. This is unlikely to kill me via suffocation and, if I have to lie on the couch and knit for a couple of days (between bouts of limited, conscious movement), so be it.

On the plus side, my front garden kicks ass. The outside water tap is broken on the inside of the house (as we discovered this week, needing for the first time this season to set up the soaker hose), and my newly planted things are struggling extensively. I finally borrowed the hose/water from my neighbours (our taps and gardens are within 5 feet of each other) but it might be a while before the plumber can come for our pipe and this long period of heat without rain has gone on for almost 2 weeks. It's crazy by Toronto standards. FWIW, by my standards it's awesome and could persist indefinitely (if I had a working soaker hose).

So, I've decided to content myself with a bottle of Rioja, a glass of iced tea and some brie with gluten-free crackers (they actually don't taste offensive). And the newly corrected cowl-neck sweater. The sun is shining and I have the house to myself. It could be worse.

Yoga in the Time of Foot Sprain

I'm hesitant to publish this post, because I don't want to be seen as giving specific or "one shoe fits all" advice and also, frankly, while ya'll are reading it, I'll be at the hospital verifying the current status of my injury (managed lo these last 9 days, primarily, with yoga).

Having said that, I can't say how much I'd appreciate a thoughtful post by a long-time practitioner of yoga, designed to address foot injury, if I were (say) surfing the net while suffering with a bad sprain.

Mega Disclaimer: This post is not intended for new practitioners of yoga, those without a strong home practice or those who do not own props / have a good practical understanding of the Iyengar method. All yogas are good yogas, but with injury, it's my opinion that you are high on drugs to practice without the use of props and the anatomical and structural awareness that the Iyengar method mandates.

It is not intended for couch cupcakes (so much nicer than potatoes, no?). Foot injuries are as complex and varied as the foot itself. This practice is designed to address some serious tissue damage as it presents on my outer foot specifically (no one else's), top of the metatarsals / moving towards the toes. It factors in an outer ankle injury I sustained at the same time, which isn't a core complaint. It presumes a fairly strong and flexible body, pre-injury.

Core Goals: To diminish swelling, strengthen the foot and ankle, restore mobility, maintain and develop upper body fitness (in light of an inability to put weight on the legs and a need to use arms more in facilitating movement), maintain symmetry in a body compensating for lack of mobility on one side, control anxiety and depression (which can occur after an injury that limits mobility, particularly at the darkest time of the year).

Duration: I don't set a specific length of practice but I've discovered that, each time, I practice for about 75 minutes - and I do mix up the poses. I have done this daily since the day after the injury occurred. I feel it's key to practice daily because it's my main form of movement. In general, I spend 10 minutes in each supported pose and do the more active ones over a series of repetitions...

Format Below: Name of Pose (with link, if available): Yogic Action, Family of Pose, Notes as relevant

1. Savasana 2 over bolster / Savasana 2 over blocks: Chest Opener, Supported Backbend. Helps to relieve arm tension (crutches hurt armpits!), neck tension, anxiety, promotes circulation in upper body
2. Viparita Karani: Chest opener, Partial Inversion, Supported Backbend, same as above but also reduces swelling in legs and feet, improves heart function, tones adrenal glands, reduces anxiety
3. Legs up the wall, no bolster: Leg Stretch, Partial Inversion, Reduces swelling in legs and feet, promotes relaxation. Do variations such as widening legs apart, bringing feet to wall, crossing legs (if possible), baddha konasana legs (if possible)
4. Ardha Matsyendrasana (keeping the lower leg straight, on the injured side so there's no pressure on the ankle or foot): Balancer, Twist, Maintains mobility and tone in torso, stretches the muscles, tones the kidneys and adrenal glands. Twists work on those neurotransmitters that make you stressy or hungry. Give you a sense of your core mobility.
5. Navasana: Balancer, Seated, Ain't no better pose for core strength (except for,maybe, a push up). You can balance the back of your head against a wall if it makes you feel more secure about maintaining balance i.e. not falling forward. Do not fall forward on that foot! You can also bend your knees if the stretch is too intense for either leg or for the injured foot.
6. Dandasana: Chest opener, Foot stretch, Seated. A wonderful pose for bringing minute action into the foot. Use wall for back support if necessary. You can also use the wall for your feet, depending on the nature of your injury.
7. Inverted Dandasana (Legs lifted (not against a wall), arms overhead): Chest opener, hamstring lengthener, abdominal stengthener, Prone/Partial Inversion: You may need to put something like a thin plank under your tailbone if your hamstrings/groins are tight and your abs are not strong enough. Cycle this into a few (non-yoga) ab poses - bicycle legs while doing crunches, legs up while doing crunches.
8. Gomukhasana, arms only: Chest opener, arm stretch, Seated.
9. Chataranga Dandasana, on knees: Who am I kidding, this is the only version I ever do! Prone, Core strengthener.
10. Sarvangasana / Halasana / Karnapidasana Inversion, Chest opener (if you don't know these poses very well, don't even consider trying them now...) You need enough abdominal strength, flexibility and balance, to get into and out of a full inversion without touching your toes to any surface (except a wall, and only do halasana if your injury is up to it). Not gonna show you karnapidasana - if you don't know it, walk on by (ha!)
    
11. Upavistha Konasana: Groin opener, Forward Bend, Reduces anxiety. Use a prop under your hips if your hamstrings and groins are too tight or bring your head to a chair instead of to a block or your knees. If you raise your hips, you need to be certain that you aren't overstretching your foot ligaments (that can happen). Massage your foot towards your knee, as firmly as you can manage without intense pain. Reduces inflammation.
12. Paschimottanasana: Groin opener, Forward Bend, Reduces anxiety. See above.
13. Savasana: Resorative

Update: The foot is fractured (albeit not badly). The more concerning fact is that the soft tissue damage appears to be extensive. Physio begins on Monday. Give me positive foot vibes, please. xo

Quick Update

So peeps, trying hard to type this lying on my back with legs up the wall. Got back from doc's today - news isn't exactly what I was hoping for. In brief: She thinks the first xray may have missed a fracture (I disagree, but then I have a vested interest in disagreeing. I choose to believe that my foot was strong and healthy, bone-wise, when this accident occurred and that that has prevented a break). She said it was the worst sprain she's ever seen (if in fact, it is a sprain) and she's sending me back to the hospital for more tests. On a rush basis. Tomorrow morning. I also had to get the air cast but not so that I can use it. No, I'm only allowed to lie with my leg elevated higher than my chest doing weird massage things to it and alternating ice and heat.

I'm trying very hard to focus on the positives - of which there are many - but I can't believe I may be immobile for much longer. I'm not allowed to go back to work (though I am working full days from home) till at least the 13th. This foot hurts quite a bit. It's almost Xmas. I'm lonely for face-to-face interaction. I'm worried about gaining weight - though I'm trying to be quite careful about how much I eat. I'm worried about atrophy of other muscles and asymmetry.

I know many people live through far more injury with much more grace. I realize that, in my moment of inattention, I could just has likely have hit my head or broken my knee. Or my arm - which would totally have precluded work and blogging and so many other things.

At any rate, that's all the news that's fit to print today.

Flip Side

I was all about to write a litany of complaints vis a vis the foot (starting to consider whether I've torn ligaments, since I'm still bed bound at the end of day 6 and I'm occasionally losing my mind about it), when it occurred to me that I've really got to change my attitude.

Today I was talking with my friend Sandra, admonishing her for not being adequately grateful for her mobility, when it occurred to me that I was sitting there bitching at her instead of being grateful for my healthy arms (which are using the computer to work from home), my strong constitution, my every breath - you get the idea.

So here's a list of opportunities (and gratitude) about living with a healing (really hideous, painful, dare I say severe) foot sprain:

• It appears that I've been going at rocket pace for months now (ok, years, but you get the point). I'm starting to wonder if any other kind of injury could have required me, so succinctly, to sit in one spot and rest.
• I don't have the flu, which is truly the worst illness ever.
• My office (specifically my manager) has been insanely accommodating, facilitating my remote work arrangement as I heal. I am truly grateful that, instead of making me feel guilty for this injury, they are encouraging me to take care and giving me opportunities to work despite my immobility.
• This happened the evening of (i.e. right after) the final big work project I've been alluding to for months.
• Online shopping lets you buy food from the UK and clothes for your kid - all in 10 minutes. With sales, if you're smart.
• I am an competent practitioner of Iyengar yoga - my only method of exercise (nay, movement) right now. It's also foot therapy. I've got a post coming up on this in the next couple of days.
• I only had to wait 3 hours in the emergency room and I got excellent care and it was free. (Thank you socialized medicine.)
• I'm not going as crazy as I thought I would. A woman I work with managed to (in a freak accident) fall off a ravine in July and she broke her foot and ankle. She went through major surgery, followed by 3 months of bed rest, and just returned to work 2 weeks ago - in an air cast. When I heard about this I sympathized tremendously. I grieved for her. Man, I thought of her with all of my positive vibes because I couldn't imagine a world in which I might be immobilized for 3 days, much less 3 months. There's a sweet sort of irony about this, no?
• I'm not outrageously hungry. Of course, I'm not doing much moving, but I never knew how much movement and hunger correlate.
• I can't get to the food easily. I don't need to explain this one, right?
• My husband has to do all the fetching and carrying - can't say how much I appreciate not doing any cooking or cleaning up.
• I have wine and the internet!!
• As Cal says (though she had a little help from the Buddha): It is not what we carry with us, but what we let go of that defines who we are.

Here's to being here now, peeps. xo

PS: For y'all who've recently dropped by to see my sewing posts, please don't lose interest. I do lots of them (too many, according to some!). Just having challenges sewing and photographing due to the injury. I'll be back to a cross section of sewing posts soon.

Update: I must have been in a wine-haze happy place when I wrote this. Today, my zen perspective is all shot to hell. For starters, I just dropped the phone (model circa 1990 and it weighs a pound) on my face and now I suspect I'm going to have a mega black eye as my eye is all weepy and puffy. WTF?!?!?!? (Did I mention I've now officially run out of arnica?) This is to say nothing of a second degree burn I gave myself about 2 weeks ago, pressing some fabric, which is still ugly and scar-ry on my forearm. Scott just advised that he wants me to sign an affidavit indicating that he blameless re: my numerous injuries, and I can see why. Oh, why are all of these things so ugly, even as they are painful?

Update 2: I can't believe I'm posting this, but I feel the need to show y'all the state of my foot seven days after the injury:

This photo is from Scott's cell phone and I can't figure out how to make it bigger... Like you want to see it bigger...

Don't Do It

There's an argument to be made, given my compulsiveness, that I do not "relax" unless some stronger force compels me. It's a kind of beating me at my own game philosophy. Emphasis on the word "beating".

For example, my idea of a sick day is to (between hacking away and feeling like death) do laundry and organize my papers and cut out a pattern. I know I should be lying down, watching Netflix, but I can't budge the thought that I'm wasting time.

It's incredibly strange, therefore, to be lying here doing utterly nothing (except the occasional time-sensitive work item and reading blogs and talking on the phone, which in my world is nothing).

Here are the things I feel I should be doing today:

• Putting away the overflowing basket of clean laundry. It is taunting me with its messiness.
• Making cookies. I'm really wanting cookies.
• Doing some yoga - even if it's mega-restorative/therapeutic for the foot yoga only, it's necessary action.
• Cleaning up M's room, which is like Satan's rumpus pad of hoarded tchotchkes and crap.
• Tracing the pants pattern for V1166.
• Cutting out the fabric for V1166 and another one of V8634.
• Making some more Xmas present circle scarves. I've got 3 of these lined up.

Here's what I'm actually doing:

• Lying in bed blogging and reading blogs. (Why is it US Thanksgiving? - all my bloggers are eating instead of blogging!)
• Wishing Scott would finish his teleconference upstairs so he could help me get to the washroom. No dignity peeps.
  
• Wondering what I'm going to eat next.
• Considering how I haven't had a shower since Wed. and it's disgusting. I suppose I could take a bath but I loathe baths. I feel taking a bath is like soaking in your own dirt. Which is better than being dry and grimy, how exactly? Fact is, I have no interest in figuring out how I will get into and out of the bathtub.
  

In truth though, it is rather relaxing.

Update: I took a modified shower which involved a make-shift step stool (an old toys bucket of M's) and Scott holding the shower head. Talk about undignified. Oy. On the plus side, I'm clean. But the shower is a veritable death trap when you've got an injury - it's all hard, pointy, wet surfaces. On the way out I fell over onto the ankle - exceeding briefly - but it was SO painful. Icing it again and lying on the couch. You know, I woke up (after 13 hours) at 11 am this morning. It's 2:15 and I can barely keep my eyes open. Oh, and I'm totally beyond hungry. And not just for fun food. I can't see how inactivity and consumption are a good combo. The only thing I can come up with is that I must be expending more energy hopping (and crawling) around than I think I am.

I Guess I'm About to Get Good at Online Xmas Shopping...

Here I was about to write a post telling you all that I need a few days off from blogging as my job has kicked into high gear (again), but I fell down the stairs and sustained a nasty foot injury and now blogging is about the only thing I can still manage. Doncha love some irony?

How did this happen? Well, I was 3 stairs up, on my way to bed (after a very, very long day), when I decided I needed to return something to the main floor. The problem is, in my fatigue, I forgot I was 3 stairs up. I thought I was 1 stair up, so I simply walked off the third stair as if it were the first. Weird how bad that can be for one's landing. I fell on my left foot/ankle, the one I led with. The rest of my body fell on top of it. I can't figure out how I didn't damage anything else - not wrists or arms or knees or head. How did I land without trying to brace my fall???

My husband, who's persona non grata right now (not to wade too far into a marital strife moment), told me I was overdramatizing. I did scream and writhe in pain and then had to crawl up the stairs. Apparently, he's sprained his ankle numerous times and (according to him) one is supposed to do the same thing (ice), regardless of the style of injury, and that thing doesn't include whimpering or going to the emergency room. (Note to reader: He's never sprained his ankle in the 15 years I've known him.)

This morning, when I went to the emergency room (thanks to the utter graciousness of my manager, of all people, who came to fetch me from home and made sure I had reading material and snacks), the triage nurse told me to advise my husband that if he had a foot injury like mine and he didn't get himself to the hospital, he's an idiot.

Note: I don't own a car and I have no family I can call on in an acute emergency. All of my friends with wheels had to work today.

The doctor suspected it was broken, but thankfully it's just a really bad soft tissue injury. It may take 4 days or a week to heal well enough to put weight on my foot, or maybe longer. Timing is unique to each individual.

The first thing I thought after the searing pain subsided somewhat was: "Jesus, I really want to do some yoga right now. Serves me right for all of my laziness and taking it for granted." The second thing was: "I guess I won't be doing any sewing this weekend". Strangely, the questions of how hard it would be to eat or pee or move 2 feet didn't really occur to me.

I had a choice of cast or crutches with tensor bandage. I took the latter. It's easier to lie with your legs up the wall when you're not carrying around a casing.

I did mainline some arnica (200C) as soon as it happened and put some arnica cream on the swelling. I took extra vitamin D. I didn't take any painkillers till 2 hours ago because I didn't have Tylenol and I've heard that Advil and fractures don't mix. In the event that I had a break, I didn't want to impinge on healing at the get go. I elevated it numerous times throughout the night and used ice on and off. I was doing yoga mentally, if only minutely, in my constant wiggling of my toes (to maintain mobility) and the minuscule extension of my inner foot (which was contracting from injury).

It's pretty scary what can happen in a moment of inattention. I'm trying to focus on the positive: that my injury is fairly compact, I could have injured myself so seriously, and I have lots of knowledge about how to encourage healing. I do find it tough not to fall back on fear (How will I walk? Walking keeps me sane. Walking is my exercise. Walking is perhaps the most important thing I do.)

As my identity is wrapped up in all of my activities (sewing, yoga, walking), who will I be as I go through recovery? How will I manage the boredom, never mind relying on others?

I know lots of blogger-peeps have had foot injuries this year, strangely. Maybe you've had a nasty injury in the past? Tell me about your process of recovery, about your feelings. I'd really love your perspective.