Despite the considerable amount of walking I did on my vacation I didn’t lose any weight, but I didn’t gain any either, which is amazing considering all the wiener schnitzel, German beer, French cheese, and croissants I consumed. While I managed to run four times in Europe, after two weeks living large, I knew my cardio had taken a hit so, after allowing some time for the jet lag to wear off, I set out on a jog early Wednesday morning.
I’d missed the heat wave that had gripped the States while I was abroad but, when I stepped outside, I felt like I was walking into a Turkish bath. Despite temps being in the lower seventies, a quick glance at the weather app on my phone told me the humidity was 91%. Ugh. Undeterred, I figured I’d do an easy three miler on the flat road near my house to get myself back in the game but, half a mile in, the high dew point caused sweat to accumulate unevaporated on my skin and soak through my shirt. “Maybe just two miles,” I thought to myself. Then, just as I was passing a school, my left foot hit an uneven sidewalk slab, causing it to overpronate and knock me off balance.
Two weeks before flying out of Newark Liberty, I’d tripped on a curb while running through a busy intersection near my job, landing hard on my right wrist and ripping a nice gouge in one of my knees. I’d broken that wrist when I was twenty-four, necessitating surgery and rehab and, now that arthritis has set in thirty-two years later, I’m forced to depend on my wife to open a jam jar. If I hadn’t rolled to spread out the impact, I’m sure I would have snapped it like a twig again. As it was, my knee bled profusely and, fearing infection, I hobbled over to my job to patch myself up with the office first aid kit, but I still had a nasty leaky scab by the time I got on the plane. “Good thing you didn’t really hurt yourself,” my wife said. “That would have wrecked our trip.” Thanks for the sympathy, honey.
The moment the pavement made my foot roll unnaturally, I knew if it continued its errant journey I’d suffer a serious injury. So, taking advantage of the slowing of time a crisis creates, I twisted my body in the opposite direction and aimed for the grassy median between the sidewalk and the road to cushion the impact of my fall which, when you weigh almost two hundred pounds, was going to be considerable. Physics is a bitch. Landing hard on my side, I felt the air in my lungs blow out in with a loud huff and rolled over several times, my hands scrabbling on the ground to keep me from rolling into a road already thickening with commuter traffic. When I finally came to a standstill, I let out a string of pain induced obscenities which were so foul I hoped a city councilman hadn’t been driving by.
After a minute, I hoisted myself up and, with great trepidation, tried placing weight on my left foot. I’d broken the very same one in the early fall of 2017, forcing me to use a cane for several months and, because standing in front of the bathroom sink was too painful, give up on shaving and let my beard grow – which is never pretty. Of course, my three year old daughter fully expected me to escort her trick or treating on Halloween which I did, probably looking like a hobo child molester leaning on a cane. Of course, that glucose seeking quest just retraumatized my foot, earning me a reprimand from my both my orthopedist and my mother. “We’re going to Disneyworld in March!” she exclaimed. “You have to be better by then!” Since my parents were paying for the whole shin dig, I took her advice and put myself on light duty and, by the time we got to the Happiest Place on Earth, I could walk without assistance.
Fearing I’d messed myself up again, I slowly walked, hypervigilant to the nerve signals coming from my foot. To my relief, however, everything seemed okay, and I started running again, glad to have dodged yet another bullet – but I was angry at myself. Ever since starting my running regimen last November, despite my natural klutziness, I’d never fallen. Now I’d tripped twice in a one month but, despite having been told by veteran pavement pounders that injuries are inevitable, I’d I become complacent, thinking I was invulnerable. As I paced alongside some railroad tracks, I thought about that trip to Disneyworld with my three year old daughter in tow.
Though I’d given up my cane by the time we arrived in Florida, my parents could not walk unassisted and needed to use those motorized scooters Disney so thoughtfully provides. But, as I dodged those infernal contraptions in the sunbaked park the entire trip, I became convinced a solid percentage of the patrons using them were full of shit. Now, I’ve gotten a lot of grief in the past writing about people faking handicaps so they can access legally sequestered parking lots but, when you see a thirty year old woman zipping by with overheated, sticky kids wearing Mickey Mouse hats hanging off her scooter, you’ve got to wonder. My parents had a very hard time with the scooters too, either going too slow or panicking as they accelerated past warp speed. “Tortoise means slow,’ I said, pointing to the controls. “Rabbit means fast. It ain’t rocket science.” Then, when we were by the crocodile pit in the Animal Kingdom section of the park, my father rolled over my recently healed foot.
“Dad,” I said, doubling over in agony. “You ran over my foot!” I don’t know if it was old age cognition loss, guilt, or sheer senior obliviousness, but he flat out denied it. In pain and wondering if my foot had been re-broken, I seriously contemplated tossing my father into the crocodile pit but, since, the authorities would probably take a dim view of feeding the reptiles with human sacrifices, I relented. When I got back to the hotel bar that night, I downed two analgesic Mai-Tais and vomited out my frustrations to my wife.
“He ran over my foot too,” she said.
Now able to chuckle at the memory, I ran past the train station and watched the commuters boarding the train for New York with Starbucks cups in hand. Disney was over seven years ago and now I’d do anything for my dad to be around and run over my foot again. I guess it’s all about perspective. After my surgery in 2021, I was a real mess. Even though my cancer was nowhere near my lower limbs, I emerged from the operation with a numb right quadricep. “You were under six hours,” my surgeon said. “Things happen. It’ll clear up soon.” Luckily, I still had my cane from the last time to help me get around but even now, years later, my leg isn’t 100%. When I stand for a long time, like I did at my father’s wake, it still gets sort of numb. “A little bit of nerve damage,” my primary doc told me later. “Probably resulting from the position, you were in during surgery.” Considering the oncological l bullet I dodged, I’ll deal. Like I said, it’s all about perspective.
After the train station was behind me, I thought about throwing in the towel. Before Europe I could do five miles without much difficulty but now, two miles in, I was already fatigued. Sweating as the sun peeking above trees began shining hotly on my skin, I gritted my teeth and committed to one more mile – that’d way I wouldn’t feel like a guilty out of shape slob afterwards but, by the time I got home, my spandex shorts must’ve soaked up a gallon of sweat. Icky. Then, after a shower, shave and a banana to replace the glucose I expended, I went to work, feeling like I’d exorcised a demon. Then, when I was walking down some stairs on the way to meeting, the pain hit. Heading back to the privacy of my office, I removed my left shoe and sock to find a bruise had developed on my foot. I’d done something to it.
Since I could still bear weight on it, I self-diagnosed a sprain and, using the office first aid kit yet again, slapped on a cold compress, taped my foot up, popped a few Advil and propped my foot up on my desk to keep it elevated the rest of the day – but I knew running was out for a while. Even though I’m a pokey novice, as the days passed, I got edgy from the lack of exercise, but I knew if I pushed it, I’d probably be out of the game for months, not days. “Slow and steady wins the race,” I told myself. Then again, I was used to waiting for my body to recuperate. After my cancer surgery I was a wreck for months and just walking into my gym had been an excruciating challenge. Then, when my father died, my body took another hit from the all the stress and grief, leaving me exhausted and unmotivated. Somehow, I managed to pull myself together each time.
Deep down, however, I know all my previous travails were just a foretaste of what is to come. Illness, death and loss are part of life and, the longer I live, the more I know I’ll feel their sting. “Sometimes,” I told a friend, “I feel like all I’ve gone through is just traning wheels for suffering.” Back when I was diagnosed with cancer I thought, hands down, that was worst day of my life. But now, hopeful that’s all behind me, I’m reminded of what the great sage Homer Simpson once said, “That was the worst day of your life so far.” More shit’s coming and now, in my late fifties, I can see the gathering storm on the horizon. So, what to do? How should I deal with life’s inevitable tragedies? So far, the only answer I have is keep moving because, if you let inertia take hold of you, life will run over you and pass you by.
Four days later, I set out on another run, this time on a blessedly cool and overcast morning and, as I sailed pain free past the five mile mark, I felt lucky I could still put one foot in front of the other.
