My First Mishap

So 4 days after getting my first cast, I have my first accident. I went to the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz (on 6th street) last night on a double date to go see Thor. We get there and get to our seats OK, but on the way out of the theatre I decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator. I reasoned that I've walked safely down many a stair already and the elevator was so slow that it felt like there was someone pulling the elevator up... Anyway I make it about halfway down the stairs when catastrophe struck. Rather than raising my crutch, I dragged it on the carpet and it got caught throwing me off balance and launching me down the stairs without my wings!

Stairs of Doom!

I someone how managed to hop on one leg down the rest of the stairs, but once I got to the bottom, I instinctively used my other leg (the one in the cast) to catch myself and halt my momentum. Surprisingly enough it didn't actually hurt that bad? I was freaking out because in my mind I might as well have smashed my Jones Fracture with a hammer, but then came to grips that there wasn't any pain and that smashing my foot with a hammer would definitely cause some pain. All I felt were tingles that I think were caused by the vibrations from the cast. Anyway I make it home and I don't know about you all, but when I get scared about some medical issue I tend to make it worse by googling worse case scenarios :/ My girlfriend had to take me to get some ice cream at Amy's to get my mind off of it! No complaints there :) My foot feels back to normal today and I'm getting it checked up on again Tuesday so hopefully everything is still A-OK in there! Do any of y'all have cast/Jones Fracture stories?? Please share if you do!

Breakfast
- 3 eggs (Omelet!)
- 2 slices of roast beef
- a handful of string cheese
- 1 cup of milk

Lunch (wow I ate a lot..)
- Protein shake (1.5 scoops of Whey, 1 scoop Chia)
- Pure Protein bar
- 3 Hershey's kisses
- 1 String cheese
- 1 cookie
- 1 fun size M&M bag

Dinner
- Verts! :D

Cast Update

Sorry, it's been a while, I haven't been able to get into the habit of blogging every day just yet. My foot feels like its recovering really well in the cast! There isn't really any pain, only a little soreness here and there. I'm starting to get a little bolder and putting more weight on the foot when I'm standing and stuff too! The only issues that I have had with this cast so far is that there seems to be a constant itch on my leg somewhere in the cast. I resisted the urge the first day, but had to resort to chopsticks before the second day was over. By the way, pro tip for scratching an itch inside a cast. DO NOT USE A PEN. THE CAP WILL COME OFF! Trust me when I say you do not want to be fishing for a pen cap in your cast.

My scratcher of choice!

The other biggest issue I have is learning how to shower. I also avoided that for the first day (gross, I know), but it's just not plausible to keep that up for a whole week so I bit the bullet and taught myself how to shower. I would love to hear how any of you shower with a leg cast because there has got to be a better way! Currently, I basically lay in the shower with my cast leg out and behind the shower curtain and slowly bathe myself. Very tedious and annoying :(

I also had to wear a suit today for a presentation. My first hint that putting on suit pants would be a bad idea should've been that it took like 20 minutes to get the pant leg to fit around my cast. Unfortunately, like a typical college student who doesn't adequately plan ahead, I was in a rush and didn't consider how I might get the pants off later. Let me tell you, that was quite the feat. It took about 30 minutes of slowing inching the pant leg off little by little. I was this close |<--->| to just getting scissors and cutting my loses, literally.

I also wanted to ask you guys if anyone had pro tips for crutches?! Mine have been kind of falling apart, especially the padding are and I haven't quite thought of a solution to carrying things while I crutch around.

I won't bore you with the diet stuff this time :) (i.e. I have no clue what I ate the past few days anymore..lol)

Jones Fracture: Fiberglass Cast

Today, I went back to see my doctor (Dr. Hubbard for anyone in the Austin area) to check up on my foot and get my fiberglass cast. According to my doctor, everything was healing well!! He told me that my pain on the top of my foot and in my heel was normal and that it was due to the compression on my foot while it was swelling. He assured me the pain would go away soon so hopefully that is the case! The compression did seem to do its job pretty effectively though as my foot was not very swollen when it came out of the cast. After the inspection, the doc bandaged my up again and went to get the materials for the fiber glass cast. I'm not sure if you guys have ever had a fiberglass cast put on before, but its pretty sweet. This is my first ever cast so I was honestly expecting for them to like pour plaster over my leg and let is solidify or something, but that was not the case at all. The fiberglass cast was basically like a few ace bandage wraps infused with some kind of chemical that reacts and hardens when mixed with water. So they just dipped the cloth bandage wraps in water, wrapped it around my leg, and within 10 minutes I had my cast! I also got to choose my color! Of course, to celebrate the weekend win and to show off my school pride, I chose orange :) I never did the whole sign my cast thing in middle school since I was fortunate enough to never need a cast so would it be too cheesy to do that now in college?? Also, great news, I only have to wear this cast for a week before progressing to a walking boot!!!

My first cast!

Also, sorry this is a really random part of my posts, but I need to keep an eye on myself!

Breakfast

- Protein shake (1.5 scoops whey, 1 scoop chia seeds)

Lunch

- 4 slices of roast beef

- 1 Cheese stick

- 1 pack of seaweed (the packs from Costco)

- 1 Pure Protein bar

Dinner 

- 3 eggs with mixed veggies

- 1 small tortilla

- 1 glass of milk

- Greek yogurt with frozen berries

Dessert

- 2 squares of 78% dark chocolate

- Pumpkin bread

- Cliff Bar

Jones Fracture Day 3

So it's now been 3 days since I've had surgery on my Jones Fracture. I've never been on crutches or in a cast before this point so I already feel like I'm going insane. I was in quite a bit of pain yesterday, but the pain was located in my heel rather than near my surgery site. I think it was because they wrapped the splint around my leg too tightly.. I also was on pain killers for while, but went off of them because they were starting to give me a headache.

Anyway, today was my first day trying to get back to normal life. I started bright an early with a class at 9 A.M. in one of the worst buildings on campus, RLM. My class is on the second floor, but the elevators don't go to the second floor and the escalators are not on 80% of the time.. Let me tell you, avoid crutching near stairs if at all possible. Outside of that, my day was normal. I did not keep my foot elevated all day like I think I was supposed to, but there wasn't much pain or pressure so I hope I'm still on track. It's back to the doctor's tomorrow to get fitted for a plaster cast! Hopefully this means I can start working out again!

I also mentioned I would keep a diet log and so I'll start today!

Breakfast
- Protein Shake (Whey, water, chia seeds)

Lunch
- Pure Protein protein bar

Dinner
- cheesestick
- cup of milk
- turkey burger with mixed veggies
- 2 eggs
- greek yogurt and frozen fruit

Dessert
- pumpkin bread (yum!)
- cliff bar

Jones Fracture

So I wrote a little bit about suffering a Jones Fracture in my introduction, but one hour and a Breaking Bad episode later, I decided that I wanted to chronicle my experience with it. I have found that reading about others experiences with it has helped me a lot in knowing what to expect from a Jones Fracture during recovery. Before beginning the post, I feel like I should mention that I am not a doctor or expert in the matter. All the information that I am about to post is from personal experience and from reading about Jones Fractures online. So without further ado..

This is what a Jones Fracture looks like.


This is a particularly unfortunate fracture because it is in a spot where there is poor blood flow and where there are tendons that actually pull on either side of the fracture (effectively preventing healing) when foot muscles are activated. There are two general methods for treating this type of fracture.

1. Conservatively (non operation)
You are put into a non-weight bearing cast for 6-8 weeks. At the end of this period, X-rays will be taken to see if the bone has been healing properly. If it has then that is great news! You should be able to begin partially bearing weight in a boot. You can then progressively increase the amount of weight you can bear until you are fully healed (roughly another 6-8 weeks). From reading about many people's experiences online, however, it seems that due to the factors listed above, Jones Fractures typically do not heal very well on their own. Many people have reported experiences where they used conservative treatment only to find that no progress was made in terms of healing. As a result, many of them opted for surgery after the conservative treatment. It also seems that conservative treatment has a higher chance of refracture than operative treatment.

2. Operative (surgery)
Surgery for Jones Fractures are usually prescribed to athletes and athletic individuals because it allows for a quicker recovery time. Surgery, as told to me by my orthopedist, involves cutting a small incision in the foot so that a screw can be drilled into the 5th metatarsal to stabilize it. Here is a picture below of my foot post surgery.

Screw + Staple = Stable Foot?

The staple looking thing is also just that. Apparently staples are another point of stabilization and the research is catching up to the practice of using staples (what my doc said). Anyway, as I mentioned a Jones Fracture heals much faster with surgical intervention. My personal recovery plan is a splint (pic below) for 4 days. Then a plaster cast for a week and a half. Followed by a couple weeks of wearing a boot. Much better than the 6-8 weeks of a cast followed by another 6-8 weeks of a boot! Of course everyone heals differently and I opted for the surgery so I may be biased (or more optimistic) about the recovery for surgery.

My splint!

So where are we now? Well I had surgery yesterday afternoon and was given a nerve block so I had no feeling whatsoever from my left calf down (super weird feeling). I have been basically been on the couch or in my bed for the past 24 hours with very minimal movement. The nerve block wore off this morning so I've also started to experience some dull aching pain in my foot and in my heel (I have no idea why there is pain in my heel..) and have started to take antibiotics + pain killers. I am pretty dependent on my amazing girlfriend right now to take care of me since I can literally do nothing but watch Breaking Bad, play FIFA, and blog. Doesn't sound too terrible when I put it like that... Only a couple more days of this, I hope, before I can start resuming normal activities. I will keep all those interested posted!

Also since it is Saturday and I'm a damn proud Longhorn, HOOKEM!

Hello World

First let me introduce myself. I am currently a Junior at The University of Texas at Austin with lots of interests. I originally wanted to start a blog chronicling my journey through college as an undergrad trying to balance fitness, friends, and grades. I have been an athlete since I was young. At one point in middle school I was playing basketball, baseball, soccer, and lacrosse. I played basketball all throughout high school and then started to focus more on running and weight lifting in college. This past summer I was a part of a UT student organization called Texas 4000. I would highly encourage anyone to check out the website (Texas4000.org). Founded in 2003, UT students have been cycling 4,500+ miles across the country from Austin, Texas, to Anchorage, Alaska every summer to raise money and awareness for cancer research. All of the funds raised (roughly $500,000 last summer alone) go to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the UT biomedical engineering school, and LiveStrong support services. It is truly a great organization. So as you can see, fitness and health are a pretty integral part of my personal identity. I think that's why I decided to start this blog. I recently suffered a Jones Fracture (fracture of the 5th metatarsal) and had to have surgery to repair it. The surgery itself went very well, but now begins the long recovery phase. 2-4 weeks in a cast plus 4 more in a boot before I can start slowly bearing more and more weight. These next 8 weeks are going to seem like a lifetime... 

So there is a little glimpse into who I am. I will most likely write more about myself and history in later blog posts but I will also write a little about everything and anything that interests me (sports, interesting news, food, fitness, world travel). I will also try to keep a log of my diet and workouts just to keep myself honest as well so if you're interested in that kind of stuff stay tuned!