I went to the Stable on Sunday July 2nd for my weekend practice and all was going well. I ran through my entire MIF and Freestyle test elements several times and everything felt solid. No issues. After an hour of running through all of that, I started working on spins and jumps. I finally got more than one revolution on my camel and that was encouraging. I did some nice backspins in the flamingo position that felt spintastic. And then I moved on to jumps. I did several salchows that felt slowed down like I wanted and I had just started working on loops. I did a couple that felt really nice, like I had the free leg crossed in front and everything! I was lining up for another loop from backward crossovers and before I even left the ice for the jump, I heard a pop and then intense pain that had me writhing on the ice before I could even comprehend what happened!
I didn't scream out in pain or cry (yet), I just kind of laid there, stunned. People continued to skate around me like it's just completely normal for someone to be laying on the ice. Finally, a kid skated up to me and asked me if I was alright. I said "no" and asked if he could please get someone to help me. He left and again, I just laid there on the ice for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, a dad who was there with his son came up to me and asked if he could help me get off the ice. He tried to pick me up but it just wasn't working so he got a chair and brought it to me and, once he got me seated, he slid me to the closest entrance and got me off the ice. Mind you, during this whole time, not a single staff member came out to assist. I had to again ask someone to get a staff member to help me. In the meantime, I called Dustin and told him to come quick because I thought I broke my ankle.
At this point, the pain kicked in and I think I was starting to go into shock because I was getting insanely cold. Finally, staff came with a clipboard to ask me questions and fill out an incident report. Someone on the staff advised me not to take my boot off (Not like I could anyway. The mere weight of the boot alone was killing me). Once Dustin got there and we determined that there was no way to get me into the car to go the ER, I agreed to have EMS come and take me via ambulance. How embarrassing.
Thankfully, they gave me some super pain meds for the ride because I was losing it with the amount of pain. X-rays confirmed the breaking news (see what I did there?). I broke my ankle which pushed everything outward to break by fibula. So yeah, I didn't just break my ankle, I broke my leg as well and it would have been much worse if my skate boot hadn't kept everything contained.
I had surgery on the 7th with an orthopedist that just does ankles and I am now the proud owner of a newly rebuilt ankle and leg. The good news is that I will be able to skate again in the future (including jumps). The bad news is that it will take quite a while to heal from this. The doctor estimated that I should be able to comfortably return to the ice about a year from now (maybe a bit sooner if I am diligent with my PT).
I ended up emailing Christopher when I was in the ER and told him what happened and that I may possibly be done with skating entirely (I was on a lot of drugs and was feeling very doom and gloom). He was so kind and offered to stop by my apartment to bring some food that his wife had made for us just to help out a little. He came over to the apartment after my surgery and he was able to talk to me about some options for when I return (because I have now decided that I'm not going to let this break me (eh?)). He talked about the possibility of just focusing on MIF or switching gears entirely and working on testing through the Ice Dance levels, which I can do solo if I want.
I have a lot of support and some really good people in my life who are rooting for me. Skating is also my passion and I can't let this one event determine my future. I will rise above! So, this journal may be silent for a while although I may periodically post some progress reports. In the meantime, I will keep running my MIF in my mind and watch videos so that I don't forget anything. I also think it's helpful to watch some skating in person. I went to a freestyle session the day before my surgery just to watch and that reminded me how much I love the ice and how badly I want to return to it. I WILL BE BACK! Below are the before and after x-rays of my left ankle/leg. Enjoy!
Edit - So I know in the second x-ray it looks as though the one screw in the middle is floating. It's not. The doc screwed that one in from the back so that he could connect the two broken ends together. In other words, it's supposed to look like that ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment