Speed Trials

In January, I was sent off (in the very early morning hours) to the Civic Hospital for an MRI to find out exactly what was wrong with my left knee. I’d hurt it during a Roller Derby training camp back in November (on my birthday to be exact) and while I had done a little physiotherapy in December, I hadn’t stuck with it. But the pain and the aches weren’t going away, and what’s worse, I couldn’t run or skate.

I went to see my doctore, who sent me off to get an MRI, and also urged me to return to Physio. I chose to go to Motion Matters, which was recommended to me by a friend, and I’m so glad I did. My new physiotherapist is really, really good, and I clicked with him right away. He gave me a different diagnosis from my first physiotherapist, which was confirmed a week later by my MRI results. Turns out there are quite a few things wrong with the old knee:

1. I have a slight tear in my meniscus

2. I have a 50% of my Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL)

3. I have high grade focus of lateral chondromalacia patella. (Basically, that means that my kneecap was knocked off its track, and is now moving laterally whenever I bend the joint).

4. Small focal area of full fissuring (like a chasm) in the cartilage under my patella (kneecap).

So bascially, what’s supposed to happen is the cartilage under the kneecap, which is smooth and lovely, is supposed to rub fluidly over the femur whenever the knee is bent. But, what’s happening to me is that the kneecap is not rubbing in its proper track, and because the cartilage is worn in that one spot, it’s kneecap bone rubbing on femur bone, which of course causes pain and stiffness.

So we’ve been working pretty diligently on getting my range of motion back, walking without pain, and set goals such as riding a bike or climbing stairs. I was doing my physio exercises regularly, stopped doing anything that would worsen the condition (like walking to and from work) and made my knee my number 1 priority.

Then, last Thursday, I slipped on some ice. And I fell. On my knee. For serious.

The pain was acute. I was writhing on the ground, in a puddle of water and ice, holding my knee and gasping for breath, unable to get up let alone walk to safety. I stayed there for a good five to ten minutes, trying to take deep breaths and get my focus back.

When I did manage to get in the house, I knew I’d done something terrible. I got overwhelmed with thoughts of the further damage I’d done to my knee, the regression, and the worsened stiffness in the joint. The next few days were marked by added pain, inflammation, and soreness. I called my physiotherapist and told him about it, and he was able to calm me down a little. The way he explains things to me makes so much sense, and takes all the mystery out of the problems I’m facing. He said to ice it a lot, and to rest. I barely left the house all weekend.

And a full week later, my knee was still bruised and still (slightly) swollen:

And while I had an appointment booked with my physiotherapist this afternoon, I was SO NERVOUS about it. Nervous because I hadn’t done my exercises all week. Nervous because I had regressed, not progressed, and I didn’t want to “let him down”. But of course it went super well. I told him that I hadn’t done my exercises this week, and he told me he understood and was even glad I didn’t work through the pain. We worked out a new game plan with the knee as it is now, and after working out a few muscles, stretching out a few hamstrings, I was almost back on track.

Now my knee is tapped up nice and tight, I’ve got a game plan for the week ahead, my confidence has been restored – I will make a full recovery and be back on skates in time for the May 29th Roller Derby Bout!!

Looking back on my many food experiments over the last four years really makes me shake my head, and it prompted me to write a little wrap up on where it’s taken me. And so after four years of fasts, diets, vegetarianism, and veganism, here is what I found:

Background: When I went to Australia in 2006, it jolted me from the drunken haze I’d been in for the previous year and a half. It also shocked me into realizing just how much weight I had gained in those 16 months, too. I decided to stop drinking, almost overnight. I also stopped eating meat, and did my first Master Cleanse to get a jump start my weight loss. I quickly lost a lot of weight, and became obsessed. I wanted to keep losing more and more weight, but it was making me feel worse and worse.

Symptoms: In the following years, I suffered from two major symptoms: one physical (I became EXTREMELY constipated), and one mental (I became EXTREMELY depressed). I think it’s safe to say that I had a full-blown eating disorder for most of 2007 and 2008. I had NO IDEA what was happening to both my body and my mental state, and as I freaked out, I tried to get help from some doctors. My quest led me to a Naturopath who filled me with expensive herbal remedies and fibre supplements, a psychologist who charged a whopping $160 a session but who never really clicked with me, two endoscopists who each performed a colonoscopy (one who had terrible bedside manner, and one who was really great!), and hours and hours spent reading up on dieting, weight loss, eating disorders. But nothing was helping the situation.

Breakthrough: Then, in 2009, after realizing that doctors don’t always have the answers we’re looking for, I decided to do an “elimination diet” whereby I only ate very specific ingredients for two weeks, and then gradually reintroduced “suspicious” foods into my diet. I chronicled the “elimination” part of the diet quite well on this blog, but stopped once I got to the “reintroduction” phase. But what I discovered was that I had previously been eating WAY TOO MUCH SOY. (When I went vegetarian, I ate tofu, faux meat, and soymilk almost every day). When I reintroduced soy into my diet after the elimination diet, I instantly reverted back to the bloating, pain, and constipation I’d suffered in 2007-08. Since the elimination diet, I have SEVERELY cut back on my soy intake (I drink almond milk now, and do not eat tofu or faux meat) and my problem has completely been cured.

I also took advantage of the Employee Assistance Program at work, and was able to meet with a counsellor (6 sessions for FREE!) who was able to help me identify a lot of things that I’d been repressing for a long time, and gave me some invaluable tools to deal with them. I discovered that when I quit alcohol, I simply transferred my addiction from one thing to another (food and dieting). I discovered that I don’t react well to change and that I prefer routines. And while some things in my life were out of my control, I compensated by controlling my food intake and exercise output. Problem was, I was restricting calories so much, and then binging so much, and then overexercising so much, that my bowels could not adjust.

Conclusion: So I’ve worked hard improving on those two fronts: eliminating soy from my diet and dealing with stressors in my life head on without using food and dieting as an escape. Changing those two things have made me a much happier, healthier person, a better girlfriend, and I’m finally starting to reconnect with that optimistic, smiling, good-time girl I used to be!!

Angelo and I have been going to the gym about 2 times a week for the past few weeks, and it’s been great. I’ve had to alter my routine quite significantly, since I can’t even think of running on the treadmill, or using the step-machine or elliptical. There’s been a lot of walking, a little bit of biking, and a lot of physio moves, stretches, and upper-body strength training. It’s not what I want to be doing, and today I noticed I was staring, longingly, at the fit woman running on the treadmill. Oh how I miss running.

I also miss derby. I was at practice last night, and I took a whole bunch of notes and it sparked a few epiphanies for me. I so want to be on skates, working with my new team, building our skills. But I’m stuck just waiting it out, planning out my progression back into both derby and running once my knee fully recovers.

And in the meantime, I have for you the unveiling of our team logo!!! This was created by one of our teammates, Brickfist at Tuffyknees, and it’s freakin’ AWESOME!!!

I can’t wait till we get our uniforms. We’re going to look so baddass on the track!!!

“Babe, you’re looking better and better every day.”

overheard in the shower a couple weeks ago. Perhaps the best thing to hear first thing in the morning…

Slow and steady wins the race, my friends. I have been so much more at peace with my exercise/eating regiment these days. I have no unreasonable goal date in mind, or goal weight in mind. All I care about is getting my body moving and eating things that make me feel good. I’m happy and content, and that makes everything else fall into place.

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And then, last Monday, I went to a sports clinic to get my knee checked out. I hurt it at Roller Derby Training Camp (on my 30th birthday, no less!!) and wanted a professional opinion. After some prodding and poking, the physiotherapist said I had a sprained PCL. Though it’s only lightly torn, I’ve been instructed to stay off skates (and out of running shoes) for 6 to 8 weeks.

I’m also doing physio three times a week, icing as much as possible, and even have some acupuncture lined up.

This is my first injury, and it’s really throwing me for a loop. I can’t run, I can’t skate, I can’t even walk that far without inflaming my knee. And it’s scaring me. What will I do??? Just as I reached an epiphany about exercise and healthy, and now all my hard work from past months are threatened. Six weeks off skates is killer. And I miss running more than I can say. It’s made me very sad.

Here are my options: focus on physio strengthening exercises. Do ab work and upper body training. Swimming. Yoga.

January can’t come quickly enough!

I have entered my thirties. It happened quite un-dramatically. I woke up in Toronto on the morning of my birthday, rolled over to give Ange a kiss, and stumbled out of my hotel room to have a quick breakfast before Derby Training Camp.

I got some super sweet birthday wishes from some of the girls – and then we were off.

Training Camp was great. Right up until the point where I fell on my knee wrong and hurt it. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that under that tightly strapped knee pad there was something out of sorts, a dull ache that crept from under my kneecap and threatened to spread… fast. I fell on it again and that was it. It was time to get off the track. The rest of the day consisted of stretching, icing, attempting to get back onto the track for more drills, falling on it again, feeling the sharp pain, and then stretching and icing some more. Not great.

This morning my knee was still swollen, still sore, and its range of motion worsened by the night’s sleep.

“Welcome to your Thirties, Marlene. You are officially OLD.”

I felt awkward around the girls, because I didn’t know what was wrong. Then one of the girls came over and said knowingly; “That’s the same knee as before, isn’t it?” I didn’t really answer her, because I hadn’t connected the dots yet. Though she could see right away the connection between the pain I had in the past with today’s injury. (Man, I can be so blind to these things sometimes. I thank my girls for having my back when even I can’t put two and two together).

It was only on the drive back home today when it all came together for me: this knee acted up months ago, when I fell at derby practice and strained it in some way. Then all of a sudden I was having trouble running. I ignored the soreness for a while, and then tried to “fix” it with knee sleeves. Then I tried run-walking, then I tried just using the elliptical. I thought I had shin splints. I thought I was just increasing mileage too quickly. I thought I could run through the pain. And now…? Now I’m having a hard time walking, and climbing the two flights of stairs to my apartment takes an excruciatingly long time.

So I’m going to the physiotherapy clinic tomorrow, and hopefully will get a diagnosis and begin what is sure to be a slow, laboured recovery.

It’s bummed me out, but also has made me disappointed in my inability to read my own body. Why the disconnect? Why did I think that I was somehow immune to injury? I jumped right into a new sport (Derby), widely varying running programs (two week blitzes, anyone?) and even threw in the odd tennis game here and there, with nary a stretch before or after. Did I really think I could be as limber as I was when I turned 20?

What it comes down to is that I’m sad. I miss running. I miss being able to put some shoes on, head out the door, and spend 20, or 40, or 60 minutes with just myself, just my thoughts, and just let time and pressures and stresses slip away. I miss looking out at the canal, or along a shady path, or up at some gorgeous house, and feeling quelled by it.

I also miss derby. I’ve only been to a handful of practices this month, and it looks like I’ll be missing a couple more. I miss being on my skates, honing a new skill, learning a new move. I miss my girls. The time I spent on skates this weekend (albeit too short) was AMAZING. I felt so good getting out there and getting my a$$ kicked. I wanted so badly to be on that track, and scrimmage with the girls, but I couldn’t, and that just sucks.

I’ll post more after I’ve seen a specialist, and know exactly what is wrong with the knee.

Sigh. Mega Sigh.

PS. On a brighter note, Ange bought me two books for my birthday: one of which is Into the Wild. Jon Krakauer is one of the COOLEST people on earth. The things he writes stays with me for days. I think it’s because he has a fairly unassuming manner, and so can lead his readers into pretty heavy subject matter with assurance. If he was any more flamboyant in his writing, I’d be too scared to get caught up in a maelstrom – but as he writes, I feel calmed, and that he could somehow shelter me (the reader) from the impending storm.