It has been an interesting year. I pulled out of Paracanoe competition last summer to prevent further injury to my right shoulder. In September, I had surgery on my right shoulder to remove the tip of my clavicle and clean up scar tissue in the joint and 12 weeks later I was back to my Paracanoe training routine. My weight in strength training continued to increase, I was paddling 7,000 - 8,000 meters during my erg sessions, and my pool training to get reaquainted with my K1 was going well. Life was good and I felt I was making good strides down what I thought was my path to winning a spot on the US Paracanoe team, until...
Mid February, I was doing a bench press and I got a muscle spasm, aka trigger point, in my lower trapezius. I stopped my workout, did some stretching and got a hot shower, hoping to relax the trigger point. A week later, I woke up to a stiffness in my entire upper right back area and within about 20 minutes, the tip of my thumb went numb. So I got a massage appointment to workout the trigger points, which were big at this point. The following week I had another massage to break down the trigger points some more, but I had also made an appointment with my orthopaedic.
My orthopaedic informed me that swelling around my C 5-6 vertebrae was causing the numbness, along with the possibility that some of the trigger points were pinching the the nerve. I got a cortisone shot in the biggest trigger point and a dose pack of methylprednisolone for the disk swelling. In addition to this, I continued massage therapy and had some dry needling done to reset the trigger points.
Yes, you read that right, dry needling, which is a procedure where my PT inserts a 30, 40, or 50 mm thin needle into my trigger points to cause muscle twitches that releases spasm in the muscle. It feels like worms wiggling under your skin. One of my trigger points was so tight, it bent her needles. Surprisingly, it actually released all my trigger points in my scapular/rotator cuff area. My numbness in my right thumb went from being around my thumbnail and my thumb pad to just the left side of my thumb pad. I was happy with the progress, though I knew there was more to it.
I went to a spine specialist, per request of my ortho if symptoms did not fully resolve in a month. He tested my strength, isolated my numbness, and then got the X-rays of my neck. Well, my gut feeling kicked in as the nurse pulled up my scans that something was not 100% and the doctor confirmed this feeling. The trigger points were the smoke from the fire in my C 5-6 vertebrae area that showed some spurring and surprisingly my C 6-7 area looked worse, but I had no side effects from that area. The plus side is that I am in no pain, just a little annoying numbness that he said should heal in a year or two, he did not think I needed a cortisone shot, and he definitely would not do surgery.
The downside came when I asked him what I needed to do to prevent further damage. His advice was to limit my chin to shoulder/shoulder to chin movement and that is when it sank in hard that my sprint paddling career had just been greatly affected. Why? My sprint paddle stroke is a chin to shoulder movement at almost two strokes per second to propel my K1 up to peak speeds from 11 - 15 mph. For Rio training, I would be paddling up to 20 km a week. This weekly distance, along with the forces exerted on my body to reach sprint speeds, were not adding up to positive outcome in my favor.
Throughout our lives we have to make decisions, costs versus reward. When I was first diagnosed with bone cancer, I thought I could never live a good life with one leg, yet I continue to be blessed. I am a competitor which is why the decision to stop training for the Paralympics was a disheartening one to make. Sprint training is rigorous and for me the long term risks of continuing for a short term goal of Rio is not worth it.
In my prayers, I simply asked to be guided down the path on which God wants me to follow. Sometimes that path is not leading to your intended destination, but bringing people into your life so you can make a positive impact in theirs. My sprint training path led me to Bridge II Sports, "B2S". Since one of the reasons for me leaving the Y was to get more physically challenged athletes into kayaking, I have been redirected to my roots.
Now I am heavily involved in getting the first truly accessible dock for physically challenged paddlers in North Carolina built at Crabtree Lake and helping B2S develop a kayak program for its participants. In addition, my kayaking program with the Town of Cary has tripled in size in the past year. My love for kayaking will still be fulfilled and my life will move forward.
Will I ever wonder "What if?"?, yes, but that fork in my path will now be behind me and I need to focus on my new one.
