Last Saturday night, getting out of our car to go to our favorite restaurant on Long Island, I slipped on a patch of black ice and fell down hard, and as I put my left hand down to break my fall, I instead broke my wrist.
It’s the first injury I have ever had that is not directly related to doing a sport. It kicked me in the head as much as the wrist, since I can’t exercise right now, other than walking. That’s because after more X-rays the doctor discovered my bones were now out of place and she had to surgically go in, realign them, insert a plate and some pins, and isolate my arm until it sets. No exercise until my next appointment, a full week after the operation. (Ugh.) So now I am trying to patiently await the moment when I can get back to being fully active again.
Think About Every Day as a Stroke
It takes three full months to heal a broken bone. Some estimates put it at 6 to 8 weeks, but I know from breaking my foot many years ago that realistically it’s more like 90 days until the bone is fully mended. That’s a long time. As someone who is terrible at being patient, seeing the long-game and is better at instant gratification, I had to start to think about healing as a 90-day plan.
Eat healthy, exercise (lightly) and get calcium, sleep and only allow positive thoughts – for 90 whole days? That seemed like a very tall order, especially for someone who prefers cookie dough at 3 p.m. and wine at 6 p.m. This long-term plan – to be healthy and believe in progress – needed some help. I turned to golf. Not playing it, but thinking about it!
“For someone who prefers cookie dough at 3 p.m. and wine at 6 p.m. this long-term plan, to be healthy and believe in progress, needed some help. I turned to golf.”
Essentially, I decided to approach my healing the way my husband plays golf. One day – or swing – at a time.
What’s Golf Have to do With Healing?
James is an avid golfer. He talks about each hole he played that day with the type of detail that I can only relate to as I re-tell stories of races. I love doing triathlons and remember each leg of a race and can bore the cycling pants off anyone within earshot afterwards. Retelling the race can be some of the most fun hours after it’s over, regaling teammates with stories of getting kicked in the face by another swimmer, or swallowing gulps of choppy salt water, the white-knuckle headwinds on the bike course and the overwhelming heat that makes you want to pass out on the run.
Yet I am usually so bored at listening to golf stories! But I also appreciate the details and enthusiasm in his retelling that I find it amusing to hear his recounting of a round. (“After landing in the left trap my bunker shot took a perfect rolling, downward path on the green to sink it for a birdie!”) But nothing is more boring than healing, not even golf. So I am thinking of it the way others think about golf.
Progress is Slow But So Is Golf
I find it extremely frustrating that I can’t see my wrist healing or feel my bones knitting back together I know that day by day progress is happening deep in my joint well below the surface and I have to believe that patience and consistency and eating healthy and staying fit during my healing process will help me heal.
Post surgery, the X-ray revealed lots of hardware. Pins equals progress!
I get frustrated when I can’t witness progress, in my fitness or trying to get stronger either, and that self-destructive mindset allows me to dive down the rabbit hole and begin to eat sweets or act in other self-destructive ways such as drinking too much wine.
Alternatively, keeping a mental positive vision of healing day by day helps me stay on track. Envisioning progress can make me eat healthier, walk more, and support the healing process with exercise and a positive mental outlook.
Golf strokes retold are boring but taking a golf swing can be kind of fun. So now I think of every single day of healing as a golf stroke. Day one was my drive, and day two was my fairway wood while day 3 would be an 8- or 9-iron, hoping to get on the green, while day 4 would be a first putt and day five would be a second putt. Right now, five days post op, I just sank my second put. On to the next hole.
In a best case scenario, I play Bogie golf but I enjoy it, as long as I’m on a beautiful golf course with my husband, on a sunny day. I am not the kind of hardcore golfer he is, since he’ll go out in windswept or rainy conditions and play until well after the sun sets. So he found it somewhat ironic that I am choosing a golf metaphor to help my healing when it comes to my broken wrist. But I told him what makes golf boring for me actually makes healing my wrist interesting.
The slow pace of golf is comparable to the slow pace of healing. And every single day I can envision a new stroke or shot and know that I am making my way around the course, or in this case making my progress in healing. Right now, I’m about to tee off on the second hole, since it is about to be my sixth day of healing.
I know that the round can seem long and at some points boring, But when I look back at how far I’ve walked from the clubhouse and how beautiful the greens ar,e I can convince myself to stay healthy and eat a lot of calcium-rich foods like kale and citrus in order to support the healing that I cannot see.
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