Injured

A woman I’ve never met starts talking to me.  I’m in the gym and I’m naked.  “Have you used the trainers here?  I’ve got a shoulder injury. I think I need help.”

I smile and look down.  I’m trying not to break the gym girl rules: Never speak when you’re naked.  Never look at anyone directly and if you do, look away. 

“I started up swimming again,” she said.  “I might have torn something.  Do you know anything about injuries?  The other side’s starting to hurt now.”

She points to her trapezius.  She’s mostly dressed so I’ll look.  I’d run back to the showers and hide if she weren’t.  No way am I checking out some naked stranger’s traps.  You don’t even need a rule about that.

“It’s not your rotator cuff,” I say.  “That’s the only shoulder injury I know.”

”I thought it might be sore from overuse, but it’s lasted longer than that.  Someone told me it might be pulled.  How long does a pull hurt?”

“How long has it been?”

“Four months.”

“Stop,” I say.  “Get help now.”

May 7^th was the last time I ran, really ran.  I know it was May 7^th because I insisted on doing the local run around the Lake.  I didn’t run the week before, hoping I’d heal up.  I was so injured the week after I couldn’t walk.  I still can’t walk right.

I kept training for the marathon after I ran it.  I loved those long runs, but my feet didn’t.  They started hurting in an unfamiliar way.  I bought new shoes.  I kept running.  My feet hurt every morning.  I kept running.  My left foot hurt all the way up to my calf, all the time.  I kept running.

I asked advice from people at the gym and read injury books.  I only followed advice if the advice was, “keep running.”  I taped my foot and kept running.  Maybe I needed to stretch more or do more cross-training.  It felt like there was a big rock under my left heel.  I could hardly walk.  I iced it and kept running.

I gave up after the Lake Run.  I saw a specialist who x-rayed me, made me orthotics, and shot me full of cortisone.  He gave up and referred me to another specialist, a well-known expensive one on Nob Hill.  After sitting in his waiting room filled with the loudest complainers I’ve ever had to hear for two hours, he saw me.

“Your achilles’ are too tight,” he said.  “Your problem is genetic.  I could cut your tendons but you’ll never run again.”

He handed me a badly copied sheet of physical therapist names and left. 

For the next two months I walked.  I rode my bike.  I didn’t call.  My foot hurt every night.  I still didn’t call.  That’s what the specialist gets for making me wait two hours.

Charlie wasn’t running much without me, his former running partner.  He had no excuse.  He was being lazy in sympathy.  The only exercise our lungs got was when we’d drive by runners and we’d get all worked up, calling them names.  We were jealous they were out running and we weren’t.  That’s how we maturely deal with jealousy.

I gave in.  I was getting bitter, not better.  I started physical therapy.  For months I sat in little rooms and got lots of ultrasound.  I stretched and strengthened in the big training room with really old and really young people.  I stared at pictures of famous fishermen, football players and Picabo Street, all with autographs saying, “I couldn’t have done it without you.”  I had hope.

My physical therapist lost hers.  “This isn’t working,” she said.  “We’re going to have to cast your feet.”  She told me how much it’d cost and I didn’t hear anything after that.  I wasn’t paying attention when she described the casts.  I wasn’t sure how long I’d have to wear them.  I didn’t know if I could wear shoes.

Today’s cast day and I’m dreading it.  I’m sitting on a table next to an older woman who hasn’t been able to run for more than twenty minutes for a year and a half.  She had a hip replacement, she says, even though right now there are machines on her knees. 

“I’m bad,” she said.  “I think I can run through my injuries.  I cause more damage just by being stubborn.”

I have this feeling I’m looking at my future.

I get the casts, put them in my shoes and walk around.  They’re about as comfortable as wooden shoes, two sizes too small.  They’re the stiffest things I’ve ever walked in, and that’s saying something.  I once had a good collection of uncomfortable, imported bitch heels.  Casts are like bitch heels, only tighter.  I know from experience I’m going to need band-aids. 

I know from experience I need a shower.  Ours is falling apart so if I want hot water, I have to go to the gym.  Sometimes I work out a little as long as I’m there.  It’s hard to break a sweat when have casts in your shoes, so I don’t.  It’s hard to look cool when you walk like a baboon.

I get dressed quickly.  A slim older Grandma-lady wearing only a towel stands right in front of the hair dryer I always use.  She turned it on and smiled.  She adjusted her towel and started moving around, like she was doing the twist.  I didn’t look directly at her while I put on my make-up.

Every time the dryer stopped, she started it back up.  She opened up her towel, readjusted it, and started back up with the twist.  I made sure I only looked in a way so she couldn’t see.  I can’t look at her directly.  She’s practically naked.  I know the rules.

After she started the dryer back up for the fourth time, she turned around and faced it.  She started doing the twist again, this time while she opened up her towel like she was flashing the dryer.  She looked over at me, smiling.  Not looking.  Not looking.

She’s not wearing casts and walking like a baboon.  I wondered if she’d ever been injured.  Maybe it’s time I started talking to naked people in the gym.

A little help? [] 8:40:09 PM