The Lucky Ones

So there’s about 10 lbs of metal that, for lack of a better phrase, is fucking bolted to my lower left leg, foot and ankle. Currently I’m unable to place more than about 2% body weight on that leg due to the significantly painful sensation created by the more than a dozen pins and wires that are now jutting out of the limb at every angle. Somehow these are supposed to absorb the forces generated through use of the leg and transfer them to the frame thats surrounding them, but as of yet they simply inflict pain. Of course, there’s a freshly broken fibula, a still very mangled tibia, and an arthritic ankle down there as well. The point is, my body not only has to get used to lifting, twisting and hauling an extra 10 lbs that have magically appeared on the extremity of a limb, but do so while undergoing an ongoing acupuncture treatment with needles the size of your standard issue wooden pencil.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m just as tired of blogging about this fucking leg drama as you are of reading about it. Just bare with me. This is going somewhere.

Last Fall when I started hitting it hard at the Shed again, the annoyance of having additional weight on the left leg (the cast) motivated my strapping of the equivalent weight to the right ankle. The plastic cast only weighed a few pounds so I was only adding 2.5 lbs to the right side. Being even down below helped with the coordination necessary for campusing and probably helped keep my lower back happy during the long hours hanging. It may not be obvious to the uninitiated, but even hanging (especially at different lock off points) requires a ton of core strength. The proof: after 6 months of hangboard work I could crank out nearly a 10 second front lever the first time I tried one (and had never done a proper straight leg lever prior).

So yesterday I put in an order for a some 10 lb ankle weights, and once they arrive I’ll be strapping one to my right leg during all subsequent workouts. While this sudden increase in load often turns out bad, I’ve seen and experienced the gains that “pushing it” can produce if one keeps their head screwed on straight and is reasonable about their volume as the body adjusts to the additional strain. The one thing I do have going for me is the solid base created this past year where I logged more hours hanging from my fingers alone than most climbers log in their entire career. 20 additional pounds of training weight means that I’ll be fooling my arms into thinking I weigh about 190. Shit. Even tipping the scales at that number, I’m nowhere near Elijah’s pre pneumonia training weight.

Most training days will suck. They’ll suck bad, but not nearly as bad as trying to make myself dinner afterwards or attempting to sleep with pins sticking out of my leg. And I’m fine with it that way because, really, as many a passer by has reminded - I’m the lucky one. Your average person on the street likes to point out the good fortune I was dealt by landing on my feet instead of my head last year, or that merely shattering a left leg in a climbing accident is far better than dying in a car accident. While they’re technically correct and I agree that things can always be worse, I don’t see things that way at all.

My, and every other sick or injured person’s luck is in their struggle. We’re the lucky ones because in our fight to survive and recover we are granted continuous access to that bittersweet nectar that is challenge. Sure it hurts. It hurts like hell, but just behind the thin vale of pain is something pure and beautiful. Call it love; call it wisdom; or simply call it strength of character, but that energy which powers all that we do gets supercharged by these experiences, and that, my friends, is the greatest gift one may ever receive. So yes, we are the lucky ones.