This was hands-down the hardest school year of my life. We had been in school for 3 weeks before I began my issues with Plantar Fasciitis. While I was bummed not to be able to run from September 5-October 10, I was in for quite the shock in terms of what was to come. October - December were the real low-points of the school year and, looking back, I feel like I kind of failed my students.
Just getting out of bed in the morning was a struggle, so to put a smile on my face and (try not to) limp around pretending as if everything was okay was so mentally and emotionally exhausting that, by the time I went to re-vamp lessons or come up with a new way of presenting a topic, my mind was just gone. I probably (physically) sat down to work with students more than ever before in all of my previous years of teaching combined, just to simply ease the pain that my foot was causing me. I LOVE walking around the room and getting input from all of my students, yet anytime a student would raise their hand for me to come over to them, I would cringe at the thought of walking.
Anytime I get asked why I teach 7th grade, I always somehow end up talking about the fact that I am fortunate enough to be able to build these great connections with students and I don't feel like I fully did that this year because my mind was just trying to focus on anything besides the pain I was in. Going to 8th grade graduation (my first time doing so in my 4 years of teaching, since I only actually teach 7th grade students) is when this realization hit me hard: I didn't have nearly as many connections with students from this year as in years past.
Part of the reason I am writing this post is because I know some of my students read my blog and hope that this reminds them of how much I care about them.
The other reason I am writing this post is to hopefully help anyone who is going through the rough injury patch realize that you need to be proactive in injury management. To walk around in pain for as long as I did was pretty stupid.
Reflecting back on this school year makes me realize something...
Health = #1 priority. ALWAYS. Most teachers I know do anything they can NOT to take a day off of school. Unfortunately we can't just call in and hope the kids teach themselves. It is SO much more work to write sub plans and have a sub execute the plans correctly; honestly, in many cases, it's a lost day of instruction for the students (unless you have a really good sub).
Rather than take a day off in the beginning of the school year to go to a doctor to figure out what was actually wrong with my foot, I just decided to do as many home remedies as I could. (THANK YOU to everyone for suggestions....know that I've been able to pass along your advice and it has helped others--my body was just an extreme circumstance!) I'll never know if I tore my plantar DURING Kona or prior to Kona, but if I had seen a doctor, maybe the pain factor wouldn't have been an issue for September - April.
....and yet I didn't learn my lesson. With my hips all screwed up from flipping over my handlebars, I chose to walk around in pain rather than see a doctor since I didn't want to be gone from my classroom for yet another day. Fast forward ONE MONTH LATER, and I still can't run. The pain, thankfully, has subsided, but perhaps if I had seen a doctor within the first week of my accident, a better treatment plan would have been possible.
If you're in pain for more than, like, 5 days, seriously take that sick day and see a doctor. It'll make all aspects of your life a million times better. If you don't know what kind of doctor/PT/etc. to see, even just post on Social Media and I guarantee you'll get some sort of advice (treatment, doctor, facility, etc.). If I had done this back in September, maybe this school year wouldn't have been as challenging and my injury timeframe would have been a lot less.
Fortunately, I'm teaching summer school and have an opportunity to build some incredible relationships over these next few weeks and plan to fully take advantage of this opportunity.
Thanks to everyone who has continued to support me through the hardest year of my life. I cannot WAIT to be writing blogs with race recaps soon....but for now, I will leave you with some FUN pictures (some are more enjoyable than others) until I have RACE PICS from my most recent attempt at racing again :)