I type this with fewer than twelve hours to go in the months-long wearing of the frame.
That's really strange.
It has been almost five months now, not a terribly long stretch of time but at the same time not an instantaneous moment. It's odd. I'm really used to the frame by now, though I can't recall ever feeling like I wasn't used to it—the process of regaining the use of the leg was so gradual (and the drugs to control pain in the hospital so powerful) that there was never this shock of Oh, look. My leg is now pierced with five half-pins and two piano wire pins which hold up one and two-thirds metal rings which are connected by six struts which form six triangles and the whole ensemble is holding my leg together.
The first step was being drugged out of my mind: Hospital. Bed.
The second step was realizing I could lift the leg an inch or two despite the fact that I could feel nothing from my waist down except for the blister already developing beneath the hospital boot.
Then came hopping on one foot to the wheelchair. Then hopping on one foot in the walker, followed by a moment of deciding to try to walk (though still with assistance) until, finally I felt comfortable enough to leave the walker behind.
It was all so gradual.
I don't know if my months of progress have been building up to a point or not. I don't know if there will have to be, to some extent, a starting over once the thing comes out of my leg. I don't know if it will hurt, if I'll be able to process more than simple thoughts in the early hours after waking up, if I will need to return to the walker or what the promised knee immobilizer will be like.
All I know for certain is that I will need to get up before 6:00 AM tomorrow morning, at which point we will drive over to the hospital and I will feel hungry. The surgery is at 7:15. It will last for about one hour. It may hurt afterwards. My leg will be just a leg once more.
But all of that is tomorrow. For today, at long, long last, I have reached the final backstory entry. So here goes.
BEFORE LEG+FRAME
At the end of the season sophomore year, our coach told us he would be moving from Minnesota to New York, which unfortunately precluded the possibility of his return for my junior year. This struck me as a major blow to my track career. Throughout those first two seasons, even though I had no athletic talent, he paid me the same attention he paid his more competent athletes. When my shoulder was operated on and I had to switch arms, he accommodated my limitations (which mostly meant having me ride the exercise bike while everybody else was lifting). And, over the course of my two seasons, I had managed to steadily increase my throwing distances, culminating in breaking fifty feet in the discus—again, not a great distance but a major barrier for me to cross.
I first heart about our new coach shortly after he was hired. I was walking through the lunchroom and another returning thrower stopped me to let me know that the school had found a new throwing coach. He went on to explain that apparently everybody our new coach had thrown personal bests the last season and his throwers went to the Wisconsin state meet.
Our first practice, I realized that our new coach was a rather intimidating person, at least physically. In every sense possible, he's larger than me by a number of degrees. His last name is, for all intents and purposes, unpronounceable for those without special training. He has a pointy little beard and wears shirts with slogans like "Only the strong survive."
It took a couple practices for me to become less intimidated. To help keep us from stumbling through a minefield of consonants whenever we used his last name, he told us to just call him Coach D. It also doesn't hurt that he's a really nice, ope, friendly guy who is incredibly dedicated to helping everybody do their best. His ability to spot the flaws in a thrower's form is incredible.
In short, all the pieces were in place for my junior year track season to be the smoothest yet. Despite switching arms the previous year, I'd managed to best the marks from my first season. Building off that success had to be doable. Also helping matters was the fact that, for the first time, I would not be stuck learning an entirely new form, whether starting or switching arms.
The first thing Coach D had me do was try to switch my shot put form. Instead of doing the shuffle, I'd be doing what he referred to as a "step-through" (I think it might also be called a wheel). You start in the back of the circle, chest facing the toeboard. Step to the front of the circle, get into power position, pop upwards, putting the shot and hopefully setting a new personal best.
In theory.
Coach knew about my twenty foot goal. He seemed to believe that with the new throw I might reach twenty-five. To be honest, I never really considered the possibility of going much farther than twenty. Regardless, I flung myself into learning the new throw with abandon.
Shortly into the experiment, I discovered that every time I tried the step-through, I experienced an intense burst of pain in my hip. I would hobble over the toeboard, trying to recover enough so I could walk on the way to fetch the shot, pick up the implement, repeat.
I don't think I ever vocalized the pain with a cry or yelp or something of that nature. I certainly did my best to cover it up, hoping that the new form would still gain me some distance, thinking that maybe if I did it again…and again…
As it turns out, experiencing intense pain during a throw does not help one make the shot put move farther at all. Rather, it hinders the experience—it's impossible to give your all if you cannot finish the motion, and finishing the motion is key in shot and disc, giving you extra energy, keeping you on-balance and hopefully keeping the implement landing within the sector lines.
At some point, I finally wised up and talked to Coach D about the new form and it was mutually agreed that I probably ought to return to the shuffle.
It was with the shuffle I threw twenty feet for the first time. I'm not sure if everything just came together or if I was getting stronger or if I just got really lucky, but it happened. The shot put went twenty feet, seven and a half inches. And, at the end of the season, I threw the discus fifty-five feet four inches, a personal all-time best.
I wish that was the end of the story for track last year, but the step-through was far from the only activity which the hip did not approve of. As it turns out, lifting my knees too rapidly aggravated the hip, as did certain jumps. Before too long, stairs became a problem.
After two years of steadfastly avoiding Dr. Sundberg and his talk of frames, I asked my parents to schedule an appointment, just to talk things over.
And from there? Well, on Wednesday, December 26, 2012, Dr. Sundberg placed a Taylor Spatial Frame in my leg…
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