News from Jules | 04.15.2024 | Break a Leg: Part 2
Community isn’t built on luck, it’s built on faith.
On that first day of bed rest after my ski accident on March 8 followed by a spiritual retreat that weekend, I was propped up in my queen hotel bed—two pillows behind me and two pillows elevating my broken right leg above my heart—as the shock finally faded and reality sunk in. Just like when ibuprofen wore off and suddenly my leg was throbbing in pain—it hit me.
Can’t walk, no hands, no kitchen, no roommate. I was on my own now.
It was a huge effort just to get out of bed and hobble on the crutches 10 feet to the bathroom without bearing any weight on my fractured right Fibula (shin bone). And I couldn’t carry anything, thus found myself throwing whatever I needed—water bottle, ice pack, orange—across the room and hoping it landed on the bed. When I dropped a spoon or pill under the nightstand, well that was as good as gone.
Luckily, my mini-fridge was stocked from a grocery run and meal prep I did the day before the accident, including a few meals of vegetable curry with brown rice, a bag of popcorn, and a chocolate bar. I couldn’t have planned it better myself! Ready for anything? Not really. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
I was going to need a lot of help.
A lot more help.
Just like how Ski Patrol helped me out of the terrain park and back to the lodge.
How my sister and her family helped me get my car off the mountain and situated at the Womxn’s spiritual group retreat.
How the 14 mostly new-to-me womxn* helped me with every need—finding ibuprofen, serving meals, refilling ice packs, refreshing tea, finding matching beads for the craft project, and even buying me a beer for Saturday night’s happy hour session. And then helped drive my car home, drop me off and bring me home from Urgent Care, loan me crutches, and supply me with painkillers, ice packs, and snacks.
Those first 48 hours were a preview of the next month of recovery.
“Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know,” wisely said Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön.
Oh right, I knew this lesson.
This was the lesson I didn’t learn when I had early-stage cervical cancer and minor surgery in July 2011 and I only told my closest friends and family. Recovery was quick and easy and my communities were none the wiser. Years later, a colleague remarked: What a burden you had to bear on your own. Why didn’t you tell us? We could’ve helped.
So willing to give, why was it so hard for me to ask for help? I wondered.
Or to realize that I needed help?
This was the lesson that I did learn from my bike accident in June 2018. The accident was minor, but I was on crutches and couldn’t work for weeks. As the swollen throbbing of my kneecap calmed down in those first few days and I found myself quietly sitting around my apartment alone, I noticed a hollow aching pain near my heart—feeling helpless and incapable of taking care of myself like I’d always feared.
Will my needs be met? Will others be there to take care of me? I wondered.
While on bed rest I watched the documentary, Heal, and I had an epiphany. My only job was to heal well and heal fast. To do that, I needed to ask for help and accept every offer.
So, I did. Uncomfortably, awkwardly, and sheepishly. My various communities in Portland showed up with support and help until I was back on my feet again, physically, mentally, and financially.
This was the same lesson I learned again during my abdominal surgery and complications in November 2022, a minor-turned-major-turned-minor series of procedures that required weeks of bed rest and healing while I was on the road, thus tapping into my communities across the country for support.
Even though I’ve learned this lesson so many times, I remain hesitant to ask. I need to remember that community isn’t built on luck, it’s built on faith.
Community is not only a group of people with shared attitudes, interests, values and/or goals, but an implicit commitment to take care of each other in a web of reciprocal relationships. Otherwise, it isn’t community, it’s just a group of individuals. At least that’s what I had believed and contributed to all of my life.
I needed to believe in that quote on the Yogi teabag that I saved from the first retreat that I attended in February and stuck in my journal as a reminder:
“Be fearless; Know that all will be provided at the right time.”
And so, I swallowed my pride and made a Meal Train for help with meals. I also created a list in Google Documents to track everything else I needed—meds, errands, rides—and anyone who offered to help. Then, I reached out further to my local climbing, skiing, spiritual, work, and employee housing communities with the news.
The meals started showing up the next day. And I focused on healing.
Plus, a surprising amount of paperwork, coordination, and hours of waiting on hold to apply for lost wages support, process work accommodations, access disabled parking, and get timely care from Urgent Care, Primary Care Providers (PCP), Orthopedic referrals, and physical therapy.
I saw progress every day. A series of firsts and baby steps.
Until I could drive myself to the clinic, I did physical therapy over telemedicine to learn how to properly wear the boot and walk with crutches, then sustain range of motion and limit muscle atrophy with daily exercises. A couple of times a week, friends came over to help me get into the hotel’s heated pool to swim a few laps and practice walking. Coworkers gave me rides to start working short, seated shifts at REI within a couple of weeks. And I took my first unassisted, barefoot baby steps at one month post-injury. That night, I celebrated by attending a Yin Yoga class.
Throughout the class, the teacher kept bringing me more props—more blankets, more yoga blocks, an eye mask—until I could relax and feel completely supported. Because just like healing, the goal of Yin is to exert the least amount of effort possible. Maybe 20 percent. That’s why it’s restorative and regenerative.
And I saw regression every other day. The pain and growth wore me down and left my body exhausted.
It woke me up in the middle of some nights throbbing and aching—that’s when the loneliness hit—because the only way out of the pain was medicine or an ice pack that was across the room. And the only one there to get it was me.
And it left me in a puddle of tears when I learned the news of others’ struggles: Someone in the Emergency Room (ER), someone in the Intensive Care Unit, someone’s miscarriage and someone’s cancer diagnosis. These were the nights I ate a pint of non-dairy ice cream and the mornings when it was hard to get out of bed and open the shades to let the sunshine in.
And then, my phone would ping with a random text from a Mt. Bachelor coworker who was picking up my DoorDash order or an Instagram message about happy hour from a former Nike coworker passing through town. Or I’d run into a neighbor in the parking lot who was willing to hop in and ride along on my first test drive. Or hotel housekeeping would send someone over to change my bed and clean my room.
It takes the whole village. Not only to raise a child, but to heal a human.
This is why we can’t depend on only one caregiver, one partner or spouse, one best friend, one family, or even one community nowadays. It is not in our independence, but in our interdependence, that we find security for the safe and healthy environment necessary for healing and recovery. I believe this because I’ve experienced it so many times now in ever-expanding ways.
Know that all will be provided at the right time.
This Friday marks six weeks since my ski accident.
See photos of my recovery and gratitude on Instagram.
I have started walking—slowly, achingly—unassisted by crutches or the boot, which is considered “fully recovered” by the doctors and “right on schedule.”
I won’t truly be “fully recovered” until I return to pre-injury levels of activity each week. For instance, easefully doing a 75-minute Healing Flow yoga class, a two-hour indoor climbing session, a 30-minute weight lifting workout, a five-mile bike ride and a three-mile hiking loop on the Deschutes River Trail, as part of starting training for mountaineering season this summer/fall. I suspect that’s still another six weeks or so on the horizon.
New X-rays confirmed strong bone growth—calluses forming around the shin fracture that will continue filling in the bone over the next month or two—and my right leg's range of motion, strength, and flexibility indicate the potentially sprained ligaments in my ankle are regenerating as well.
The doctor and physical therapist say I am healing impressively well and fast.
It was a lucky break.
And I asked for help and accepted every offer.
I believe that I am being healed by love.
May you have the courage to ask for help this week.
Love,
Jules
*Womxn is an alternative spelling, especially in intersectional feminism, which is preferred by this community to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequences m-a-n and m-e-n, and to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary womxn.