Frustration.

Whether it is due to illness or injury, or simply not progressing as quickly as you would like, frustration is a state that every athlete has to deal with eventually. Having had my fair share of frustration, one might think I can deal with it, no problems. I only wish that were the case.

There are times I deal with it well, and times I do not do so well. Several years ago now, I had a very difficult year. I dislocated my shoulder at the end of September that year, and after going to the ER and the seeing a surgeon, was informed that I needed surgery ASAP. This was not new information for me: my dad had both shoulders operated when he was roughly the age I was at the time. I had lived much of my life assuming that, at some point, I would have to surgically fix my shoulders.

So on November 8th of that year, I had the required surgery. It was more invasive than most, but then my shoulder, as my doctor so elegantly put it, reminded him of "an old, stretched out gym sock."

Pure poetry.

Fortunately for me, my dad was on sabbatical from the University where he teaches that year, and so was on hand for the surgery and first several days the aftermath. It helped more than I can say to have somebody with me who had been through the same thing.

Of course during this period I could not run, but that does not mean I could not exercise. And that is the central idea behind this post. Even if you cannot engage in your favorite activity, be it running, basketball, skiing or any other sport, there is almost always an option.

I used two tactics to stay in relatively good shape after my surgery. First, I had recently acquired an exercise bike, in anticipation of the surgery (in fact I almost dislocated my shoulder again bringing it into my apartment). With that, I was able to get in a biking workout every day. Second, I walked to work every day as soon as I was able. It about two miles each way. Between these two, I was able to keep quite fit during the first two months after surgery.

Then a second injury came out of the blue. On a Friday night, mid-January, the same week my brother broke his back in a ski accident, I slipped on a patch of ice walking home from the grocery store and felt something "snap" in my ankle. Stupidly, both thinking and hoping that it was just a sprain, I walked home, a route which just happened to take me past the ER.

On painfully reaching my house, I downed a couple IBPF, elevated my foot, and commenced icing. The pain did not subside as it would have with a sprain, and I realized that I had probably broken something. The ER confirmed that I had snapped the lowest piece of my fibula off. The broken piece was now floating fully separated from the rest of the fibula, raising concern that I would have to undergo more surgery to reattach the pieces.

When I called in on Monday to my PT, who I now knew quite well, and told her that I would have to miss my scheduled appointment because I'd broken my leg, it was, according to the rest of her office, the first time she had sworn at work.

Here I have to thank my doctor, the same surgeon who performed so admirably in my shoulder surgery. He took a look at the X-Ray from the ER, took a couple more of his own, and decided not to operate. In his words he "didn't really want to have to cut [me] open again." There was over a millimeter separating the two pieces, placing it on the border between operating and leaving it be. My doctor, a surgeon who would have made quite a bit off the resulting surgeries, recommended against it.

As I said above, I cannot thank him enough. That surgery would have added months to my recovery, and might not have allowed me to run distance any more. As it happened, it healed perfectly. And in the meantime, I changed from being annoyed about my shoulder surgery to thankful for it. The therapy required for the shoulder required me to keep my whole upper body in shape, and helped me get through the next months.

That is not intended to discount the part my friends played in my recovery. Each and every friend I had in the area stepped up beyond anything I could have hoped for, offering rides whenever I needed one, company or solitude when I wanted it, and even home-cooked dinners.

The point I am trying to get across is this: injury and illness happen. They are (almost) inevitable. At the moment, I have a bothersome tendon in my left foot, on the outside of the bottom. It has been bugging me for the past several days, but I have been able to run on it up to today, and came back frustrated and wincing from my half-mile run. But you cannot let the frustration win. My response was to declare this my day off from running, and work my upper body and do a little yoga instead. My foot is already feeling much better with a little icing and a good dose of rest.

And as a result of the frustration of four years ago, I have something to compare every other minor frustration to and tell myself "it's not that bad."

If I could get through that and come back stronger than ever, I can get through just about anything.