Playing in a Winter Wonderland

We are in the midst of another frigid, flurry-filled, Utah winter. We have been pounded by a seemingly endless stream of snow storms over the last month. These massive storms have already depleted many cities’ plowing budgets and left scores of Utahans very weary of the current season. While others dream longingly of the distant spring with each falling flake, Jas and I decided on a different cure for the winter blues-taking a little retreat.

I know the words “winter retreat” usually conjure up visions of warm sandy beaches and palm trees swaying in delicate breezes, but Jas and I had something else in mind. Our retreat was a bit like going from the frying pan into the ice box.

Milo thought dumping snow into my tube was oodles of fun!
Milo thought dumping snow into my tube was oodles of fun!

We decided to spend a weekend in Midway and Park City. We went tubing at Soldier’s Hollow accompanied by my brother Drew’s family and the Rowleys, who were visiting from New Jersey.

We rocked the tubes!
We rocked the tubes!

Most of the little kids in our group had a blast tubing, except for Jadon, my brother’s three year old. He refused to even sit in a tube and spent nearly the entire time taking a nap on his mom’s lap instead.

Jadon taking a snooze.
Jadon taking a snooze.

Although the weather that day turned out to be sunny, a rare occurrence as of late, as soon as the sun started going down the temperature dropped very quickly.

Silas was a happy tuber.
Silas was a happy tuber.

After tubing we headed up to Park city to eat and shop. We ate at a tiny Mexican restaurant called El Chubasco. The salsa bar there was delish! Then we found some good deals at the Tanger outlet stores. While we were in Park City the temperature plunged to a glacial -2 degrees. Man, I haven’t been that cold in a long time! But we warmed up nicely afterwards back at our Midway condo as we played hours and hours of geeky board games.

Geeking it up with some Dominion.
Geeking it up with some Dominion.

Despite the ridiculously cold weather, we had a lot of fun on our little break. I’m glad we got a chance to actually enjoy our heaping snow instead of just cursing it as we slip and slide through it on the roads.

After all, if you can’t beat the snow, you might as well jump in it!

Back to Boardom

I’m officially back in the game. With my doctor’s consent, I started running again last week and Monday Jas and I did our first snow boarding of the season.

Being active again after a 4 month hiatus feels unbelievably good and it’s given me the chance to test out my new and improved ankle. Wow! What a difference!

Yippee!!!!!!
Yippee!!!!!!

Ankle pain has been my constant companion for nearly a decade now. It has tainted all the activities I enjoy-though it certainly has never stopped me. The first time I went running last week, my first time doing weight-bearing exercise since my surgery, something seemed out of place-unnatural. It took me a bit to realize that it was the pain that was missing.

While my ankle is still achy and stiff, this is insignificant in comparison to the ever-present throbbing I had grown accustomed to. The most remarkable change for my ankle is how it now behaves after I have exercised. It used to hurt for days after I ran or boarded. For an active girl like me that pretty much meant I was in pain all the time. But now I don’t pay for exercising with days of persistent misery. Although my ankle is still healing and protests a bit when it’s getting a workout, once I’m done it feels relatively normal. It still seems so odd to me-being nearly pain free-odd and extraordinary! I didn’t realize just how much pain I had become acclimated to until it was gone.

Rowley and me enjoying the snow.
Rowley and me enjoying the sweet snow.

Now that I can be active again I am finally enjoying the fruits of my surgical misery. Now I can say it was worth it. It WAS worth it. So for any of you out there who are about to have this surgery, or have had it and are suffering through the unbelievable nuisance of crutches and boots, there is a light at the end of the tunnel! You’ll make it through and when you can go back to playing that sport you love-minus the pain-you’ll feel just as giddy as me. Hallelujah! My ankle is back!

The Sling King

A couple weeks ago my doctor released me and my ankle. This means no more blanket restrictions on what I can and can’t do with it. Of course, I will still have to wear my brace anytime I do any sort of physical activity for the next year and I’m supposed to “let pain be my guide” when deciding if a pursuit is appropriate for my ankle. Basically meaning, if something hurts my ankle, I shouldn’t do it. Yeah right, after 7 years of habitually ignoring the pain in my ankle and doing whatever I felt like anyway, I doubt I would even notice if it decided to spontaneously combust at this point.

Either way, I am thrilled I was released two months ahead of schedule and unbelievably excited to get my body back into shape!

So what happened just days after I got this exciting news? Jason ended up at the doctor’s and in physical therapy for a tendon injury. (Snickering now is appropriate.)

Yes, just literally days after I got released from physical therapy following my tendon repair surgery, Jason wound up at my physical therapist’s because he hurt his tendon. Admitting this may make me seem a little cruel, but I have a hard time not laughing when I think about the situation.

So how did Jason hurt his tendon? A friend of his was visiting from Ireland a couple months ago and wanted to go mountain biking. Although I was out of commission, I encouraged him to go and have some fun, so he did. Jas and I have been biking on all sorts of crazy terrain and have never injured ourselves beyond road rashes and bruises, but since I was not there this time to be the voice of reason, he and his boys went flying down the mountain way too fast and he injured the tendon under his bicep by overexerting it.

Grumpy Jason
Grumpy Jason: I think this was about the only time I got him to wear his sling.

It took me weeks to convince him to go see the doctor even though his arm continued to hurt. But he finally did and yup, it was his tendon, and yup he has to do physical therapy. (I will try to contain my laughter since it makes typing difficult.) The doctor told him to wear a sling for a few weeks so his arm could rest and heal. Does he wear it? No. He complained that it was too hard to sleep in so he stopped wearing it to bed after only one night and then he decided that it was far too inconvenient to wear during the day too. Oh brother-I am rolling my eyes right now-cry me a river! I just spent months sleeping with casts and boots and braces on my foot, even though they made sleeping next to impossible. Jason was extremely quick to scold me if I even thought about sleeping without them but his sling is just “too uncomfortable” for him to follow the doctor’s instructions and wear it as he should.

Sigh-what am I going to do with that boy? I guess I’ll just keep laughing and hope that physical therapy, and the painful deep-tissue friction massages the therapist has been giving him, work. (Yes, he has been complaining about those as well. My eyes are now rolling again-try getting a friction massage on the site you just had surgery on a few weeks ago. Then you can talk to me about pain. Wimp!)

Despite Jason’s unwillingness to follow the doctor’s orders, may he and I both have healthy happy tendons soon!

*I think this post needs a disclaimer, lest all of you think I am monstrously heartless with my sweet husband. Here it is: It is only the irony of the situation that I find funny not my husband’s pain. And while I do think he is being a complete wimp about all of this, and that makes me laugh also, I wish him a speedy recovery. And of course, I love him dearly despite the fact that he seems to have as much backbone as a gummy worm.