2 posts tagged “injury”

My calf seems so far to be healing up nicely. It's still puffy, but now looks reasonably similar to my other calf. I am limping along, with my doctor-supplied heel-lifts, fairly well. The lift helps takes tension off the muscle.

Swimming with the pull buoy works fine. I need to be careful here not to overdo and stress my shoulders. When I'm able to walk just a bit better, I'll go to the gym for some upper-body weights.

Overall, I am feeling encouraged.

Yesterday, my friend Karen and I went skiing at Steven's Pass. Snow conditions were fantastic and we had a great morning skiing the front side of the mountain.

On the last run before lunch, almost at the bottom of the mountain, I took an awkward fall. I'm still not sure how or why I fell. But as I went down I felt a painful pull in my calf and thought "well, that probably finishes me for the day."

The snow and wind were starting to whip up. Since we'd started skiing right as the lifts opened, we were both OK with calling it a day at that point. I took some Advil, we ate our lunch, and then traveled on back to Seattle.

Calf

When I got home, I examined my calf. It was kind of freaky-swollen - meaning that it had a large, hard swollen lump on the medial side. My heart sunk. I did some searching online and figured I had a 2nd degree tear of the Gastrocnemius. I called the sports medicine clinic and got an appointment for this morning. Turns out my self-diagnosis was correct.

The good news is that no surgery is required and I'll recover completely on my own. The bad news - I'm on complete lower-body rest for at least 3 to 4 weeks. No skiing, no running, no cycling. I will, however, be able to swim (using pull buoys - no kicking) and do upper-body weights. And, since it's still early in the season, I'll likely still be able to get in some good skiing in February and March.

It looks like I'll be getting a lot of knitting done in January. In fact, last night, Drake (darling that he is) drove me up to the knit shop. I hobbled in and got supplies for a new project. When the going gets tough, the tough get knitting!