My First Sports Injury

In July, I took up exercising as a serious sport. I have been going to the gym six days a week for three months now. In August, I worked out with my friend Sheila. She was doing wind sprints on the treadmill next to me. Wind sprints!! I was in AWE of what she was doing. She is a machine!! We talked (yes... she could carry on a CONVERSATION doing wind sprints!) and next thing you know, we were on the treadmill over an hour. When I stepped off the machine, my heel felt like I had bruised it. I felt something POP.

After talking with many people, I deduced that I tore the fascia tendon in my right foot. I did the stretches, iced it down nightly, and got off the treadmill and onto a bike. I cycle 15 miles a day, six days a week. I'm down 30lb and I feel really good. I even got a night splint. See?

A teacher friend had two surgeries on her feet, cutting the fascia because her fasciitis was so bad. She recommended her doctor to me, and off I went to make the appointment. A month later, I got in to see him. Turns out he's in pretty high demand as the sports medicine doctor for all the U.L. atheletes. He x-rayed my foot, and yeah, I have plantars fasciitis.

But I ALSO have a stress fracture in the bone. Look what he's making me wear:

This storm-trooper get up is snazzy, eh? I have to wear it for four weeks. It's called an Air Cast, and it comes with a gadget that fills the sides with air to tighten the cast around my foot. I can only take it off to drive and to sleep. I guess tennis is out of the question??

Thanks, Susan!

My computer-savvy buddy, Susan, fixed up my blog and now all my contacts are in a nice, neat little row. Thanks, Sus! It's good to know smart and talented folks. :)

At Last...

At last!

At last!

I have my camera again! Miracle of miracles!!

This has been a two month saga in my life, and for anyone out there in cyberspace with an obsessive hobby like photography, you understand my pain. That camera is like a third arm for me. It's an extension of myself, a part of my body, a way I communicate through the lens, and how I express myself. It's a way to capture a moment in time, a memory to last for a lifetime, and when that's ripped from you it's like having part of your arm cut off.

Okay... I exaggerate, but you get my point. It's been a long two months. And with a toddler running around doing crazy things, it's fun to get it all on camera to be able to show her in years to come what kind of antics she pulled as a little tike.

Let me say for the record that Best Buy's manager Mark Stelly was AWESOME to me. He is a very young manager, and he heard my sob story and made an executive decision to junk the camera and get me another one just like mine from off the floor. It was BRAND NEW! I couldn't believe it. I am no longer a Best Buy Basher, thanks to Mr. Stelly.

But on a spiritual note, I have to say one thing about the camera that is connected to the Lord. Being without my camera freed up much of my time at night when I would have usually been up late editing my photos and doing postings on my blogs and photo streams. Instead, I have been able to use this free time to get my home squared away, to pay more attention to my husband and to Hannah. But most importantly, my quiet time with God has SOARED these last two months. It's been an amazing adventure and I'm not about to push that time out in order to start doing pictures again. I'll have my camera with me, but now I have my hobby where it should be... after God, Family, and everything else that matters. It's all about priorities.

"Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living." ~Romans 6:16