The Silver Linings of Injury & Illnesses

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Does an injury, illness, or other reason have you sitting on the bench seat this day, month, year? Well man, that sucks. There is no doubt about it that being out from participating in the things you love is a bummer. I’ve been there. From cancer, to babies, to having snotty toddlers spreading all the sicknesses to me, I have had my fair share of sitting on the sidelines. But there are silver linings to this! So if you have an upcoming surgery, I highly recommend you read on. Or even if you don’t, I still recommend reading our newsletter because you never know when something might happen to cause you to be on the R&R path.

Don’t Waste an Injury:
As Jeremy Jones says, “Don’t Waste an Injury”. This is a time to focus on what you CAN do, not what you can’t do and I highly recommend you make a plan BEFORE your surgery of all the things you’ll do. If you need some help coming up with some ideas, here you go: 

• Some-day Maybe Projects
  • Family Photobooks 
  • Organizing your home, file cabinet, etc. 
  • Crafts 
  • Get ahead on yearly tasks like holiday cards, birthday cards, Christmas shopping etc. 
  • Clean up your computer; inboxes, folders, photos in the cloud, etc. 
  • Clean up your recipe box for future meal prepping sessions 
  • Create freezer meals 
  • Start making a list of things you find yourself saying some-day I’ll have the time to do “x” and save that list for the day you find yourself on the bench seat. 
• Try New Things:
  • If you can’t do your favorite activities, well, perhaps it’s time to try new things.
    • If you love to ski but you know you won’t be able to downhill ski for a while, find out from your doctor when you could start cross country skiing. And work on getting the gear ahead of time so when you’re cleared you can go! 
  • Online Classes like:
    • Learning a new language
    • Cooking courses 
    • Learning to sew 
    • Learn how to maintain your possessions
      • Tune up your bikes
      • Oil changes on your cars
      • You get the idea 🙂 
    • How to improve your business, passion projects, etc. 
• Volunteer:
  • If you love mountain biking and now you can’t bike, well spend your time volunteering with a local nonprofit. They can always use behind the scenes help if you are stuck at home!
    • ***Central Idaho Mountain Bike Association could use your help!! I’m on the board and we always need support. 🙂 
  • Read our past e-newsletter about the benefits of giving back and volunteering HERE. 

What Can you do?

• If you are still not sold on the idea of doing new things, or any of the “projects” listed above, then think about what are you still able to do with the hobbies you love?
  • If you love to exercise and you are going to be out from a leg surgery, well find out from your doc if you can still workout and focus on your upper body? 
  • You may not be able to do 20 mile hikes during this time, but can you do three mile ones? If so, grab your favorite hiking book and pull out the hikes you would usually pass right over. 
• Research blogs, articles, social media accounts, etc. of what other people before you in this similar situations were able to do.
  • Also, sometimes your doc doesn’t know what is okay to do and you might be the pioneer to show a new way! When I was going through my cancer fight there weren’t many CrossFitters also battling cancer, so I made sure to blog for people how I continued my CF journey during my cancer fight so that I hoped it helped someone else some day. 

Rest, like truly Rest:
Okay, this one is hard for me but they call it R&R (Rest and Recuperation) for a reason, because you should be doing that. So what does resting look like? 

• Sleep
• Reading & Audiobooks 
• Watch Shows 
• Video Games & Card Games 
• Puzzles
  • This surprised me but during my chemo recovery I discovered I really liked doing puzzles.
• Blogging
  • I created a blog during my fight with cancer and just documenting my experience was mentally really helpful. In addition to this, I’ve had people reach out to me to say how it’s helped them prepare them for their own fight, which means so much to me! If you’re interested you can click HERE to read my cancer journey. 
• I had so many amazing letters and cards sent to me that I would save them into a small journal and when the days got extra hard I’d go back and flip through this book. Feeling the love from so many friends and family helped me get through some tough days. 
• Embrace the Suck
  • There is no getting around it. Despite all the silver linings, it still sucks to be sick and/or injured. And that’s okay. It’s okay to cry, be frustrated, and hate life at times.
  • Some of my worst days are forever seared in my mind and I use them as fuel now. I use them to live life gratefully. I use them during workouts. When I’m miserable and exhausted during a CrossFit workout, I think, “heck this isn’t as bad as my worst most nauseous day of chemo and you survived that”. So use these days to your benefit in the future! 
  • The only way out is through, so just keep putting one foot in front of the other and focus on what you need to do to get there. 

Plan Your Comeback: 
To help with the mental challenges of being out from illnesses and injuries then I recommend you plan your comeback.

• Plan a Recovery Celebration
  • Everyone loves a reason to get together to celebrate so plan a party to toast to the recovered you!
• Plan a trip
  • During chemo my husband and I would talk about a trip we wanted to take and work on planning it out. This helped me a lot to keep my mind busy and to have something to look forward too. The picture above is us on the trip in Costa Rica! 
• Plan Your Physical Recovery
  • Once you’re cleared for your whole body you’ll still be coming back slowly so you’ll need to have ideas of how to modify fitness and activities
  • Build out your systems so when you’re back you have time-blocked your life to ensure you get some much needed body care and self love. (Massages, body work, time to stretch and do your Physical Therapy exercises).  

Greatest Silver Lining:

• The support and love from family and friends was probably the best silver lining of my cancer journey. From the head-shaving party, to the random texts “thinking of you”, it truly does make a difference in someone’s journey. So THANK YOU to my family and friends who fought alongside me!
  • **Sidenote**
    • If you are the one wanting to provide support to someone going through a challenging time, message me for ideas of great gifts to give for someone, especially if they’re going through a fight with cancer! 
• Other Silver Linings:
  • It could be worse
    • This mindset helped me a lot. Anytime I was down in the dumps I would think about how it could be worse and it made my scenario seem a little better. 
  • The NEW you
    • The first time I tried a pullup after my mastectomy and reconstruction I was shocked with how hard it was and so devasted I almost burst into tears. I thought of all the strength I had gained with years of fitness and how it was completely gone. But then, quicker than I realized, it started to come back. It wasn’t like starting at zero again. My fitness and strength were there, and I did have to build some of it back but it did return faster than I thought. 
    • That being said, you may not ever be who you were before, and that’s okay. Heck, you may even be better!!
      • After kids, although I wasn’t as strong, I was more fit. My strength numbers (squatting, presses, etc.) were way down, but I was a lot more cardio fit. And although I was sad to not be as strong, I looked for the silver lining of being more fit in other ways. 
      • I also tried (and continue to try) to keep a perspective on things. Just because I can’t backsquat 265# anymore, I am:
        • Grateful to be here and be moving at all.
        • Grateful to have some pretty cute and fun kids. 
        • Grateful I can run further than I could in the past. 

I hope that reading this month’s e-newsletter will prepare you for when you find yourself on the bench seat and help you find the silver linings of your predicament. Please, please, please reach out if you ever need to chat, ideas, or just to vent about your situation. Even though this newsletter talks about the positives of the experience I promise, there were a lot of negatives too, and that’s okay! It’s all a part of life, and we’re constantly working to find the best way to Live It!