The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

"The woods are dark, lovely, and deep. But I've got promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. -Robert Frost


So I had a doctor appointment two days ago. In my mind here's what was supposed to happen.
Doctor: Wow. Never have I ever seen an xray look this good. Your healing astounds me. You're basically a superhuman. You may feel free to go on a 15 mile run...TODAY! YAY! (confetti begins falling from doctor's office ceiling.)
Katie: Thank you, thank you. I couldn't have done it without you  and the extensive amount of calcium I've been consuming, which, as you can see by the x-ray is at least a million times more calcium than the average person consumes.
    I then throw my crutches out the window, sprint out of his office, into the sunset on a 17 mile run. Barefoot. In the snow. At 7:30 7:00 6:30 6:00 pace.

Here's what actually happened. The fracture is healing. (insert confetti). But the point to that is that it's not healed yet. Meaning...that I still can't run. Obviously. The good news is that I am starting physical therapy (finally) and I'm allowed to start walking a bit. Apparently pain is supposed to be my guide. My tendons are a little messed up, so I have to be careful with that. Oh, and the fracture? Let's just say I'm glad no one told me how big it was at the beginning of this whole ordeal.

On Friday after we took xrays I sat down with my doctor in his office to look at the xrays (hint: you know that you are a special case when your doctor allows you to sit down in his office with him instead of seeing you in one of the examination rooms. This also means your doctor is awesome.) So I looked at this now-calcified fracture, realizing that it goes all the way through my calcaneous, save a couple of centimeters at the end of it. This explains the extreme amount of pain that came along with this fracture.

This brings us back to the original question that I couldn't answer 9 weeks ago. And I still can't completely answer. How does a heel bone crack almost all the way through in the mere span of a week? Here are some of the answers for you that I have stumbled upon.
First of all there were warning signs that I should have seen.  During the season, my foot used to go numb a lot. At the time I blamed my shoes, my socks, going to slow, going to fast, fatigue, dehydration, pavement. I should have blamed my stress fracture. I also got a blister halfway through the season, that just would. not. heal. I stayed and never quite went away. And the skin peeled and it was always red and inflamed. It was right over where the fracure began. Finally, and oddly enough, the place where I first noticed the fracture was a the pool, while doing flip turns. I noticed that my ankle hurt when I was kicking...this should have been a warning sign because nothing ever hurts in the pool unless it's really serious. But as with so much else, I chose to ignore it.

How does a heel bone crack almost all the way through in the mere span of a week? 
The next answer is the scariest of all. It's one that I've known for a couple of weeks now (4) and haven't quite been able to write about yet. Osteopenia is what happens to your bones on the path towards osteoporosis. Luckily, unlike osteoporosis, it is just the de-mineralization of your bones is is actually reversible (usually) with a proper diet and amount of calcium. Osteopenia, is actually not that uncommon in women over 30 and especially not in women over 40. Simply, it means that your bones aren't as strong as they could be and you're losing some density. It basically is a road sign that says "Caution: this road may lead to osteoporosis." The thing with osteopenia, however is that because of your de-mineralized bones it's much easier to fracture them because they're not as strong as they should be. In addition, an excessive amount of running, and they're quite easy to stress fracture. Mine is in the early stage and not something that, at this point anyways, I'm  too worried about, but it is something that I need to talk to my doctor more about and figure out if I'm going to get another stress fracture as soon as I start running again.

So all of that said. I have 5 more weeks and then I go back to see my doctor the best orthopedic doctor in the entire world. We're going to take more xrays and make sure I'm done healing. In those 5 weeks I am supposed to faithfully start doing physical therapy, and that therapist is supposed to slowly get to strong enough to walk all the time without crutches. I'm already walking without them around my house, but I'm too afraid to do so out in the rest of the world. Especially, now that there's snow on the ground. So...that's at least one good thing. I feel like I'm thisclose to walking normally again.

In the meantime though, I'm still going to be doing lots and lots of swimming. And lots and lots of praying.