Issue 10.2 Spring 2015

10.2 cover image

 

Artist Statement:

This piece was written five years ago. It clarified the aging process for me. For the rest of my life, I plan to do as much as I can for as long as I can. So far it’s working. Last year I completed my first marathon since the stress fracture. As with writing, running is about persistence

 

Fractured

 

Debbie Bateman

 


The day the confirmation for the Boston marathon arrived, you couldn’t stop twirling. After four years of trying, the dream was in your hands. You put the oversized postcard on the fridge, so whenever you reached to open the door, you’d see the elite runner breaking the ribbon. "The future is yours," promised the wide blue band floating away from her bright yellow singlet. Her muscles bulged on upturned arms, yet her downcast eyes focused inward and her mouth was more grimace than smile.

 

The backside of the postcard confirmed your acceptance into the race. When no one was watching, you’d take the postcard from the fridge and flip it over. Black on white, it gave your name, your age and your qualifying time. Somehow no matter how often you read it, you never believed it was true. And later, after everything happened, you buried the postcard in the bottom of a seldom used drawer.

 

You trusted a chiropractor who was an Ironman. When he said his next race was the Escape from Alcatraz, your respect deepened. Never mind that his boasts of stair climbs only emphasized that you’d never do anything like that even if you weren’t injured. Imagine pushing up fifty concrete steps, slapping back down, repeating. The foot falls would’ve jarred your middle aged bones, their impact ringing up your spine and rattling your skull. If you’d listened closely, you might’ve heard a faint crunch upon landing.
A month earlier he’d helped a woman with a similar calf injury recover in time to set a personal record in her marathon. If it took her two weeks of active release treatments, you might be better in three. It’d be close, but there’d be just enough time to prepare for the race. So you exposed your flesh to his probing fingers. You lay on your belly with your face in a doughnut hole while he traced the soreness, his fingers burrowing into your inflamed muscles and tendons, rooting for pain. He told you to point and flex your toes. When he broke through tender spots, the tissue popped like plastic bubble wrapping. Although you'd been told that was how it ought to feel, you marveled at the accuracy of the description. To test his handiwork, you walked. The soles of your feet touched the floor gingerly. You reached the wall and turned, the outline of your naked toes vulnerable on the office carpet.

 

“How does it feel?” he asked and you convinced yourself it felt better.

 

From the first marathon in Red Deer, you hoped to qualify for Boston. Waiting to start that early spring morning in the company of a few hundred people, you already pictured crossing the finishing line to the cheers of your family. It went pretty well the first half. Then it got harder. First, a sluggish feeling in the legs. Then, pulsating vice grips up and down the thighs. The last miles were a disappointing blur of walking and moaning, and you missed qualifying by half an hour.

 

The next attempt in Victoria was closer. After days of thick rain, the morning of the race the sky opened up, offering the two thousand participants a small patch of blue and hope the weather might hold. A few hours later, the sky changed her mind and began spitting cold rain in all the runners’ faces. The first sign of a severe temperature drop registered on the wrists, a stinging band cuffing your pumping arms. It hurt the most at the round of bone that juts to the outside. For a while, you ran cross-armed and crazy, narrow hands making a pathetic attempt at shielding the exposed wrists. Over time, even rainproof clothing took on moisture. Your hat covered soaking hair; your shoes held squishy water. The photo of your finish that year was a still life definition of the word ouch.

 

Of the three attempts, the last seemed least likely to succeed. A few weeks into training, a soreness developed on the ball of your left foot as if you were forever stepping on a stone. Icing and massage didn’t help; neither did rolling a tennis ball under foot. Within a month, you were reduced to limping and had to stop running for a week. You wondered if maybe it was all beyond reach. No matter how much you tried, you’d never get to Boston. Briefly, you considered giving up.

 

The problem was, you enjoyed the struggle. Each time the foot made it through a set of speed intervals or went a little further without getting sore, a tiny voice in the back of your head squealed. The individual moments grew so large, you stopped worrying about the ultimate outcome. Running on a prairie path at night as an orange moon came into the blackening sky, or in the early morning under a stained glass ceiling of golden leafs with a horned owl swooping overhead, the scent of autumn in your lungs.

 

The mantra that race was dreams are worth having. Of course you wanted to qualify, but it was equally important to muster courage and keep trying. At the finish line, the clock overhead proved not only that you were fit for Boston, but that you could persevere.

 

Secretly, you believed if you only kept running, you wouldn’t grow old. A regular supply of endorphins would keep away the worst parts of aging. There’d be less grey hair, fewer wrinkles. More to the point, there’d be no reason to worry about the big killers like heart disease and cancer. Even arthritis, diabetes and other slowly progressing diseases of age wouldn’t be a problem.

 

Besides if something came up, you’d deal with it by eating well and exercising. Look what happened when they said your bone density was low. You began feeding yourself calcium tablets the size of horse pills and increased your regular strength training routine.

 

Thinking back, it was obvious the running made it worse. All those trials on a treadmill, they all ended the same. Several minutes would pass without a twinge and then it would begin. At the top of the ankle, close to the shin bone, a tight band gripped the tendon like a patch of tape. Whenever the toe pushed off, the stiffness tugged and strained the surrounding tissue. With each stride, the discomfort built until splinters of pain shot up your calf.

 

The truth resided in your bones, structured your life. Most soft tissue injuries healed within three weeks; yours lasted five before you suspected more was wrong. The pinpoint area of pain, the low bone density, the limp. Two separate chiropractors said a stress fracture was unlikely. One claimed stress fractures were over-diagnosed. The other said the pain was near the bone, but definitely not on it. To prove his theory, he pushed a thumb along the soft tissue of your shin and you sucked back air to stop yourself from whimpering.

 

After several weeks, he grew tired of hearing the same question and suggested you rule out the possibility. You went to your family doctor and requested a bone scan. Although the walk from the bus stop to the radiology clinic hurt, you allowed yourself to keep hoping. That afternoon the doctor called to say it was a high-grade stress fracture. She referred you to a sports doctor, but you couldn’t get in for a week. So you figured out how tibial stress fractures were usually treated and phoned every orthopedic supply store in town until you found someone willing to fit you with an inflatable cast.

 

For so long you’d dreamed of Boston, imagined yourself in the crowd at the starting line, raising your arms at the pop of the gun, running the best race of your life, conserving energy on the Heartbreak Hills, crossing the finishing line with a smile too big for your face. It’d be an experience to remember when you were old and couldn’t do such things any more.

 

In the mornings before you were fully awake, you’d start thinking about running, wondering what was on the schedule for the day, believing you were still training for the race. Then you’d open your eyes, feel the ache in your calf, and step into the cast.

 

The flight had to be cancelled, then the brownstone studio apartment. The people at the insurance, airline, and vacation rental companies were all so sympathetic you had to spread out the calls. And it was two weeks before you told your employer you no longer needed the vacation time.

 

You learned to gulp back tears the way you’d learned to gulp back pain. There was no chance of running Boston that year, but you started conniving. If you took good care of yourself, it might heal in a month. With steady effort, you’d be ready for another marathon in the fall and you could try to qualify again. If doing it once was an accomplishment, doing it twice would be even better. You knew a guy who was once a nationally ranked marathoner. He was under forty when he started getting stress fractures. For several years in a row, whenever he approached peak fitness, he’d break another bone: first the tibia, then the hip. He had four stress fractures before anyone thought to check his bone density. They weren’t expecting a man of his age and high level of fitness to have osteoporosis.

 

These things happened and you knew it, even if your family doctor didn’t. She didn’t believe there was a connection between stress fractures and bone density. Although she thought the injury was purely sports related, she ordered the test anyway.

 

That’s when you found out. In two short years, your bone density had plummeted from -1.2 to -1.6 in the hip, and from -1.4 to -2.5 in the spine. All the calcium pills and bar bells had done nothing. While the hip was still within the osteopenia range, the spine was considered osteoporosis and you were only fifty.
Every bit of the future, being the oldest woman in the race, running marathons with grandchildren, all of it was gone. You pictured yourself in a dowager’s hump, slumped rag doll in a wheelchair, afraid to cough because you might crush another vertebrae.

 

The possibility of running the Boston marathon could be taken from you and you wouldn’t complain, if only you might avoid that disabled future. The day after the diagnosis, you started the most popular drug for treatment. It had a few possible side effects: spontaneous fractures of the femur for example and something called dead jaw disease. Not that you cared. The drug usually stopped bone loss, sometimes reversed it. That was all you needed to know.

 

You’d seen your future, held her in your arms, yearned to do something that might help her move through life a little more easily. The lump on her back, the uncertainty of her legs, the way the broken wing of her elbow dangled behind when she attempted to move quickly, her fingers splayed like feathers. The same medical condition that weakened your bones had been weakening your mother’s for much longer. The arms that once swam in a country creek with grandchildren. The hips that climbed rocky ocean trails. The back so strong it carried the lives of eight children, outlived two marriages, and still managed to support former co-workers, extended family, and friends beyond counting. None of the family knew until the winter she fell and broke a hip.

 

Even with the bad leg stuffed in a cast, the hips miserably tilted and the good leg aching from doing all the work, you wanted to run. You'd have settled for a ride on an exercise bike, anything to pump the blood.
You called the Osteoporosis Canada 1-800 line and asked about exercising. The volunteer said running wasn’t good and neither was yoga. But never mind, she reassured, there was still walking. She suggested you follow her example. Take the medication and some calcium with vitamin D. Stay away from activities that involve bending or bouncing. Then once you have those feet sliding over the ground and that back nice and rigid, forget the whole thing and just live your life.

 

To her, the compromises were minor. To you, it was the loss of everything that mattered. Running was the secret you’d whispered to yourself in the difficult moments. Whenever you’d been scared or overwhelmed with self-doubt, it’d been there–the undeniable truth that perhaps you were capable of more. That woman tried to take it from you. She wanted to make you old.

 

When the monthly running magazine showed up in the mail, you tossed it straight into the recycling bin. Then the day of the Boston marathon arrived and you tuned in for a couple minutes, but couldn’t bear to watch. Even if you caught a runner zipping along the city pathways, you swore inside your head, calling the stranger rude names, using words you’d never speak out loud.

 

It wasn't fair. Osteoporosis was for people who didn’t take care of themselves. It had no right attacking you. You lifted weights, you did yoga, you ran.

 

Since your body couldn’t move with grace on land, you threw it into the water. You signed up for swimming lessons. Although you’d been able to swim more or less since childhood, you didn’t know the proper strokes. While other people in the class paddled behind their water boards, you kicked the blazes out of your legs. By the time the month long class ended, you were ready to continue alone.

 

Then you started using the exercise bike at zero tension and only wearing the cast half the time. Every day at lunch the air rushed out and the straps came off, but the pale limb that emerged did not seem to belong to you. One attempt at stretching and the calf seized into a cramp the size of a walnut.

 

By the final appointment with the sports doctor, you were considering alternatives beyond swimming. The friend who’d been diagnosed with osteoporosis when he was under forty was over fifty now and enjoying competitive race walking. He was setting national records in his age group. And they had long distance events too, some as far as 50 km. The group he trained with had members of all ages, including an eighty-year-old woman.

 

The sports doctor didn’t get the bone density results until the final appointment. She watched you walk barefoot, then got you to lie flat and twist your ankles outward and inward. After pressing the bone and determining there was no pain, she declared you better and began describing a back to running program.
There you sat with those bare knees dangling off the edge of the examining table, that torso leaning forward, and those eyes staring into her calm face. The notion that running was no longer possible had lodged itself so deeply, you found yourself arguing with the doctor and explaining your source. She was annoyed that a volunteer would give you blanket advice without knowing details of your history and physical condition.

 

Too bad everything she said was couched in tentative terms. There was a chance the stress fracture wasn’t caused by low bone density. There was a chance you could still run. She looked at your file in silence, frowning. The score was barely within the osteoporosis range. Besides, the drug you were taking sometimes reversed bone loss. Any sense of relief you might've enjoyed was smudged with doubt. There was a real possibility of further injuries. Six months or a year from now, it could happen again. If forced to choose the least risky plan, you’d have done what the volunteer suggested.

 

With every step, the flat of the foot pressed the ground, carefully equalizing the weight over the entire surface. The toes pointed straight ahead and the knees softened. From the bottom of your lungs, you breathed in. Fullness rose from the belly, lifted the shoulders, spread the ribs, and opened the mind. With every exhale, negative thoughts blew away, the velvety touch of air calming your bones.

 

The first walk only lasted twenty minutes. It focused on evening out the stride, avoiding that painful wrench of the leg as it lifted. You were convinced the pain was not from the fracture, but from wearing that inflatable cast. It’d been such a violation to living flesh, the toes no longer remembered how to press off the ground.

 

Yet, you kept swimming, cycling, going for massages, and walking every other day. If you lasted five minutes longer than the time before, you were proud. In three weeks, you were able to walk an hour and were ready to try for more. Although you hadn’t actually run a step, already you were entertaining dreams of full recovery, reversed bone loss, and another chance at that race.

 

It was a long time before friends and family stopped asking about Boston. They’d throw you a look, their eyes eager for details. Well-meaning people showed a polite interest, such as your cousin’s wife. She wasn’t expecting the reaction she got.

 

How bitter the words tasted at the back of the throat when you explained you’d missed the race. You cut the story short, swallowing the bits you weren’t ready to share. It wasn’t fair how you set her up, telling her about the stress fracture, not mentioning the osteoporosis. And she only said what she did to make you feel better. The logic of her statement was undeniable given the limited facts. “You’ve already shown you can do it once,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll qualify again.”

 

Safe within your imagination, it’d seemed possible. From the mouth of another, it seemed certain to fail.
You always said a marathon was a metaphor for life, a powerful lesson learned first in the bone. The exhaustion taught humility; completion gave a taste of genuine success. Great things were accomplished simply by trying each day. Persistence was the only real talent. Once a person knew how to endure, that skill could never be taken away. People asked why you did it. Why would anybody willingly run 26 miles? You said you wanted to learn to champion yourself. All your life you’d been so hesitant. Running made you bold.

 

But a new kind of worry settled to the bottom of your guts. Low-grade and ever-present, it filled the days and the nights with predictions unmentionable. Your body never quite forgot it stood on brittle bones. Every time a foot pressed a bicycle pedal, every time a knee raised to run, you thought of the possibility of more fractures.

 

Certain activities were removed from your list: downhill skiing, mountain biking, martial arts. Other things you refused to surrender without at least another try.

 

Rain drops from the thunderstorm the night before glistened on the reeds of grass and filled the world with the scent of dark earth. From a nearby poplar tree, a red winged blackbird let out its exuberant trill. Under the wide sky of mountain blue, many things seemed possible. Crisp morning air filled your eager lungs, drove your gently pumping arms. Your feet landed softly on the asphalt path over rolling hills of green. Bones that a few months ago could not support walking had learned to run. Sweat formed all over you, under the bangs, along the chest, at the back of the neck. Now and then a cross-breeze flowed over your skin, blessing you with a welcome wave of cool. You planned to run for as long as it’d take to complete 10 km, the first time since the injury.

 

You crested a hill and allowed your mind to think forward. If you added a mile every weekend, by fall you’d be at half marathon distance. Over the winter, you could concentrate on maintaining that base, making it solid. If all went well, by spring you’d be training for a marathon.

 

On the downside of the hill, a tight flick went off in the calf, a ting at the very spot where the bone had fractured. It went away after a couple strides, but you remained vigilant. Every run, you kept watch. And afterwards, you monitored your capacity to recover. If another stress fracture occurred, you might have to decide whether to race walk instead.

 

In the meantime, you were running and the legs felt strong. With less than a mile left, you picked up speed. For a few precious moments, you lost yourself in delicious fluid motion. The spine grew long and wiry, the legs springy and light. A rush of clear, strong joy rose from your belly, sparkled in your brain. A profound sense of well-being swelled your chest. You raised your chin into the wind and surged for home.

 

 

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