You should take an ambulance!

Just when I thought it can’t get any worse it did. I wrote earlier about a coccyx injury but it turned out to be a broken pelvis. A transverse fracture in the sacrum. S3 bone broken into two pieces with a slight displacement of the lower half. Coccyx got a hit too and at the beginning I was having so much pain that I couldn't really distinguish from which bone the worst pain originated. Therefore I wanted to have it scanned. To find out how bad it was and to minimize any further damage. Right from the beginning I felt that something was really wrong and that it was more than just a bruise. That's why I went to see a doctor right away to have it x-rayed. But the doctor I went to at Levi refused to do it. He just told me that they don't x-ray tailbones. As simple as that. All I got was a prescription for painkillers and an empty wallet (105€ for nothing).

A week later situation wasn't any better. I felt that the pain hadn't decreased at all and got quite concerned. At that stage I could palpate the tailbone end myself and understood that the worst pain was higher up in the pelvis. So I went to St Cross hospital to see if they could x-ray it. Nurse who took me in understood my concern but sent me forward to Coventry hospital to get it x-rayed because they could only scan limbs. So I called Coventry and explained my case. I told them that I suspected a pelvic fracture and the person in the other end told me that I should have an ambulance to get there. I agreed that sitting in a car was a nightmare but convinced her that I could take myself there without an ambulance. Big mistake. Had a taken an ambulance I would most probably gotten my pelvis x-rayed right away but I didn't want to inflate my case, so I asked Sami to drive me there instead. I went in as a pelvic fracture patient but got out with a coccyx fracture - diagnosed again without an x-ray or sufficient palpation (a young male doctor who was clearly too scared to touch me). Just more painkillers. I was really disappointed and made a bit of a scene as they refused to scan me (I actually started to cry but it didn't help).

Two weeks later I was still worried and went to see a GP at our local surgery. But there are no scanners at local surgeries. Once again I got prescription for some more painkillers and started to feel more and more like a drug addict.

Four weeks after the incident the pain had finally started to diminish and I could manage the normal life again, except sitting and lying. But I was really tired of it and wanted to get back to training. I had already lost four most precious weeks of my winter training and I didn't want to lose any more. I thought I could gradually start running again but just to play it safe I went to see my physio Sarah to get some advice how to start with. After several healthcare units and doctors she was the first person to really examine my spine. Soon she discovered the small bone displacement and sent me to an x-ray, which just confirmed what she had suspected. I was more than upset by the new piece of news (that I really had a broken sacrum with no signs of healing) but at the same time extremely grateful that Sarah had found it. Without her I would have started running and probably delayed its recovery even further. After the x-ray I was instantly told by all doctors and experts not to run for another 4 weeks.

Ironic that I had been free to do whatever I wanted the first 4 weeks with my broken pelvis but now that the worst pain was gone and I was feeling a whole lot better I was told to rest for the next 4 weeks. Then we'll see how much damage I've done during the first 4 weeks...

Status at day 40: Yey I'm able to swim! (at least a few hundreds..)

Restructuring

I've been struggling with this tailbone injury for over 3 weeks now and starting to lose my nerves! I guess it's already a little better but it's been a real pain in the ass, literally, and I'm quite tired of it. I'm tired of not being able to sit or lie down, tired of not being able to run and tired of trying to come up with new forms of cross training that I could do without pain. Everything involves your butt and there's not much you can do without one. I've been injured before but it's seldom you face an injury that prevents you even from swimming or aqua jogging. Those are the forms of training that you can most often do, even with a stress fracture. But when you hurt your pelvis (coccyx and sacrum included) then the options are rare. It feels really pathetic if you can't even swim!

So my first solution was to get a pull buoy. A what? Don't worry if you don't know. You've just been lucky and you haven't trained swimming. A pull buoy is not really a buoy but a floating foam thing that you hold between your thighs and it helps you to swim while using only your upper body. Swimmers use it to practice their arms whereas non-swimmers using one are most often injured athletes from other sports. Usually a pathetic sight. Well I've surely had some "fun" trying to learn to swim with that. My legs have always out-powered my arms, which means that when I swim or cross country ski my arms just come along and give a rhythm whereas the power comes from my legs. It works fine as long as your legs work but when the legwork stops then the movement seems to disappear. So my first training session wasn't more than five minutes (and I was all shaky after I had given my everything) but I've been able to train it up to whole 20 minutes now. What an achievement!

I have gradually added some other forms of training too, even some gentle running on grass, but nothing is yet painless. First I just wanted to get rid of the pain and didn't worry about all the undone training but after 3 weeks I couldn't help but take a look on my training plan and start to count the weeks. EOC was (and still is) my big goal for the early season and I was happy to notice that I've still got plenty of time to prepare for that if I just can start running in February. But the problem comes in delivering results over a month earlier. POM is announced to be Finland's selection race for EOC (middle, long, relay) but it is right in the beginning of March and I will really need February and March for some hard training. I'm not throwing in the towel yet but I've set myself another big target for April just to build up the base and to get the needed miles done (for the rest of the season). If everything goes well I'm probably still going to run POM but it will hopefully be in the middle of hard preparation phase. Whether I'll rock there or not I've got my big goal for April and I'll be working my ass off to get my ass work again.

"A strong butt is a key to a happy life" 

Another kind of Christmas

Happy New Year to everyone! My 2013 ended with fracture in the coccyx. A small hit onto a stone while sledging that has turned into a real nightmare and disturbed my winter training for weeks (hopefully not for months). So, a new year could have started happier but at least I know that there's only one way up and that each day will be better.

Usually we have had a habit of heading south to warmth and sun during the holidays but this year we headed north in order to enjoy a true white Christmas with close relatives in Lapland. We were amazed by all the snow and beauty when we got to Kittilä airport and I couldn't take my eyes off the snow-covered trees while we drove to Levi. We had hired an absolutely lovely cottage just by the ski tracks with Sami's brothers and their families and I was looking forward to all cross-country skiing I was going to do there. Everything was so idyllic and perfect that we could only expect to have a fantastic week ahead.

I was so thrilled about it all that I was among the firsts to run out and sledge like a kid but it didn't take many slides before my white dream came to a sudden end when I landed onto a stone. Spot on onto a stone with my coccyx ahead. That was it. I could still enjoy the atmosphere, lovely company, delicious food and beautiful scenery but it was all dimmed a bit by the constant pain I was having. I got some pretty strong painkillers that helped me through the worst and I think I would have got back home with mostly good memories if the travel itself hadn't been so horrible. After seven days from the injury I still couldn't sit without pain and having to sit through two flights and a drive from London was just too much.

I've had a few flashbacks from 2001 when I got several fractures in my pelvis and spine in a car accident and had constant pain for months. This is nothing like that but there are still some similarities. The affected area is anatomically quite close to what it was then and if I accidentally move my hip or back a bit too much or too fast the pain is about the same what it was back then. I can't understand how I ever got through it but having that horrible memory helps me now. This should be a piece of cake compared to what I went through then.

It's funny how relative everything is. Pain too. When running the last 15k of Florence marathon less than two months ago with cramping legs, big blisters and black nails, I thought I was in pain. But now I know better. I wasn't in pain. Maybe I was not having my best day as a runner but I was still having a time of my life, doing something I love. Blisters made me cry, cramping legs protested and tried to make me stop and all signals from my body said I should quit but I didn't. In the finish I was disappointed not to break the time I had set but I was still quite happy and proud that I had forced myself through the pain and finished the race. Sadly it took me over a month to realize this. The pain you have when you suffer in a race is the best pain I know. That's the pain I love, the pain I miss, and the pain I want to experience again!