Under the Cast

 In all my years of working as a nurse, somehow the realm of broken bones was something I never had to deal with. Maybe I keep the wrong company, and quite possibly it is not polite dinner conversation, but no one ever talks about what it looks like under a cast and what to expect when it comes off. 

I expected that maybe my calf muscles would appear smaller. I anticipated a hairy leg (not unlike Sasquatch), but the skin on my foot? I really had no idea, nor have I really thought much about the work our skin does on the daily (as a massage therapist who touches skin, you’d think I’d be an expert 😂). Our body is always generating new skin cells and shedding the old; we are in a constant state of turnover. Apparently, we shed 30,000-40,000 skin cells every hour. In a year, that’s about 8 lbs (3.6 kg) of skin cells that we shed! It’s one of the reasons we need to dust our homes. Seriously. 

How Many Skin Cells Do We Shed Every Day? | HowStuffWorks

As I said, I hadn’t seriously thought much about all of this until my ortho appointment this past Wednesday. I was scheduled for cast removal and an X-ray to see how things were progressing. As the cast was split, I was feeling a tiny glimmer of freedom and independence. Then one final cut and then, in patient-mode not nurse-mode, I was seeing my leg after four weeks. Does everyone’s feet look so dry, so scaly when a cast comes off? (Warning: yucky foot picture. Keeping it real!)

I made my way to X-ray and as I’m checking out this gross finding, a sweet older woman who said she’s had her fair share of  experience offered reassurance that this was very normal. I was relieved but also feeling sorry for the person doing my pedicure next Friday. 

Soon, the X-ray was done and the doctor was in to see me, pressing on my ankle and asking about pain. It was uncomfortable but okay enough and he said he’d have been worried if I was having more pain. The x-ray did not look as far along in the healing process as he would’ve hoped. We talked about all the things that I could be doing like calcium, magnesium, protein, and hydration, all of which I was already doing. He said the tibial break was bad enough that he was a little surprised I hadn’t needed surgery. He said that because I was a young woman (did he look at my chart or was he being nice? 😃), active and doing regular strength training that I probably avoided surgery in part due to those reasons. I’ll take that as a win! 

The bottom part of my tibia seems like such a small part of the bone, but it has caused quite the inconvenience. The ankle joint and the bones that make it up aren’t massive, but so very important. Kind of like life. When we feel helpless to know what to do, how to do something big to make an impact, I’m reminded by this tiny bit of bone, that even the smallest act of kindness, of extending grace and a helping hand can be enormously life-changing.  

You know what else is like life? The cast and the skin underneath. Sometimes I put up an armor to protect myself. I get defensive with my words, I feel the need to prove my point. I feel insecure and I try to hide what’s underneath.. but when that cast inevitably has to come off, what is underneath becomes evident. Layers of life, good, funny, difficult, scary, sad, joyful, at peace. All of it is me. I’m learning to be real, without a mask, without a hard cast. It’s also a reminder that no matter how pretty the outside covering looks, if what is underneath is ugly, it’ll eventually reveal itself. 

Remember those fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? When the cast is removed, that’s what I want to be evident in my life. 

As for my feet, I’ve got 3 days until my pedicure. I.  Can’t. Wait. 

Onward. 

Love, Dianne

Keeping in Step

One year ago 19 January 2025

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

At 6 weeks and 2 days into this random unplanned adventure I am down to three days until the cast comes off (Wednesday!!) and hopefully I’ll be able to be at least partial weight-bearing. As I’m in the house on another beautiful, snowy Sunday with Facebook reminding me of wintry hikes in recent years on the same day, I could be sad, but somehow I am not. 

That evening when I misstepped and broke my ankle, here’s how my thoughts went: 

• “Ooooh, that’s not good”, as I was still mid-fall. I just knew. 
• “I guess I won’t be enjoying that cuppa coffee”, also mid-fall as the coffee left my cup into the air. 
• “Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t break my beautiful coffee mug.” 
• “Maybe not the mug, but I’m 99.8% sure my ankle is broken.” 
• “I am not going to let this pull me under, drag me down, take me to a dark place.” 

That last thought, as I sat on the snowy ground, holding my leg to get my foot off the ground and rocking back and forth with the pain, may have been part of the 

“…somehow I am not sad” reason. I know me. I know my tendency to look at the glass have empty, to worry about what I have no control over, and to find myself in a place where depression crowds out joy, and anxiety creates chaos in my thoughts and reactions. 

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time.” — Corrie Ten Boom

Taking it one day at a time.

Just one step at a time. 

That’s all I needed to do. 

Rest. 

Heal. 

Adapt. 

Find Balance. 

When I shifted my focus from what seemed like disaster to what I could learn from this, from thinking “this will be forever” to “it’s a season of change and growth”, it helped. 

My anxiety stayed quiet. 

My depression was controlled. 

Joy showed up. 

Strength found a

My coffee mug from that evening isn’t a reminder of an unfortunate accident, but a reminder of being cared for and sustained even in the midst of falling. God shows up in crazy ways like that. I don’t understand it, and it’s not always as easy as maybe this makes it sound, but again, I know me and I know where I could be right now, how miserable these past weeks could’ve been. 

I am thankful. 

Onward. 

Love, Dianne 

Thinking on Fruit

 

In the world of creating habits, the 21/90 rule is a guideline suggesting it takes 21 days to form a new habit and 90 days to make that habit a permanent lifestyle change by encouraging a person to start small, sticking with a goal for three weeks to build the habit, and then continuing for another three months to solidify it as a part of your life. 

Day 37. I’m beyond the “21 days” and starting to understand why crutches feel normal, how I’ve fallen into habits with my daily routine, and also now with getting back to work, seeing 2-4 people on the days I work using the knee scooter. I’ve thankfully found ways to make it work. My goal is to not make the majority of the changes I’ve needed to make over the past 37 days part of a 90 day permanent lifestyle change, but maybe there are some things I’ll take forward with me. Only 10 more days and then hopefully another good X-ray and then I’ll be able to get back to some weight-bearing; even partially will be great! 

Something I have thought a lot about, especially this week in a world that is in so much turmoil, is how life can become routine, that I can just go through the motions without intention. Then things come in that disrupt the ordinary and it feels like our day-to-day becomes insignificant in light of it all. The tragedies that have happened this week in the world, the ugly words that have been spoken, the anger that has been in abundance, the hurt that is deep and I feel like I shouldn’t be focused on anything but the dark and the ugly. That somehow to focus on healing and the beauty that is still around me would be wrong somehow.

I have thought a lot about how helpless I feel to know just how to have a voice, to take a stand, to speak for those who don’t have a voice. I don’t have some big social media platform, nor do I feel like that is something I even want to strive for. Yes, I have this little blog where I share my thoughts, some insights, occasionally humor, and well, just the stuff of life that I want to remember. It’s my way of tucking a diary into the corner of the attic for someone to stumble upon; maybe someone will read what I write and be inspired, find hope or see life in a new way. 

I have thought a lot about Galatians 5:22-23, where Paul wrote about the “fruit of the spirit”. When I feel helpless to change the course of events in the world, to not even know where to take a stand or how, then I think about my own life and maybe I can make a difference in smaller, quiet ways by:

showing love, 

sharing joy, 

creating peace, 

providing patience, 

extending kindness,

being goodness,

remaining faithful,

treating with gentleness,

practicing self-control. 

I can still have an impact in the quiet, small ways that eventually add up. It’s like the pebbles in the dam that help hold the large stones in place. You need both to create a solid wall that does the work it’s asked to do. 

I’ve had more time to think these last weeks. December felt long (some days had to have way more than 24 hours), but as the days have gone by, I’ve created  some new routines, habits are forming. It’s not been a bad thing. I’m reading more, resting more, learning the art of contentment. Some of the fruits have especially come into play like patience, joy and peace. Maybe it’s time to focus even more on all the fruits I want to have available to harvest in my life, not just for 21 days, but for 90 and beyond. 

Onward. 

Love, Dianne

Five Minutes

January 1, 2026 is now a date of the past and I am rather glad. I’ve been seeing everybody’s posts about first day hikes, and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t bother me a little. I’m sad and a bit emotional that I was unable to participate this year. I’ve had four weeks to prepare for this day, knowing that it wasn’t going to happen and being OK with that, but when the day came and there was a beautiful snow, I was sad. I’ve done really well in this whole process of keeping depression at bay, overall being able to stay quite positive in a way that has surprised even myself. I’m still that person, but I have moments where it’s a struggle to not give into the more negative, glass-half-empty, side of me. 

Occasionally, I get asked why I started strength training with a barbell, and why I enjoy it so much. It started nearly three years ago when I wanted to learn something new to do in the gym. The barbell was scary to me. I didn’t know what to do with it and I thought, maybe it would help me to get stronger and look better.  Since then, it’s become more than that for me. 

• I like structure and routine; a plan with logical progression. Barbell strength training gives me that. I need that right now, more than ever when it feels like there are things that I like to control are out of my control. 
• I like progression, but having it balanced with rest days, reset weeks, and de-loads.  Barbell strength training gives me that. I’ve learned to be okay with the quieter days like this past month has been.
• I’ve learned the value in failing and having a “bad” day. On the flip side, I’ve learned how to celebrate the highs and “good” days. Ultimately I have learned how to give myself the “five minutes” (sometimes more, sometimes less) to feel the lows and to celebrate the highs, but then I keep on doing what needs to be doing. Barbell strength training helped me to hone that perspective.

So, here I am, 4 weeks into healing and this last week has had almost zero pain and swelling, I have increased endurance and a continued learning curve on how to be active even with an injury. Maybe it wasn’t a New Year’s Day hike, but on 28 December, when the weather wasn’t snowy or icy, the mud wasn’t ridiculous and the temperatures more moderate, I got out for a walk on the driveway on crutches. I started out with 1/10th of a mile, then made it to the end of the driveway and back, almost 6/10th mile. It took me an hour but I ended up with 1.1 mile, and definitely one of the more challenging miles I’ve done! 

As for the New Year and not being able to hike on the day, I gave myself 5 minutes, then got out to the gym next day and was able to hit personal bests on Larsen Press for a new 1RM, 3RM, and 5RM. Even with an injury and a variant on Bench Press that eliminates the use of leg drive, I’m getting close to my regular Bench Press numbers. I’ve been also doing seated overhead presses and these challenge me in a new way. I’m loving seeing these weights also increase. 

Nineteen more days until the cast comes off. I have a choice each day how to handle it. I choose strength of mind, of body, and of heart with my faith, friendships and family as support. 

Onward.

Love, Dianne

Keep the Streak Alive

 Twenty-two days…although it feels a little like 84 years…Some people have Run Streaks where they run at least a mile every day for as many days as they can. I was on a good trajectory for the first 5 days of December with 17 miles already logged and was feeling good. I was thinking about doing some winter backpacking, and day hikes in new places and I was also getting some miles in on the treadmill (you know, to avoid the icy weather…)

So much for avoiding the slippery snow…now I’m in the beginning stages of a different sort of streak: I am on Day 22 of NOT walking or running at least a mile a day. I wish I could say it doesn’t bother me, but I miss it. The sunset walks on the driveway. The quiet treks around Mount Davis. The random Sunday afternoons exploring New Germany, Laurel Hill, Kooser, or Herrington Manor State Parks. Searching AllTrails for a trail I’ve never tried or getting onto my favorite Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail.

 

Miles of rocks…no injuries.
 The driveway did me in. 

At the end of my first 70 mile solo hike. 
I’ll be back. 

How was this past week? Last weekend was rough. I started with calf pain on the injured side on Friday. It was mild, on-and-off, and I wasn’t too concerned. Then on Saturday, it progressively got worse and more frequent. Calling the doctor on Sunday, we were directed to go to the ER. Once there, they did a D-Dimer lab which if elevated, can indicate a possible blood clot. Mine was elevated, so I got a Lovenox (a blood thinner) injection, the cast was removed (just two days ahead of my ortho follow-up), and I was scheduled for an ultrasound the next day.

 After a restless, painful night of sleep, we went for the ultrasound and thankfully that showed no issues in the main veins. The pain in my calf shifted from a more specific area to what would feel like a 45-60 minute labor contraction that would not let up for anything. After seeing Ortho on Tuesday, I increased the magnesium glycinate I was already taking, and they started me on aspirin 162 mg twice a day. I was X-rayed again and things looked like how they hoped: The bones that broke are still in good placement (yay!) but they need more time to be stable, so I’m back in a cast for 4 more weeks (not so yay). This time it’s green. It reminds me of the forest. Leo might say it’s for “John Deere.” 

Then the family arrived home and I’ve had some wonderful snuggle and giggle times with the grandchildren, some laughs and conversations with the adults, and a new appreciation of what it means to graciously accept help. I want to be able to be independent as much as I can, but I’ve had more than a few near-falls and some harder-than-should-be touchdowns of the left foot as I try and save myself. 

Twenty-two days. Maybe I need to think about what else I can do to have a streak that feels better than focusing in on what I can’t do. 

• Nutrition: hitting my protein, fiber and calcium goals. 
• Reading at least a chapter a day from any book. 
• Doing something for my education, even just 30 minutes a day. In a week, that’s 3.5 hours towards my continuing education for massage therapy, nursing, and personal training certifications and licenses. 
• I can hit at least 1000 steps on crutches. Maybe go for 2000. 
• Maybe not a daily streak, but I can keep getting the 3x/week of upper body strength training in. 

Twenty-two days. It’s not so bad. I’m figuring out a plan to be able to work some, hopefully my end of year bookwork and taxes will be done in good time, and I’m learning how to be at peace with where I’m at. Not always perfectly, but I’d rather be a work in progress than not at all. 

Onward. 

Love, Dianne