Not in the plans

Just when life seems so smooth, watch out for the roadblock or the cement block in my case.

I signed up to run a 10k in Naples on April 11th. It is a little farther than I usually run, but I was up for the challenge. Last Saturday I was planning to run 4 miles. 3 miles into the run, I glanced down at my watch when i should have been watching the ground. The sidewalk split and the lip stuck up higher than normal, my foot hit it just right. I went down so hard that I didn't even know I fell until my face smaked the ground. My first thought was I broke my nose. I sat up, stunned, then Abby and I walked to the car as she consoled me. When I got home, Mike laughed at my clumsiness and I had some scrapes, bruises, aches, and pains but didn't think I was hurt that bad. 2 hours later my left elbow felt like it was going to fall off if I moved it. We got a sling so i could rest my arm, spent the day at the Easter Extravaganza at C's school, went to church that night, ordered pizza, and by 8pm I thought maybe I should go to the ER. It was definitely feeling worse. My mom accompanied me to the ER for 3 1/2 hours. We passed the time with people watching, NCAA tourney watching, and reading books. X-rays revealed that my arm was broken. They put me in a half cast (the purple thing above). Fast forward to monday, we saw the Orthopedic surgeon who explained that the bad news is the head of my radius is fractured, the good news is no surgery, and no cast. Just need to keep it in a sling for 2 weeks, then more X-rays. The doctor drained my elbow because it was so swollen. He took 2occ's of blood out of my elbow and then proceeded down the hallway showing to everyone because that much is usually only found in the knee and not an elbow. The pain has improved and the motion is better but still limited. It is not easy living life with one arm. This experience was not in my plans, but will slow me down for a while and will make me more empathetic Physical Therapist.