Life Without Limits

This weekend Justin and I traveled to Florence, Alabama so that he could run the Life Without Limits half-marathon. This is the half that I was supposed to run before I got injured so watching Justin run it by himself was slightly upsetting for me. We left Birmingham when I got off work and got into Florence around 7:00. We made it just in time to pick up our packets I still got my packet even though I didn't run. I figured that I should still get the shirt since I paid for the race! And I really like the shirt too!

We didn't realize that the hotel we were staying at was a resort. It reminded me of Ross Bridge. It was a very nice hotel with a restaurant in a tower that revolved 360 degrees as well as a killer pool/hot tub area and spa. It was unfortunate that we were only there for less tan 24 hours. The race actually started and finished in the parking lot of the hotel, which was nice for me because I could go down with Justin and take pictures as he started then just go back to my room and come down around when I thought he'd be done. That was the plan at least.

Here's a few pics from when the race started:





I so want this guys shirt!



A picture from our balcony (all the rooms had balcony's) of the pool area. FABULOUS!

After Justin started the race and left the hotel area, I headed back up to the room and kind of took my time taking a shower. The last half that Justin did was in 1 hour 52 minutes, but Justin has been doing mainly trail runs and didn't think he'd have that same time because he hadn't done road runs in a while, so he estimated about 2 hours for him to finish. The race started at 8 and I left my room at 9:40. I got down to where the finish line was by 9:45 and I was looking at all the runners crossing the line trying to figure out where I could get the best pictures of Justin. At that time, I heard someone say my name and I turned around and Justin had his medal on drinking his gatorade and eating a banana. He had finished the half in 1 hour and 43 minutes which meant that I wasn't able to get a picture of him crossing the finish line. I was pissed, but still so proud of him. This is a new PR (personal record) for him.

After the race, he came up to the room and took a shower and we packed our stuff and headed towards Mississippi to go to the highpoint. The highpoint was only 40 minutes out of the way so Justin said we could go. He had been before but I hadn't, so this now puts me at 14 highpoints!!! We took a few pics (see below) and then drove back home.







Woodall Mountain in MS is a whopping 806 feet! This is the official USGS marker recognizing the "summit" though I have a hard time calling it a summit when it's less than 5,000 feet. All of the US highpoints have these markers on them.





As soon as we got home, we did two really quick loads of laundry then headed to his parents house for dinner and to watch the Auburn/Ole Miss game. Since I'm not an Auburn fan, I was told that I would be in charge of answering the door for the trick or treaters. Trace Crossings decided to have thier kids trick or treat on Saturday instead of Sunday. We grilled out with Debbie, Gordon, Jennifer and Aeron and watched the game and enjoyed passing out candy to the kiddos. We had a pretty excellent weekend overall. Justin left again today to work in Louisiana but at least this week is a short week. He comes back on Thursday, which makes me super happy. Hope everyone had a fabulous Halloween weekend!!

Injury Update

I am so sorry I've been neglecting my blog. It's now three weeks into October and I look at my sidebar and it says I have only made 3 posts (4 including this one). That makes me sad :( I hope I don't lose some of my ever so faithful followers. I obviously haven't been able to do much so I haven't had much to blog about. I'm doing my last update on my injuries and then I'm going to be done on this topic and move on.

I had my MRI on Monday and another ortho appointment right after. My elbow has a radial neck fracture. I was relieved to hear that it wasn't actually broken. My ortho doctor didn't want me in a sling or a cast because that particular bone, if left immobile for 2-3 weeks, could take months of physical therapy to get it back to full functionality. So he ordered me to have physical therapy twice a week and to start immediately. When he said immediately he wasn't kidding. My appointment with him was on Monday and Tuesday morning I got a call from Therapy South that wanted my appointment to be THAT DAY. So my first day of physical therapy was on Tuesday and I go again today at 2pm.

Now, when I was in the ER they gave me a prescription of lortabs to get me through the weekend thinking that the ortho doctor would prescribe me something else when I met with him the Monday after the race. However, I didn't ask for more medication because I hated the way the lortabs made me feel and I did NOT want more of those, so I just didn't get anything. Shockingly, I have a pretty high tolerance for pain.

Anyway, fast forward to Tuesday at my therapy appointment, my therapist asked me what pain medication I was taking (before we started doing exercises) and when I told her I didn't request anything, her response was "call your doctor asap and get something because the next several weeks are going to be painful for you". She didn't have to tell me twice! After doing exercises on Tuesday at therapy and then again Tuesday night when I got home (I have to do exercises twice a day), I was in so much consistent pain that I called my otho doctor's office first thing Wednesday morning and requested some non-lortab pain medication. They prescribed me Darvocet and I took one last night while doing my exercises and it worked perfectly and didn't affect my mood or make me drowsy!! YAY!

So where does this leave me for Africa? That seems to be everyone's first question. As of now, I am definitely going. My only concern is how much training I will be able to do beforehand. Obviously you can't just train for a couple of weeks and then go hike up the tallest mountain in Africa at 19,340 feet. My therapy is mainly for my arm, but I plan to discuss the foot with her today to see if there is any way at all I can start doing something, even if it's just riding a bike. I told Justin I thought I could do squats as long as I am wearing the boot and he proceeded to tell me that I am crazy. I'm trying to put on a brave face, but I am VERY worried about getting back into shape to climb that mountain when I will have been completely non-active for over a month by then. Prayers in this department would help tremendously :)

The other part of the Africa thing that makes me nervous is that my general physician (Jody Gilstrap at Princeton) has to sign a form from our guides that says "I have conducted the types of tests that I deem necessary and the patient in question, in my opinion, is physically fit to participate in this activity". My appointment with Gilstrap for him to sign this form is one week from today...where I will still have a boot and a gimp arm. I really hope he signs.

I'm going to now try to focus on marking more things off my 101 List (she's been neglected way too long) as well as finishing up the 30 day challenge (she's equally as neglected as the 101 List).

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends...

Update on what's going on with the "Gimp-ness", as my husband calls it. Like I said in my last post I have a boot on my left leg for 4-6 weeks, but I'm hoping it will heal quicker than that. Right now I take the boot off when I'm lounging around the house because I usually prop it up on a pillow or something and ice the ankle for a while each afternoon. I also sleep without the boot, which originally made me slightly nervous but it's not so bad. The swelling is going down in the ankle, but the fluid is now spreading to the rest of the foot so I have a "fattie foot" basically. The bruising started kicking up and my foot looked liked this at the beginning of the week...



The bruising has gone down since then, but there is still purple and blue spots and still some "fattie foot" action going on. I don't know if the fluid was cushioning the ankle or what, but now that the fluid is kind of slowly going away, it hurts to walk in my boot more and more, especially if I haven't had it propped up in a while. Justin is constantly yelling at me because he thinks I'm trying to do too much too fast, but I can't help it. Being foot and armless is really driving me crazy.

On to the arm. I have an MRI for the arm on Monday because the ortho doctor wanted to see what was going on inside the bone. My appointment is at 11am and then I meet with the ortho doctor at 1pm for him to tell me what the scans show and what I need to do from here. Hopefully I won't be in a cast and he'll just keep me in the sling for a few weeks until I feel like I can move the arm more. I've been able to move it slightly more this week. Starting last night I was able to type a little bit with my right hand, though it's not at quickly as I could if I were fully functional. I am going to attempt to wash my own hair this weekend, but I'm not sure how well that will go over. To give a visual, I can't fully straighten the arm nor can I bend it completely. When I say bend it completely, I mean that I can't touch the fingers on my right hand to my right shoulder. I still have a hard time twisting the arm as well (imagine if your palm is facing the floor, and you try to twist your arm to the right to make your palm face the ceiling...that twisting motion hurts me greatly so I can't do it).

Back to the point of this post...

I wouldn't have been able to be productive and do things I've been able to do this week without the help of certain people and I wanted to give them a shoutout if you don't mind.

• The Hubs - Justin has been unbelievable in this entire process. He and his dad were able to change his schedule to make it to where he was able to come home early this week to help me out. He is doing all the dishes, all the laundry, all the cleaning, and all the cooking while watching me sit on the couch and do nothing. He is so sweet and always is asking if there's anything else he can do to help me. The past two days he's been in town he has gotten up at the time that I normally get up to go to work (which is much earlier than when he gets up to go to work) so that he can wash, dry and straighten my hair for me. Yes ladies, my husband styles my hair..and he's not too bad at it either. He was so caring and concerned for me at the hospital and it hurt him to see me crying in pain. He's been so awesome through all of this and deserves the husband of the year award for putting up with my constant requests and over-sensitiveness.
• Carina Sanchez - Carina is the friend that came in town to run the race for the cure with me that day. She was at the hospital with Justin and even came home with us after the hospital. She tried to call in to work that night to stay at my house and help Justin with me, but they wouldn't let her and she had to leave to go to work. Carina was the first person to wash my hair for me and she helped me get cleaned up and presentable for our football get together that afternoon. She has constantly called and sent messages checking on me and is even coming back on Monday night to take me to dinner. She's been so awesome!
• Melanie Martin - Mel works with me at my accounting firm and she's the one Justin and I hooked up with one of our high school friend's Wade (huge success in that by the way). Justin had to leave town on Monday afternoon for work, so Melanie came over and spent the night with me Monday and Tuesday night until Justin came home on Wednesday. She helped me get ready in the morning and basically did all the things Justin had done when he was there. I jokingly told her to tell Wade that I said she's going to make an awesome husband ;) Mel has offered to stay with me again next week while Justin's out of town and I may take her up on it, depending on what they say at the doctor's appointments.
• My in-laws - I've ranted and raved about my in-laws before but they've out-done themselves again! Both of them put up facebook status' after the accident happened. Of course, Gordon's was more comical than Debbie's was. Gordon's status said "Finally beat my daughter-in-law Marcie on a 5K run. Of course she fell and broke her ankle and elbow and didn't finish, but a win is a win". He was totally kidding of course :) Gordon has been able to rearrange Justin's schedule to make him be home a little bit more which is incredible given that this is their busy time of year. I am so thankful to him for that. Debbie came to my original ortho appointment because Justin was leaving for a flight to Nashville at 2pm and my appointment was at 12:45, so Justin brought me, but had to leave, so Debbie stayed with me and brought me home afterwards. Also, as a get well present, she got me fall decorations for my front porch. She got a bale of hay, 3 pumpkins and a mum for me. She's so stinkin' sweet!!!! I love them both so much!
• My co-workers - I have been completely and totally overwhelmed with my co-workers. I came into work on Tuesday and one girl made me a ton of chocolate chip cookies with a card, my HR rep got me cupcakes from Edgar's along with a Breast Cancer Awareness Tumbler (a stab at the incident happening during the Race for the Cure). She even coordinated a lunch on Tuesday where about 12 of my closest girlfriends at work went to eat at Ragtime (a popular choice with people I work with because it's literally in our backyard). I would say about 80% of all the comments I got on facebook were from people I worked with. I love working for a company that hires such awesome people. I love all of them so much!

I will update as soon as I know something after my appointments on Monday. Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers...it really means so much to me!

Weekend Didn't Go As Planned...

I think most of my friends (in real life friends and internet friends) know by now how my weekend went due to facebook, but I figured I could document it here as well. I went to run the Race For the Cure on Saturday but unfortunately didn't finish because I fell and ended up breaking my left ankle and and right elbow. I ran it with my friend Carina, but I was a little ahead of her in the race so she never saw me fall nor did she even see me on the side of the road with the paramedics. Justin didn't run the race, but drove me and Carina up there. He came to a spot a little after the one mile marker and saw me running and snapped this picture...



I never saw him take that picture. The fall came right after that though, at 1.65 miles into the race. I tripped over a pinecone that was in the road and rolled my ankle and fell to the ground. I caught myself with my right elbow...hence why it is also broken. There just so happen to be paramedics right where I fell so that was a relief. As soon as I got up, a crowd of onlookers were all helping me get out of the way of the other runners and set me on the curb. When the paramedics came over I said I was fine and to just give me a minute and I would get back up and finish the race. The paramedic looking at my foot was like "no you're getting in this ambulance and we're taking you to the hospital because this may be broken".

I refused the ambulance and said I would call my husband to get me because he was at the finish line so I used the phone the paramedic had to call Justin. I told him to wait until Carina finished to come get me and then hung up. That was when I finally saw my ankle...which looked like this:



I was in shock at how big it got in just a few short minutes. I could feel pain in my elbow but it was totally overcome by the pain in my ankle. I honestly didn't think much was wrong with my elbow other than being banged up. Justin and Carina finally showed up and took me to the ER at UAB where they put me in two splint-casts and told me I needed an ortho appointment. Justin took this picture while we were at the hospital:



I can no longer run the half-marathon that I've been training for which is DEVASTATING me. I was so excited about that race and I've worked so hard! The 5K would have been a record breaking 5K for me. According to the GPS watch, I did my first mile in 9:01 and my pace during mile 2 was 8:30. I could have done that race in 28 minutes!!!

Anyway, I just left the ortho doctor and finally got those splints off!! They were so itchy! I am now in a boot for 4-6 weeks. Unfortunately they don't know anything yet about my arm. They're making me get an MRI probably tomorrow. I'll update when I know more, but for now I'm ok, just very sleepy.

My Crazy Life

My crazy life isn't getting any better. Though, I do see light at the end of the tunnel. I haven't been blogging much and I'm sorry for that. I hate it too because I do thoroughly enjoy blogging, but I just haven't had time to do it. I've been slammed at work because of 401(k) plan audits. The deadline for those are October 15th so that would be the light I'm seeing at the end of the tunnel. I'm still training for my half-marathon that's on October 30th. This is why I don't blog when I get home, because most days I run after work and am exhausted by the time I get home.

I've been doing awesome in my training. I'm very proud of myself. I've never run as much in my life as I have lately and I honestly didn't think I was capable of doing it, but I ran 11 miles through Mountain Brook the other day. Granted, my knees and shins were hurting badly afterwards, but at least I did it!!! Justin and I were under the impression that the race we're running in Florence, Alabama was relatively flat, but after looking at the elevation chart (not sure why we didn't look at it before), we are slightly nervous. The 13.1 mile race gains 1,200+ feet of elevation. When I did my run in Mountain Brook of 11 miles, it only gained 650...yeah I might die. Prayers welcome.

I'm still teaching dance at church on Wednesday nights, but we're almost done teaching the routine and they will perform at the contemporary service hopefully sometime in October. I got a call last night from the people organizing the Christmas play that they also want me to choreograph the dance section of that and help organize the kids backstage the day of since a lot of the parents of the children want to actually watch the show their kids are in, so now I have more dance in my future...which don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I love those girls and I love everyone that works with that program, it's just another day where I don't get to go home right after work, which makes me kind of sad.

Softball for my firm is still going on. Unfortunately, we have yet to win a game, but man we have a blast playing. Some of my favorite people in our firm are on the softball team and we always have so much fun on Monday nights together, even when the games are at 9:30. Whoever plans a softball game at 9:30 should get shot, just saying. And in our defense, we're not a bad team, it's just that everyone else is ridiculously good. These girls that are on the other teams played in college and high school and stuff and so did the guys. We got the best people at our firm on the team and we're just unfortunately not as good as the crazy professionals that we play. Hopefully we'll win one soon though!

Justin is now on week 12 of being out of town (there were 2 weeks during those 12 where he was in town, but consecutively, this is week 7). He'll be back in town soon though so that's something else I have to look forward to! I've only been seeing him on weekends. Usually he gets back in town on Thursday nights around 11pm (on the last flight from ATL) but leaves again on Sunday after church so I don't get that much time with him, which doesn't usually bother me, but for some reason it is starting to bother me now. This is the longest we've gone without seeing each other (excluding weekends) but he'll be done with all this soon and will go back to working in the office in Birmingham where he goes in at 10 and is home by 2. Jealous.

I'm absolutely loving how cold it is getting in Birmingham!!! It's making my runs so much easier and it also means that its almost time for SMORES!! My favorite winter vice. This weekend my best friend from Tuscaloosa, Carina, is coming in town and spending the night with me on Friday night and we're running the Race for the Cure 5K Saturday morning. I'm so excited for some Marcie and Carina time because I never get to see her.

I think that's about all the updates I can do right now. I'm off to church to wrap up the dance for the kiddos :) I may stop by Moe's...I find that cheese dip helps me choreograph better...