The Long Road Back: My Recovery Journey
I rarely share personal updates here, but this blog has been a very long time coming. For those who don’t know me personally, here’s a quick recap:
In November during a run, I felt a lot of pain in my hip, and not in a normal achy type way. I knew there was something wrong. After a few weeks off and no improvement, I went to a sports doctor and was diagnosed with a stress fracture.
The marathon I had trained so hard for (California International Marathon in Sacramento) was out. I started cross-training, mostly on the bike.
On November 26, two days after Thanksgiving, I was biking back from the gym when something flew into the road, I flipped over the handlebars at about 20mph, and landed in the hospital with a broken jaw, broken nose, concussion, missing teeth, and 17 stitches on my face. It was one of the hardest and most surreal things I’ve been through.
A few days after the accident I was back on the stationary bike, trying to stay in shape and sane while working through all the injuries. Truly, it was awful. My face looked like it had been smashed (since it had) and my broken nose made breathing difficult. It was embarrassing on so many levels to go to the gym, but I decided it would be worse to have literally everything physical taken from me at once. So I went, and tried to ignore the stares and comments, and worked as hard as I could with limited breathing capacity.
The part of recovery that took the longest was my mouth. The first part - dealing with stitches that eventually got infected - was acutely painful. My entire mouth would swell, especially when it got cold, and there was very little I could do about it. I couldn’t chew anything for weeks - all ‘food’ had to go in a straw through one side of my mouth. I lost weight that I couldn’t afford to lose, even with copious amounts of Chick-fil-A milkshakes making their way into my diet. I wore a mask most of the time when I was in public, because even my own daughter was scared of my face. The pictures below aren’t the worst ones I have, but you get the idea…I looked and felt truly terrible.
That road rash hurt and it took forever to go away. I still have a little scarring on my neck from it. This was three days post-accident and everything was so very swollen.
Progress, but still far away. Nose was still broken here and I look a little like Frankenstein…but improving day by day.
At this point I wasn’t always wearing a mask, and my face was back to normal size.
All the stitches were out but my teeth were still not fixed, plus the weight loss hit pretty hard by this point and I got way more gaunt than I ever had before.
Temporary crowns are in! They were yellow, crooked, and felt very awkward, but at least I could smile again.
Permanent crowns are in, swelling is gone, and I finally felt like myself again (with a few added scars). This was the first good day at the dentist, but it was a very good day.
When the stitches were pulled out - the most painful part of any post-hospital visit - this part gradually got to improve, although there is a small section of my lips that is permanently numb. Fortunately I’m the only one who can tell most of the time. The teeth - from temporary crowns to permanent ones and four root canals - could be a blog all by themselves. It’s too much detail, but I’ll just say it took about 3 months more than anticipated, and everything that could possibly go wrong did. I have never dreaded the dentist before, or had anything wrong with my teeth (even a cavity!), so maybe I was making up for lost time…between the dentist getting COVID right before he had a family emergency that took him away for a month, getting switched to a new dentist, a three-hour procedure turning into two days and six hours, permanent crowns that had to be re-done multiple times, and the finale of Willow getting the norovirus while I got COVID again - right when I was supposed to have my last dental procedure - it was an absolute nightmare. I’m so, so glad that’s behind me now.
In the meantime, I just had to wait for everything else to heal. My nose may need to be re-set eventually, but for now I’m breathing ok. The jaw healed in about six weeks, and along with that the facial swelling went back to normal. My weight got back to a healthy level after some time, which helped with a lot of other things, too.
On the running front, I finally had a stroke of good luck. In mid-January on a visit to San Diego, I suddenly remembered that a friend mentioned taking a trip down to Tijuana to get an MRI. I’ve been to that city several times to eat some incredible food, so I knew I’d be safe, and I needed to find out if my hip was healed without paying the thousands of dollars it would cost back home. My boyfriend texted the doctor on a Sunday and she responded minutes later with a next-day appointment and a quote for how much it would cost: less than $200!
I got the MRI and ate some incredible tacos afterwards - in small bites through the side of my mouth, of course. The results came in the next day and confirmed that I never had a stress fracture in the first place. Instead, it was a hip impingement. While that sounds simple, it was horrendously painful and I dearly hope it never happens again. The positive news was that I could start to run again without risking a full bone break.
When I got back to Virginia, I ran 3 miles on an indoor track. The next day I woke up as sore as if I had run a marathon, but nothing was painful…and from there, I continued to add on miles. While I’m incredibly grateful for the stationary bike during three long months of injury (I spent countless hours on it and figured out a way to cope with the boredom), all I wanted to do was get back to running.
I slowly continued to add more miles back in, and by April I was signing up for 3 races, although I kept all of it quiet. In truth, I felt so scared about actually ‘performing’ again that I didn’t want a single person to know I would be racing anything until I showed up at the start line. I didn’t know how I would hold up and I was terrified to fail, or to come to the realization that I would never be as fast as I once was.
On April 1, 2023, I raced the Victory at Yorktown 10K and while I didn’t set a PR, I came way closer to winning than I ever had before, against the same person I raced against for years, on a very humid and windy day. I didn’t feel like I was at 100%, but I also didn’t feel that far away from where I was.
Three weeks later on April 22, I raced the 5K at my daughter’s elementary school, to make her happy more than anything else. I knew most people would be running for fun, or with their kid, so I didn’t plan to put in 100% effort…plus, I had signed up for a marathon the next day and I didn’t want to kill my chances there! I took off from the gun and in the last mile, when I didn’t see anyone close by, I pulled up a little so I wouldn’t ruin my legs. Imagine my surprise when I saw my time: 17:49, a 10-second PR and good for 1st overall on the day. I literally could not believe it…and I started to get excited about the marathon.
That Sunday, on a mostly-shady bike path, I lined up for the Tidewater Striders Dismal Swamp Marathon. My goal was to break 3 hours, not to PR, and I started off at a pretty conservative pace. One other person ran with me for the first 6-ish miles, but after that I was on my own. The course was simple and flat: an out-and-back course that the marathoners ran twice. The most fun part was seeing other runners on the opposite side of the road. When they started to recognize me after the first time, and saw I was winning the whole race, the cheers and encouragement were so fun and humbling all at the same time.
As these things go, I picked up the pace after a few miles, hitting the halfway point in 1:26, at which point I thought I might be able to PR if I didn’t slow down…which I didn’t. When I saw the finish line and a 2:52 time on the clock, I started to pump my fist and yell. I was going to win the whole marathon and set an accidental PR along the way. Plus, I felt great - the last few miles were hard, sure, but I can truly say I had fun running a marathon which is pretty rare.
So here I am today, back in training with the next big one on deck: the Berlin Marathon this September (yep, the one in Germany!). Flights are booked, serious training starts in a month, and my goal is to be happy and healthy on the start line.
Even before I got injured, I would often acknowledge the fact that moving one foot in front of the other is not something I will ever take for granted. I feel that even more now. I’m so incredibly grateful for all the doctors and nurses who worked on my face and body, for the physio-magician who I found along the way, and for all the friends who encouraged me, cheered for me, and inspired me while I was on the sidelines. My community is probably the best thing about running, above PRs and fast races and everything else.
Running - or whatever you love to do that makes you come to life - is truly a gift. Don’t forget to cherish what you have while you have it…I know I will.