It’s been a while since my last post, and I think now is a
good time to bore you with the story of my broken leg. Not a stress fracture. A
bona fide, honest-to-goodness, go-to-the-ER-in-an-ambulance broken leg. Not
just one break of the tibia (shin bone), but two! Also broke the fibula. Here’s
a picture my friend the Xray Technician took of me:
Of course, this was after my other friend the Orthopaedic
Surgeon reamed out the inside of my shin bone, hammered a titanium rod into it,
and put a few screws through it. Nice, isn’t it? Go ahead, open that image and zoom in.
So, why write about this now? This coming St. Patrick’s Day
– March 17, 2018 – happens to be what I refer to as The Tenth Anniversary of My
Not Being Dead. I’ll try to make a long story as short as possible. But you
know me by now.
I was driving my two younger children to high school that
morning: March 17, 2008. My oldest son usually drove them all, but he was sick
that day. Or playing hookey. Not sure, he was a high school senior. Anyway, it
turns out that on St. Patrick’s Day, the sun rises directly in front of the
road I was on at exactly the time I was on it. I’m not talking “sun glare” or
reflections off the road. I mean that driving down that road at that time
involved looking directly into the 10000°F surface of the sun! Needless to say,
it was hard to see. I slowed down, came to a stop because the dark shadowy blob
(another car) on the road in front of me had stopped. Unfortunately, the car
behind me did not feel like reciprocating at that time. My pickup truck was
rear-ended (bending the frame, it turns out. I think he was going more than the
posted 35 MPH!).
We exchanged information as the steady stream of school
traffic crawled past us. I remember watching a minivan run over shards of
plastic and getting a flat tire. I was pulled off to the side of the road as
far as I could. Well aware of the oncoming traffic, I went into my car to
return the little notebook in which I had written the careless driver’s info. I
remember keeping my belly against my truck’s rear door as I closed my front
door.
The next thing I remember is… sitting on the hood of
a Honda Accord! The young high school girl (She was Irish! It was St. Patrick’s
Day! Oh, the irony!) who had been driving that Honda moments before got out of
the car screaming in panic. As I was to find out months later during the legal
discovery process, I shattered that little Honda’s windshield with my Buns of
Steel! No wonder she was screaming! In fact, I totaled that car with nothing
but my rear end!
My first thought was bewilderment. “What? Where am I? How
did I get on the hood of a Honda?” Next came realization and amazement. “Cool!
I just got hit by a car and I’m still alive!” The following thoughts were about
getting down. (Notice that none of those first few thoughts involved “Ouch,
That hurts!” in any way. I felt no pain) I noticed the Honda was at a slight
angle to my truck. If I could work my way backward, I could get down between
the cars. So I worked my way backwards, “walking” with my hands on the windows
of the two cars. When I finally reached the space where I could see my truck’s
running board, I stepped down with my right leg and… It bent in the wrong
place.
“What?” I tried again. “Yup, it’s definitely bending in the
wrong place.” A bystander asked if she could help me. “I think I broke my leg!”
She grabbed me around my middle and helped me down and I laid on the ground
behind my truck. The cold, 28°F ground. Right behind my truck’s exhaust. It was
still running because my 14-year-old youngest son was still in the car. That’s
right, he got to watch his old man get hit by a car! But that’s OK, a few
minutes later, he got to ride in the front seat of an ambulance. So that kinda
makes up for it.
I remember calling my wife and telling her, “Hi, hon.
Remember how I told you earlier that I was in a wreck but no one was hurt?
Well, things have changed. Oops, sorry, have to go, the paramedics are here.” I
remember how loud a siren is when you’re lying on the ground in front of the
car to which that siren belongs. I
remember that the first thing they did was take off my jacket. “Hey! It’s
freezing down here! Aren’t you supposed to cover me with a blanket instead of
stripping off my clothes?” I remember shivering. I remember the ride in the ambulance; the
paramedic standing over me, almost being thrown from his feet, yelling at the
driver, “Hey, he’s not dying, take it easy!” That was good to hear.
Doctor’s orders: I had to keep weight off my right foot for
8 weeks. I used crutches. I got pretty good at using crutches. However, during
those eight weeks I forgot how to walk as God intended. Maybe it’s more that I
lost faith and trust in the ability of my right leg to bear my weight. I
remember when the doctor gave me the green light to start putting weight on my
right leg again. I remember standing up and thinking about taking a step. Nope.
Not gonna happen. That leg has forgotten how to walk. Luckily, that’s what
physical therapy is for.
Meanwhile, in my hospital room the day after the accident, I
vowed to run a race in exactly one year. When I checked the calendar, the only
race in that vicinity was the Caesar Rodney Half Marathon. The oldest half
marathon in the U.S. of A. Ok. I had never run more than ten miles at one time
before. And to accomplish that I had to slow down to a 10-minute-per-mile pace.
Well, I said it, so now I have to do it.
I progressed through therapy with gusto. When the therapist
said to do three sets of ten reps, I did thirty in a row. The next thing you
know, I was walking on a treadmill in my family room. I eventually made it
outside. And I ran my first half marathon on March 15, 2009. I walked some of
it (wicked hills for Delaware), and I finished it in 2:16:46 (
results here. You do know that athlinks.com knows about every race you’ve ever run,
right?) I think I may have cried. It was a long, painful journey, but in the
end I was successful. That year instilled in me things. One, the mantra “There
will be a day when I can no longer do this; that day is not today!” And second,
the thought that I was going to enjoy using both my legs from that moment on. Actually,
there was a third thing. I remember the way my body felt at the end of a
half
marathon, and I remember thinking that there was no way I could, at that moment,
run another half marathon. (Four years later I got over that feeling and
completed my first full marathon.)
So, with The Tenth Anniversary of My Not Being Dead
approaching, and the 2018 Austin Marathon safely under my belt without injury,
I now must sign up for the 55th running of America’s oldest Half
Marathon, the Caesar Rodney, or “CRHM” as known by her friends. Note that this
is a race I vowed I’d never run again, because it is an evilly hilly course for
Delaware, and they make you run up a gosh-awful incline at the very end.
But I’m in a different place now. Usually happy in the
flats, while training for Austin I sought out elevation changes wherever I
could find them. I ran that hilly Austin course and didn’t really notice the
hills until the second decade of miles had passed. So I really want to conquer
those hills in Rockford Park this year. I want to show them who’s boss.
Specifically because I learned a few days after Austin that my marathon PR was
not the 3:55 I had in my head, but 3:57:14, also known as “only 33 seconds
faster than I ran Austin!” Crap! I could have had a PR! My bad. If I had realized
at the time, I know I would have found another 36 seconds deep within me down
in the heart of Texas. Of course, there is a theory that people lose the
ability to do math during a marathon (
read"Fourth Law" here.)
Well, now I have something to prove, don’t I?
