My Journey Back to Fitness from Injury

If you're a writer you'll probably be familiar with the world of writer's block and I've had a heavy dose of it lately. But then I was sitting on my yoga mat this morning, desperately trying to gain some control over all the thoughts trying to bombard my brain, and I got a ping *lightbulb moment*.

If I'm struggling to write and I'm currently trying to get back to some form of fitness after a couple of lengthy injuries, why not write about that? So here I am. Hi!

About 14 months ago I was doing pretty well. I was able to do workout fully every single day and I was managing my joint condition pretty well (more on this later). Then it all came to a very sudden stop.

One morning I woke up and couldn't put any weight on my right foot. I hadn't kicked anything or dropped anything on it but it felt broken... I've broken a few bones, I know the feeling. The pain was directly under my little toe, you know that bony bit around the ball of your foot? I got it checked out and was told it was just a little tendonitis. I've had that before so I knew what to do: rest, painkillers and heat/ice therapy.

Weeks later I could walk but I was still in a lot of pain so I got it checked out again. Yes I had tendon damage but I'd also hurt the ligaments that are around the little metatarsal bones apparently.

Fast forward over a year and I still have pain in my foot. Every single day. I can walk on it, but I have to use gel insoles. I can move it but often have it taped up to help with the pain and I've got a special pair of socks that separate your toes (because that helps for some reason) that I wear at night.

On top of that, I aggravated an old knee injury so that's making disgusting noises every time I move it. It's currently encased in KT tape.

And I've injured the tendons in my hand, specifically the ones that control your thumb.. again, not a new injury for me.

Now I know what you're thinking; this woman injures herself a lot. But the fun thing is, this isn't even half of it for me. I have a joint condition that affects all the connective tissues; so ligaments, tendons, muscles and makes me very prone to dislocations. I can literally dislocate my shoulder getting out of bed or pop my jaw out of place chewing gum. So injuries are an every day part of my life and I don't remember the last time I woke up not in pain.

When I was a teenager, the specialist I went to see told me that I should stop exercising because I was in pain and that I would "grow out of it". Well, many many years later I can tell you that stopping exercising was a terrible piece of advice because it just made me stiff and I haven't grown an inch since that day.. I'm schmall.

So for the last few years I've put a real focus on exercise in my life and I've seen progress in the way that I feel. Not exercising was not the answer for me, getting stronger was. But it's really hard to do any kind of exercise when you can't put weight on one of your feet, and you've hurt your knee and you have one of your hands in a brace.

As I said, I'm still in pain with all 3 of those things but I've had enough of sitting around waiting for things to get better, because they're not.

So this week I rolled out my yoga mat for the first time in ages and bought a Nintendo Wii so that I could try out the Wii Fit, which is actually quite fun.

Being able to exercise again is wonderful, but I'm having to keep myself grounded and not push too hard too fast because I know that if I do I'll be back at the beginning.

So, this has basically turned into a bit of a ramble from me, but I'll probably be bringing more updates in the future as I hopefully get closer to my previous level of fitness so I'll see you soon!

Stay safe, x