One year ago yesterday, it should have been a normal Sunday in December. I got up to go running, and planned on riding my horse later in the day and watching football with my husband. I felt sluggish getting warmed up for my run–it was cold, with a dusting of snow outside–sure to make the 10-miler that much more difficult. I was already fatigued from a 25+ mile week and nursing a sore hamstring. But I had big plans to tackle my first full marathon in the spring and I wanted to see how my body would handle the higher mileage. Once outside, the fatigue vanished. The cold was exhilarating, not draining. The snow was magical, beautiful in the way that only the first snow of the season can be. A few miles in, I was just savoring the joy that comes with footfalls coming in rhythm with the breath, snowflakes trickling down, the feeling of power that comes from legs making light work of the miles. Miraculously, the nagging pain in my hamstring that had been plaguing me was absent that day. As I approached the halfway point of my run, I told myself that if I could return home pain-free, I would go register for that marathon. I was five or six miles in, moving at a decent clip along the Monongahela River, smiling at the beauty that is Mount Washington covered in snow. I thought about how cute my horse would look against a snowy background wearing the year-end Reserve Champion ribbon he’d won the day before. And the next thing I knew, I was on my back, my right foot twisted at a grotesque angle and already swollen to twice its normal size. My first thought was, “I don’t think I can walk home.” My second thought was, “This is definitely broken.” And my third thought was, “Now I can’t run the marathon.” And then I started screaming. No one could see me, as I was flat on my back next to the rivers, laying on top of the plaque that I had slipped on, the spot marking the confluence of the three rivers, the very spot where my husband had proposed. After dragging myself up onto the edge of the fountain, a couple taking photos in Point State Park spotted me, offered their cell phone so I could call for a ride to the hospital, and–reminding me that there still are good people in this world–they worked together to carry me out of the park.
That was the start of a very long and difficult journey and one is that not over yet. The beginning stages involved being pumped full of IV morphine in the ER, learning I had fractured three bones in my leg and damaged all the tendons and ligaments in my dislocated ankle. I can vividly remember being wheeled into the OR, cold and naked with countless wires and tubes attached to me. But nothing was quite like meeting my surgeon who told me in no uncertain terms, “You will never be the same.” Despite the cloudy opiate-induced haze, I remember that moment so clearly. And in the phases of recovery that followed–the unbelievably frustrating 17 days of bed rest, the feelings of burdening everyone around me, trying to go back to work and rearranging my desk so my leg could stay elevated throughout the day–through all those initial stages I remembered those words which alternately challenged me to prove him wrong but also were a harsh dose of reality that he might be right. I remembered them in my head as I got the green light to start physical therapy and ten weeks later, I walked for the first time. To celebrate, my husband and I took our dog for a walk, but he ended up having to carry me home. As soon as I was able, I started riding again. It was months before my ankle could tolerate the force of remaining in a stirrup. And each ride that I tried something and failed, I heard those words in my head again. And yet, I entered a horse show that April. Competing with my beloved partner inspired me like nothing had been able to since the accident–I started to dream again of proving my surgeon wrong. And then finally, on a balmy spring day in May, over four months since that last winter run, I drove to a track and ran one very slow, very awkward mile. I was expecting unbridled joy for that moment, but instead, it was the sobering realization that so much had been lost during recovery. There was so far to go to get back to where I was and here that voice again–this was a reminder of never being the same.
But nevertheless, day after day, I went to that track and started over. Slowly, life started to come back to normal. Bit by bit, I noticed little changes like being able to walk on uneven ground, being able to land on both feet while dismounting, and having the flexibility to get that foot into my muck boots. Some days held these tiny victories, and yet I was still so far. I celebrated my birthday by running the Great Race, tearing across the finish line faster than I thought possible. Then I spent the next two weeks walking, not running. Up and back down, little ups and back down again. Healing became not just one thing to get through, a finite step you complete and then get back to life, it became my life. The days I made progress and the days my pain lessened were the inspiration needed to get to the next phase. And so while on this journey, I became inspired to want to help heal the pain of others–it was my horse who had lifted my spirits on the most hopeless days and had given me the inspiration to dare to dream again. One day it just came to me and I knew that the next step on this journey of healing was to find a way to help the horses who had so helped me.
And a year later, I feel a mix of relief and frustration. I am again facing surgery in three weeks because there’s a chance it might reduce my pain. The healing journey is far from over, and maybe it never will be. I still have moments where I fight tears of anger and frustration when my body can’t do what I want it to do and I still have tears of joy when I reach a new milestone or I feel closer to being how I was before this injury. But as our instructor told us on the first day of learning massage: “the giver becomes the receiver.” By learning how to become a “giver” for these horses in some small way, I have truly received so much more. They remind me that being an athlete means maintaining yourself and managing pain when setbacks arise through training and injury. They remind me that even at the best of times, we still struggle, our bodies may work against us, we may carry tension that holds us back. They remind me how wonderful it is to actually feel good. But most of all, and the lesson that has been the hardest to learn, is to know that they way you feel today doesn’t have to be the way you feel tomorrow.
So will I ever be the same? I have wondered that every day in the past year, and pondered it during the entirety of my 10 mile run today, when I finally completed the loop I set out to do last year. No, I am nowhere near as fast as I was, not as strong, with only a fraction of the endurance. But my determination, that remains the same. And never before has my goal been to be “the same,” to just maintain what I’m already able to do. No, the goal of an athlete is to improve, isn’t it? Going forward, I’m not shooting for being the athlete I was. Not being the same is quite alright, because what I want is to be better than ever.