The Great Knee Saga

Most of you know I love trail running and have been doing so for years. I ran my first trail race way back in 2016, but had run on trails here in there for a while before that. I fell in each one of my first few trail races. I finally got talked into buying trail shoes rather than just wearing my old running shoes on trails and it made a huge difference. The better grip really decreased my falls on the trails and I got to the point where it was super rare for me to fall. I'd fall maybe once or twice a year which is not much considering I was running trails 3-4 times a week. When my bone spurs got really bad I figured out that running trails with softer surfaces than roads really helped keep the pain at bay so I started running trails more than ever before. The only problem was that for the first mile of my runs, my bone spurs make everything really sore and tight so I shuffle a little bit at the start of my runs. That's not a big deal until you are running trails and not picking your feet up enough to clear rocks and roots. That ended up being my downfall on October 5th. I took off for a run at Turkey Mountain and went down 0.17 miles into my run. I fell hard. When I landed I could tell it wasn't like other falls. Normally I pop right back up and start running again. Occasionally I'll have a fall that hurts enough, I walk for a little bit to make sure nothing is seriously injured before running again. With this one, I laid there for a little bit. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but I could tell I was in a lot more pain than usual. As I went to stand up I got a quick peek at my left knee and I saw a flap of skin hanging down. It made me feel nauseous so I didn't want to stop and look too closely. I knew my run was done and started walking back to the car. As I walked I called Ty. I told him I saw my knee and it looked really bad and I wasn't sure if I could look at it again. He said, "Don't look at it again, I'm coming," then I heard him turn to the kids and tell them to get their shoes on. CAUTION: I put the run photo at the beginning of this post. There will be photos of my knee later in the post, so if that grosses you out, go no further or scroll quickly past!

My run before the big fall.

By the time I got to my car I had decided I was being dramatic and I should not have called Ty. I thought maybe I should just pour some water on my knee to rinse the dirt out and attempt running again. I started to do it but didn't want to get my KT tape wet so I'd be able to keep it on for upcoming runs (spoiler alert, the KT tape would not be needed) and decided to wait for Ty to help me. Ty arrived right after I made it to my car and took one look at my knee and said we needed to go to Urgent Care. Deep down I knew my run was over so I agreed to go. We stopped at one Urgent Care and there was a 2.5 hour wait so we left. I told Ty maybe we could just get some butterfly bandages at Target and clean it at home. His main concern was that we wouldn't be able to clean it enough. He said at the very least we needed to get it professionally cleaned. I called my parents on FaceTime so they could weigh in and my mom could barely look at it while my dad guessed I needed 8-10 stitches so off to another Urgent Care we went. We were in much faster there. I ended up with 8 stitches as well as x-rays to make sure there wasn't anything under the skin and nothing was broken. While the doctor was stitching me up, she asked if I was wearing a helmet and I laughed, thinking she was joking. Then later she mentioned she forgot I was running and was thinking I was out cycling. They cleaned it out really well, but didn't prescribe antibiotics which Ty and I both thought was weird. They said since I was up on my tetanus shot, they weren't going to prescribe antibiotics. The doctor said the stitches would need to be in for 8-10 days. I asked when I could run again and they said definitely not until after the stitches were out.

At first I was so sore and it hurt so much to walk, I didn't even want to run. A week later I was starting to feel a lot better and was itching to run. I was pretty sure my knee was infected so I went back to Urgent Care, but was also hoping they'd say we could take the stitches out. No such luck. Not only did she not take the stitches out, she told me I needed to have the stitches in for 14 days and really limit my movement, trying not to bend my knee at all. She wanted me to buy a brace but they were expensive and rubbed my stitches, so I decided to just walk like Frankenstein. My kids all called it the "Cox walks" and would imitate it which was funny. Carter and Elise would also copy it and said they didn't know how I did it all the time because it was so hard to do! My students were very invested and wanted me to share daily picture updates of the progress. I got tired of telling people at work what happened, so my students would tell them for me. One of my favorites was when a student said, "She was running 100 miles at Turkey Mountain when she kicked a rock with her foot and fell and broke her knee. She has 8 stitches."

One of my student fell at recess and she said she hurt her knee just like me.

The Friday of my fall break, October 18th, I went in to get my stitches out and was told at least another week off running. I looked at my knee and was shocked to see a gaping wound still existed. The deeper tissue was healed and the left and right sides of the wound were closed, but the middle section had a large piece of skin that died and when the stitches came off, it fell off and left what I called my knee crater. I had gotten my hopes up that I would be able to run at least a mile after my stitches came out and I was so discouraged I cried the whole way home. Running is my mental health and I'd hit the point where I was struggling to function without some form of cardio. After a long, tear filled conversation with my parents, we decided it was too important for my mental health to exercise and I needed something. I stopped off at Walgreens for steri strips, taped up my knee, and went for a walk. When all seemed well after that Ty went with me to the Y and took a video of me on the elliptical so we could make sure it wasn't causing my wound to open up and it wasn't, so I started doing the elliptical! At first things were achy and sore from not exercising, being inactive, and walking weird. My left calf even cramped up for a bit the first time I got on.

This one shows some of the scraping I had lower down on my leg. There are still little marks still healing there as well.

There was lots of this in the mornings. Super gross!

After 5 days on the elliptical, I felt like my knee was healed up enough to run. The doctor had said another week off running, but she also didn't prescribe me antibiotics so I wasn't fully putting my faith in her and decided to make the call to run a slow mile on October 23rd. The entire time I just kept gleefully thinking, "I'm running!" I'm pretty sure I smiled the whole way. My knee still isn't completely healed but it is looking much better and is working its way into a nice little scar to add to my collection. This was the longest time off running I can remember taking since high school. I know I took 2 weeks off when I was pregnant with Elise because they were worried about preterm birth, but this was 2.5 weeks and at least when I was pregnant with Elise I could go for walks! I ended up not just missing Pumpkin Holler, but also the Tulsa Run which is one of my favorite races and was the big fall race I was training for. By then I was back to running and I was so happy to be running, missing my favorite race couldn't dampen my mood! 

Fancy bandage they put on during my 2nd trip to Urgent Care.

After getting my stitches out.

What it looked like by the time I got home.

As new skin started to grow.

My students wanted daily picture updates and it's pretty crazy to see the progress of the healing, so I'm including some of them in this post.

Sat criss cross on the floor with my students not thinking and it broke open and I was bleeding through my pants when I got up.

With not having taken this long off running in so long, I wasn't sure what to expect when I started back. I figured I'd be a bit out of shape, but wasn't sure how out of shape. My heart rate has definitely been higher on runs than it was before I took the time off and my Garmin keeps telling me I am overly fatigued and overtraining which is laughable. One of my past students asked me to come run a 5k next weekend so I'm planning to do that and will go into it with no expectations so I don't get disappointed. It's been a little nerve wracking running and then checking to see if my wound had opened up, but it's looking good. Right now it's just a big scab. I'm interested to see what it will look like once it's fully healed. I plan to stay off the trails until my knee is fully healed. I have a trail race with my race team this coming weekend which I don't plan to actually race. I will wrap my knee up, just to be safe, since it's not completely healed. I'm excited to be out in the racing community again!

This is what it looks like now!