Man Down

When you run, there are wipe outs.. and then there are wipe outs. My fall yesterday was of epic proportions. It was a beautiful morning for a run. Perfect actually. I was on a trail run at Clinton Lake. It was a fairly large group of us. It was a little mini-race. I was going to attempt to run 8.5 miles. My furthest since becoming a mom. When you run, you naturally form little packs based on how fast (or slow in my case!) you run. I was with two other ladies. We had a great pace. We were just starting to settle into the run. Then, boom. The lady behind me wiped out. We stopped, made sure she was ok. She sprung right back up and we kept going. We talked about her fall, how it happens to everyone on at some point, especially on a trail. And I was thinking to myself, I have never fallen on a trail before. About two minutes later I was jumping over these vines and boom, boom, boom. I was done. As I was jumping over the vines, I awkwardly stepped on a rock that was poking up out of the ground. I felt approximately three pops in my ankle. Before I even hit the ground, I knew it wasn't good. The pain was insane. Not childbirth pain, but it hurt pretty darn bad. The ladies I was running with immediately stopped. They knew I was finished. After only 1.56 miles in, my run was over. Another little pack of runners caught up to us.. stopped.. they knew too. I was in pretty bad pain. Fortunately someone had their cell phone. Unfortunately, because the trees were so dense, it wouldn't work. One of the women ran back to get help. I pleaded with the others to go on. I didn't want to ruin their run. After begging them to continue on, finally they left. I decided to attempt to walk for help as well. There was a road about a half mile back. As I hobbled along, I could see a little tendon that had popped out of my ankle area. I wasn't sure what that meant. Could it be broken.. a bad sprain? I didn't know.. except for the fact that it was so not good. I wasn't sure why I decided to start walking. I felt a bit like a survivalist at that point. Showing my determination and will to survive (ok, I'm clearly being dramatic here, but don't you ever wonder if you'll have what it takes to survive if you were really forced into it??). As I was getting close to the road, help arrived. A man named Gary. He found a walking stick for me. Held my hand as I cried. And encouraged my every step. We made it to the road. He flagged down a biker and asked him to get help. Several minutes later a Park Ranger and a nurse from the race met us. She drove me back to the finish line where I would wait for my sister and the other ladies who went out there with us. As I sat waiting in the car I just felt so bad. Bad for my husband who would now have to take on a huge burden of taking care of the kids, house and me. Bad because I wasn't sure how I would manage watching four children with a hurt ankle. And just simply bad because it hurt. After about a half hour of sitting there wondering how I was going to break the news to my husband, I made the call. "Hon, we're going to have to go to the hospital." He was of course very caring, compassionate and understanding. The x-rays showed no broken bones. Just a bad sprain that would require crutches and an aircast. This little incident has been a wonderful opportunity to see into my daughter, Piper's heart. She has been by my side nearly every second. Taking my plate to the kitchen, cleaning up, getting me ice. You name it. There's not a job that's too big or too small for this sweet little four year old. As I was taking my shower, she even pulled her little rocking chair out of her room and put it in front of the bathroom door so she could hear when I was finished. She was there in case I needed her (she told me she pulled her rocking chair out so she wouldn't get tired of standing. Cute!). I know I'll recover quickly. I already feel a bit better today. In the meantime I have three good feet. One of mine. Two of my daughter's.