Sorry to let out all this rage in my training journal. But today has been the most frustrating and absolutely enraging day I can honestly ever remember having.
It all started this morning when I woke up feeling exactly the same as all the other mornings. So I decided to go online and check out the symptoms for Strepp Throat. To my amusment I found out that I have NONE of the symptoms they described. however I do have ALL of the symptoms they specifically say DO NOT occur with Strepp. I can’t quit explain the furry that I was feeling after reading this. Just thinking that I could have been okay to be training for this week if it weren’t for the doctors giving me the wrong meds. So anyways I go back to see a different doc and he is like “No…you definitly don’t have Strepp, just go get some sudafed and get rid of the congestion and you’ll be fine. It’s a virus so antibiotics will do NOTHING for you!”
After a couple of hours I finally started to come to terms with that, realizing it’s too late to do anything about it and just move on and focus on getting better.
On a positive note. I did some abs today ! 
About 300 reps in all. Kept it pretty basic and simple with tons of recovery in between cause it was hard to catch my breathe. It felt wonderful to acctually do something !
So then I’m talking to Herb and tell him the whole story. He informs me that my b-ball coach will be coming out to watch our training session today and he says that I’M ALLOWED TO COME!!! Most thrilling thing that’s happened to me in like 2 weeks now. I madly start calling people from work to cover my shift for the night. But then Herb changes his mind and says I can’t come. :mad: Nor can I do anything until I’ve been better for several days…
So then I go to work. A lot of stuff happened there that I wasn’t happy with. And on top of that the owner wasn’t around for me to snap on so I had to just keep it bottled up even more. I can’t even remember the last time that I’ve been to the point of rage where nothing could make me happier than just putting my fist through a wall. However this would be HIGHLY inappropriate at work, so more bottling!!! Then to add to all of this. The medicine that I took before I left which I thought was NON-DROWSY, acctually wasn’t. So I started getting super light headed and wobbly and had to indulge in a Red Bull to counter-act it (I’m sure this isn’t healthy for my body in ANY way, but I had no choice!) Caffeine hits me REALLY hard cause I never drink coffee or anything with caffeine. So needless to say I was wired after that. But that put me in a better mood, except I’m going to have troubles sleeping tonight.
ANYWAYS…that’s my blurb for the day…
And just for the record. Tonight was the first time in months that I’ve felt a STRONG urge to drink. Something inside me gave me the strength to say no even when I was offered a FREE night on the town though.
I just have to keep telling myself that this will all pay off big time in the end…
In terms of exercising while your still ill, I would be very cautious. Reading all of your posts and training routine I wouldnt be surprised at all if you are suffering from overtraining. I dont mean to be offensive in this estimation (this is all it is as i dont know you very well). But I will tell you this story, not to scare you but to show you how overtraining can affect an athlete.
We had a very promising player at our club this year who represented England U19. He is a player who really loves his strength and condiitoning and is always working hard to improve every aspect of his performance. However, i started to notice he was performing extra session wihtout guidance from the S & C team and odd times like after a game! He then contracted a chest infection which left him sidelined for about a month. This dragged on and he still tried to train as best he could but by the time he realised the errors of his ways it was too late. The result was he contracted pneaumonia and ended up having to have part of his lung removed as the scar tissue had built up over time. He missed the last 4 months of the season and with that the U19 world cup. He is now on the road to recovery and should play a full part in the coming season, but to he learnt a very harsh lesson.
My point is that just proceed with caution, missing days or even weeks through training is not the end of world and the body needs a rest, more often or not an infection/cold is the body’s way of telling you that it needs a rest. Having a rest will also renew your zest for training and as you probably know this is actually when the body grows, not when you are training.
Training will always be there, nothing is worth sacrificing your health for.
Get Better Soon!!!
Andrea is in the hospital awaiting surgery. Apparently she went rock climbing and hurt herself quite badly. I know no other details. Thank-you everyone for your prayers.
Thank you for notifying me and everyone else, I’ll pray for her recovery.
good news, the operation went very well and Andreas ankles and feet are looking much better:D She still needs lots of recovery time, so keep praying
Horrible news… Hope everything goes OK… Wishing her a great recovery…
“By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe”
Any latest with Andrea?
She is in good spirits. It will be a long road to recovery. She will need to wear a back brace for a few months. T12, L1-3 are compressed and there are bone chips. Her right foot was severely cut, but the plantar tendon managed to not be damaged at all, so it will be fine. Her left foot suffered a type II-III pilon fracture of the distal tibia. The surgeon was AMAZING! I have seen about 30 different after x-rays of this type of surgery, and Andrea’s looks like it is from a sci-fi movie compared to the rest, that is how much better hers is! There are 5 titanium screws in her left tibia. She is not allowed to put any weight on her right foot for a week, and has to stay off her left foot for 3 months (no weight on it at all).
WOW :eek: That is intense… Best of luck in her recovery… It will take some time, but she’ll make it through just fine I’m sure… 
We’re pulling for you Andrea
Shocking luck. Best wishes Andrea for a full recovery. I think Charlie said Marion JOnes has a screw in her ankle/foot, so be optimistic. Do what the docs/physios say. Sounds like your getting the best treatment.
Ok, heres the story. Andrea went for a walk early tuesday morning, she decided to take a morning stroll up to the Rise. As you can tell from the pictures, its a gorgeous place to go for a walk, the view is beautifull.
It really is nice up there. As you walk around the corner however, an image slightly less inviting looms over you. Just as eye-capturing mind you, only not as fair on the eyes :o
Isnt that intimidating? Can you even imagine climbing that!! its so huge, and it was recently blasted, so anywhere you touch, the rocks just break away.
continued on next post
Here is me attempting to climb up…but not really, im just posing for the camera 
Dont worry herb, thats as far as i got 
now imagine me about 5-10 feet from the top of that monstrosity (in other words, imagine me 35ft up). Thats how high Andrea got.
Here is the after math.
[b]Andrea, you are one lucky girl. I’m so happy everything is turning out so well for you. Its ganna be a long road ahead, but theres always ganna be friends and family around for you, as you already know, seeing as your room is the most popular one in the hospital. 
BTW, Andrea is feeling much better. She rarely uses her morphine joystick anymore…which she has complete control of…and can use at any time…its pretty cool:D Shes looking much better and is keeping pretty damn positive:) Shes going for a test drive in the ol’ wheel chair tomorrow, so best of luck.[/b]
Andrea is making improvements daily. She is completely off the morphine and is on mild painkillers now (T-3s I think). Her pee-tube thingy is gone as well. She was sitting upright (with a back brace) for a total of 3 hours yesterday. While she is in the wheelchair she likes to do tricep push push-ups/dips. She said to say “hi” and “thank-you” to everyone on here for their support.
That is one hell of an accident. Its good to hear there is some fast progress going on. Tell andrea I wish her the best of fortunes.
“By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe” Zenonth, thats a very good quote.
So I guess everyone has been itching to hear the whole story from my point of view.
But first I wanna thank everyone for all their prayers, thoughts and support ! It means a lot !
So here we go…
The doctors put me on some over the counter cold medications (some were non-drowsy and others made me really sleepy) I had to close at work on Tuesday night and I didn’t realize how tired they made me so I got a Red Bull to try and counteract the sleepy affects. I hardly ever use caffeine so the Red Bull hit me really hard and I was crazy wired. I didn’t get off work til REALLY late, got home around 1:30 or 2…and then by the time I was acctually heading to bed and stuff it was like 3:30. I took some more of the sleepy medicine to try and get tired but it didn’t work and I was still so pumped.
I had to get up at 6 for shooting practice and I didn’t see the point in going to sleep for 2 hours and then being even more tired. So I thought I would go for a prayer walk and waste time until practice. My mom and I were going to be driving to Vancouver later that day to pick up my sister from the airport so I figured I could just sleep the whole way there and I would be good to go.
Anyways…as you saw from Smarrs post…it was a lovely walk I had planned…but the mixture of medications and Red Bull made it seem like a good idea to attempt this cliff. I’m a really good rock climber…so I knew once I was about 5 ft up that I was screwed. The cliff was made of shale, which any rock climber knows is a HUGE NO NO…just to add to the danger, the rocks had recently been blasted for the new road so everything was even looser than usual.
Anyone who has done any climbing can understand that it is 30 times as hard to climb DOWN as it is to climb up. And the landing below the cliff was all sharp jagged rocks so it was impossible to make a concious decision to jump off into that, even though I was only several feet up. However in hindsight I really wish I had! :o So with that, I was left with the only option of UP. I had a few REALLY close calls along the way, the rocks were just falling away like crazy. Several times I’d have to just hang there as rocks from up above were falling on me, hitting my legs and stuff. One time a rock like the size of a pingpong ball got wedged under my foot and and was making it slip so I had to somehow take my foot off the wall and let the rock fall, this caused huge problems as I slipped as I was doing it and was only holding on with one foot and a finger, I dont’ know how but I managed to grab back on and save myself.
A security guard drove by twice while I was stuck up there, but unfortunately I was wearing a grey sweat suit so I was pretty camouflaged against the rock and he didn’t see me either time!
I kept pushing myself to make it to this smooth but gently sloping area, I knew if I could make it there I was in the clear cause it was flat enough that I could probably walk up it. However I was wearing old shoes which were completely worn out and smooth as butter on the bottoms so they had absolutely NO grip, if I had any other shoes or was in barefeet, this would have been no problemo. However when I got onto the smoother rock my shoes were completely unable to gasp and I started to slide! I was smart enough to recognize that there was no hope trying to hold on and I just shoved myself away from the rock face to avoid knocking myself out or hitting my head on the way down, I also turned around in the are so I was facing away from the rock, for the same purpose. I think I must have caught a rock with my butt on the way down cause I have a HUGE bruise on my butt which all the nurses were amazed by. As much as he wanted to I wouldn’t let Herb see it though ! Anyways…back to the fall…it was pretty much slow motion fram by frame the whole way down and then, being the cat I am, I of course landed on my feet. It took about a minute and a half before I was able to take a breath in. Once I was on the ground I was nearly certain that I wasn’t going to survive. The first thing I did was check to see if I was spitting up blood (whenever people die in movies they always spit up blood). I wasn’t, however my nose was bleeding and I was thinking that it couldn’t be a good sign that I hit the ground hard enough to make my nose bleed (I later learned it was acctually because I punched myself in the face on the way down, also giving myself a nice shiner…my first one !! )
So I landed in the ditch of sharp jagged rocks and the first thing I was thinking is if anyone is gonna find me, I HAVE to get onto the road. So it was about a 5ft climb uphill out of the ditch and then about another 5 ft to get onto the road. I knew for sure that my left foot was broken and I could see the bloody mess that the right foot was so I didn’t have big hopes for that one either. I was also pretty certain that my back was broken, so the dragging was all done with my arms, and needless to say it was slow, painful going. But thinking I was a goner anyways I just sucked it up and put the pedal to the metal. I think I was only lying on the road for 2-5 minutes before some construction workers drove by and stopped. I must have been quite the site to see, lying there smiling because I was so embarrased, they just stared for like 2 minutes. Then they finally got out and neither of them had a cell phone so one of them stayed with me while the other drove back down (did I mention that the road was acctually blocked off so I was lucky anyone even drove by at all). So the guy that drove down to find help pulled over some guy who happened to be out jogging at 5 in the morning, and of course to my luck he also happened to be an EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR (apparently that kinda stuff does happen in real life ! :D) He also had a cell phone so they called the ambulance and I was in there within 15 minutes or so.
I always wondered what the ambulance ride was like…pretty chilled. Not to bumpy. You don’t see much besides the ceiling but it’s all pretty much the same as represented on TV! Got to the hospital…mommy was waiting there for me which was a huge relief. As you probably read from Herb’s post, I absolutely demolished my left ankle and my right heel had a HUGE gouge out of it. Some compressed vertebrae in my spine. But thankfully nothing that will cause any long term damage.
I prayed the whole time I was on the rock and it was an absolute miracle that I even survived the fall, let alone came away from it with no long term injuries. Right now I am just SO THANKFUL TO BE ALIVE. It was truly a blessing. And although my summer will not be spent exactly as planned, God has other plans for me and I’m completely at peace with it.
And there it is…
Andrea, I love you!
I’m so glad your okay.
This all happened for a reason, no doubt.
Amanda
xo
Had a Rehabilitaion Services Physiotherapist visit me at home today. I guess that’s cause I can’t leave my house though !
He showed me a bunch of exercises to keep my legs as strong as possible. However Herb says he can already see the muscle disappearing. :eek: I think he’s right. I’m sure I’ve lost some weight. My appetite is still very minimal but I force the food down.
I’ve pulled all of the mucles in the front of my right foot from bearing my weight while getting into and out of my wheelchair. My toes are bruised and sore but it’s not worth putting my whole foot down cause the doctor says it will bust my stitches out if I do. So I’ll deal with the pulled muscles.
On a more positive note. I’m only down to one small bandage covering my heel. I’m going to be removing everything tommorrow and start using some polysporin to get everything healed up faster. The Nurses all said it was absolutely AMAZING how well and fast my cuts are healing.
My back on the other hand is a whole other issue. I’m only on T3’s at the moment. Taking 1 or 2 every 6 hours. And man oh man if I don’t take them every 6 hours…and end up coughing or laughing or anything like that, the pain is excrutiating. I’m trying not to take as many T3s as possible cause I know how bad all that stuff is for your liver and everything (Right Shane? ) But sometimes I just can’t deal with the pain. It will be getting better as time goes on I’m sure.
Today has been really good though. I had my first shower and was moving around really well. Even sat out in the sun and got my hair braided for a few hours ! Overall just felt awesome today. I’m sure things are going to turn out just fine!
errr…uummm…you defenitely make sure to keep taking those T3’s! Your liver will be fine! Its good to hear you had a good day:)