Monday, July 19, 2010

Variations on "let your body heal itself"

This afternoon I went to a hand specialist to try to get a definitive diagnosis as to what is going on with my left hand. He heard my story and looked at my hand. He asked me where it hurt and asked me to move it in a variety of positions. He said that I most likely have either a very bad bruise or perhaps a hairline fracture of one of the bones in my wrist. To be certain, a MRI would be required, but he felt that if I put it in a brace for a few weeks and was nice to it, it would continue to improve. In summary his advice was "let your body heal itself." If it doesn't get better on its own in a few weeks, then do the MRI and come back. He said I could try to resume some activities but to stop if it hurt in any way.

Last weekend I focused on doing a lot of nothing. I still woke up at 5AM on Saturday for my workout but since there was no workout to be done, I forced myself to go back to sleep. I watched some TdF and baseball on the tube and the Mrs. and I went out to dinner and a movie ("Inception" - definitely a unique flick). Sunday was more of a variation on that nothing theme but I mixed in an afternoon nap.

My wife says that I'm not very good at doing nothing.

To prevent me from going completely bonkers, we decided to go up to Lake Placid next weekend to cheer on the iron faithful. We were able to score a reasonably priced last minute hotel room. My kids come back from camp on Monday so we have to be home. This means I'm avoiding the temptation of signing up for 2011 IMLP as many of my friends are planning. I wasn't going to sign up/do this race anyway since the training demands for a July ironman doesn't fit into the high demand family schedule of April, May, and June.

Of course, a whole weekend of workouts in Placid is already scheduled around the race. The Crew is swimming first then cycling up Whiteface Mountain on Friday, biking one lap on Saturday and running Sunday while the race is happening. I'm leaving my bike home (I can't safely grip the bars yet) but will pack the wetsuit just in case.

My mantra for the near term is "let my body heal itself". Of course, I'll experiment to see the healing might be aided by a micro brew from time to time this weekend. This will only be to advance the science of healing. I might need to try a few different flavors though to find the best one for healing. Anything to help advance the science of letting my body heal itself.

3 comments:

Diane said...

I am pretty certain that a Porter contains the most beneficial healing boosters, however I encourage you to try as many varieties as possible - just to be sure. A good hearty stout works wonders as well. All in the name of medical science, of course. Be a martyr for science. :)

Big Clyde said...

...and if you can't safely grip the bottle, you could always get one of those goofy hats that holds two beer cans with tubing that goes to your mouth. Or hook up a Camelbak.

KC (my 140 point 6 mile journey) said...

I broke both of my wrists about 5 years ago in a mountain biking mishap. Anyway, I'm not good at sitting still, so I popped the bike up on the trainer and rode aero the whole time...no wrists/hands needed and i did that for 5 weeks until i could put weight on them. Hard part...actually getting up on the bike. After that, piece of cake. Hope the wrist heals quickly and I agree, let it heal on it's own.