Health

Subconsciousness

Anna Blankenheim Health , ,

Welp, my brain is definitely working this surgery thing out while I sleep… the other night I had my first surgery nightmare. I woke up in recovery and the doctor told me he had bad news. He had to amputate my whole leg and I needed to learn to ride my horse one legged. Yup folks, apparently that’s the worst thing my brain can think of.

We’re now 11 days away from surgery. I really am kind of excited in a weird way. I miss riding. A LOT. And until I have the surgery, I can’t do it. Really, there’s no other alternative, so at least once I get through the worst of it, I’ll be on the road to recovery and actually healing instead of in this frustrating limbo.

We’ll see how it goes over the next couple weeks! Here’s to some dreamless nights!

Cautiously Optimistic

Anna Blankenheim Exercise, Sports , ,

I met with my surgeon today to discuss my options with regard to my poor, torn ACL.

Right now, my knee is still a little too swollen for him to tell 100% if it’s a complete tear or a partial tear. He can tell from the MRI that it’s definitely torn though. A partial tear would open up a door to a non-surgical solution. Essentially, I can work through lots of physical therapy to build up all of the muscles in and around my knee to help support it if the tear is partial. If it’s a full tear, I’ll pretty much need surgery without a doubt.

Here’s what I really liked about this surgeon – he’s not rushing me into surgery, but we have a game plan. It’s still a very viable option, but we’re going to give it a month of PT (which I would be doing if I had surgery anyway). After that month, I’m going to meet with him again and he’ll mess around with my knee some more. That will tell him one of two things – it’s fully torn or it’s not (that month is enough time for the swelling and fluid to go down). If it’s fully torn, we do surgery. If it’s partially torn, I have a choice to make based on how I feel the therapy has gone – if the knee feels great, I can try life without part of my ACL. If I don’t like how it feels or am worried about future stability, then we go into surgery.

I feel like I’m rambling, but I’m so so so excited to have a plan and something to work towards. Over the next couple weeks, I get to start weaning myself off the crutches (seriously, I’m so amazed at how weak my leg muscles have become over the last two weeks) and then the brace. I start PT on Tuesday, so in addition to biking and swimming (my only two approved activities) I’ll have some exercises to work on.

Fingers crossed!

The Story of the Torn ACL

Anna Blankenheim Exercise, Sports , , ,

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be splinted, packaged up, and sledded down a mountain by ski patrol? No? Well, I found out the hard way…

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Yup – those are my legs and my skis, strapped into a sled.

Let me rewind to the beginning. My sister won tickets for a day of skiing through work and decided to take me as her skiing buddy. Last week was a really long week for a wide variety of reasons, and both of us were super excited to have a “mental health day”. We headed up to beautiful Squaw Valley, got our skis, and hit the slopes.

We were having a wonderful time. The runs there are ridiculously long and it was an absolute blast. We were getting close to the end of the last one and had decided that we would go grab some lunch when we got to the bottom.

Then, I fell. It was not anything dramatic, or exciting, or spectacular. The edge of my downhill ski caught funny and as I fell, my boot stayed hooked in, and my knee twisted awkwardly. I heard and felt a very audible “pop” – much like bubble wrap. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel much pain. Then I tried to stand up. I instantly felt super queasy and clammy. Kati and I got me over to the side of the run where I decided to sit for a while. I tried to stand back up and get my boot back into the binding, but my knee felt super squishy and started to hurt. I knew right then that something was really wrong.

My sister skied down the hill to find the ski patrol, who came up pretty quickly. They were super funny and took really good care of me. They splinted my knee, strapped me into their little toboggan, and skied me down to the medical center, where there happened to be a sports medicine specialist (talk about good positioning!). He took some x-rays that showed nothing was broken, moved my knee all over the place, and told me I had torn my ACL.

We headed home with a brace and crutches, and the small hope that maybe the doctor at the resort (who probably sees five of these a day) didn’t know for sure. I have spent the past few days at my parents house because we’re having our floors replaced and mine is a hot mess. They’ve taken such good care of me, giving me plenty of time to rest, ice, and elevate! I went to my doctor who sent me over to the orthopedic specialists. They did an MRI and yesterday I got confirmation that my ACL is completely torn.

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I had my pity party, a good cry, and now I’m ready for action. Surgery is pretty much the only option if I want to get back to riding and the other activities that I do, so now I’m waiting for my surgery date. I will be happy to talk to the doctor, find out which surgical options are best for me (there are a couple different ones), and to ask all of my questions. Most of all, I just want to get it done so that I can get to work building my muscles back up and can get back on my horse!

Fitbit One

Anna Blankenheim Exercise, Product Reviews , ,

In preparation for my second marathon in December, I decided to take my training and eating (and general fitness) a little more seriously. A few days ago I invested in a Fitbit One… a cool little wireless device that helps track all sorts of fitness metrics. Here are some of the things it tracks:

Sleep: This is probably one of the coolest features in my opinion. When you go to bed (after you’re done reading, watching TV, etc) you press a button on the Fitbit and it starts timing your sleep. Through the magic of modern technology it tracks how many times you wake up during the night as well as how many times you were restless (but not necessarily awake). In the morning, you push the button again and it stops tracking sleep and goes back to steps (although if you get up in the middle of the night, it keeps track of steps too). You can then sync up with your computer or smart phone to see how long it took you to fall asleep and how effective your sleep was.

Steps: The Fitbit keeps track of steps similar to a traditional pedometer, but with an internet and smart phone interface. Your standard daily goal is ten thousand steps (recommended to maintain a healthy lifestyle) which is roughly five miles. You can update this goal if you find you’re more active and too easily hitting the daily target.

Mileage: The Fitbit also keeps track of mileage – the goal is five miles per day, but again, you can change that if you’re more active.

Calories: The Fitbit tracks calories throughout the day, including the calories you burn sleeping, sitting, etc. If you’re looking to lose weight, this is a great tool to better understand calories in vs. calories out.

Flights of Stairs: The Fitbit also tracks how many flights of stairs you climb each day.

The online and smart phone tools also have some input areas – you can track things like body weight, blood pressure, heart rate, water intake, blood glucose, and food. I’m using the food tracker to better understand what helps or hurts my running… I’m terrible about remembering those sorts of things (especially over the eighteen week training program), so it will help me identify any trends. I’ve noticed that I have no concept at all of calories (or protein or sodium, for that matter) and looking at them is helping me to make healthier, more informed choices!

I am so excited about this… being a data geek, I love something that gives me data to analyze! It costs $99 (available on Amazon, at Target, or direct from Fitbit) and is well worth it if you’re looking to improve your lifestyle!