"Shoulda Been Here Yesterday"

Once again I've gone for far too long without updating my blog. I'm finally walking again after my January accident. Being non-weight bearing was boring, to say the least, and pretty frustrating. More waiting than I would care to do. Since I've gotten free from my wheelchair, however, the pace picked up very quickly. I began walking again just in time for final exams. Once all of my studying was done and exams had ended, I began working for the summer as an engineering intern.

The summer has been a blur since work started; I can't believe that just about a month ago, I was finishing up the remainder of my final exams. More significantly, it's been just over five whole months since I broke my leg. I'm still experiencing tightness and pain in my knee, and I've become a human barometer. I've regained my entire range of motion, however, and I continue to feel just a little better every day. I've been trying to swim as often as I can in the mornings, and when I do manage to make it to the pool, I'm very proud of my workouts. I've swam as far as a half of a mile some mornings, and I've begun mixing in some deep-water "running" workouts using floatation belts. The past week and a half, my workouts have been hampered by morning stiffness. It has returned with a vengance some mornings, and has devilishly coaxed me into talking myself out of working out. I'm afraid that I might be flaring up, as my back started to act up two days ago and I noticed heel pain that had been long gone, but most certainly not forgotten. This strange early June weather may be to blame as well, with the storms, fluctuating temperatures and the damp nights. Hopefully I can persevere through the pain and continue my workouts until the soreness subsides.

I have work tomorrow morning, and I'm going to swim beforehand; I won't let my morning soreness get me this time. I need this for myself. I hope to begin updating more regularly as time allows, and I apologize for the long hiatus between posts.

Stay positive and stand tall!

-Tim

So, while I planned on updating at least twice a week, I always seem to lose track of the days. Before I know it, it's the following week and I still haven't updated. However, as promised I have electronic copies of my x-rays to put up.

Here's the first one, just a shot of my left knee. I sustained a fracture to my medial tibial plateau (green arrow), depression of the lateral tibial plateau (blue arrow), avulsion fracture of the femur from my MCL (red arrow) and a more run-of-the-mill transverse tibial fracture (yellow arrow). Here's another picture, this one of my whole tibia, and with the colors "swapped". You can much more clearly see the damage to my lateral plateau and the transverse fracture is more obvious than before.


Cool photos, huh? I'm sure similar pictures would look much better now; I'm 8 weeks into the healing process and now have 75 degrees range of motion in the brace, with my actual knee having a little over 90 without the brace on. Tomorrow I have an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon followed by PT, so I'll probably be exhausted when I get home, but I'll definitely post on Friday to talk about whatever my O.S. says. The physical therapist seems to think that I may get toe-touch weight-bearing status! Good news to me, but not getting my hopes up about this brutal injury. I can't wait to move forward in PT though, and start doing more exercises with light weight. I think I'm most excited to get on the exercise bike. That'll not only help my leg, but my spirits too.

Until next time, stay safe and healthy.

-Tim

Hey everyone,

You're all probably wondering what's happened to me. I have been too. It's been too long since I've written a post to those who have followed me through my training and races, and for that I'm very sorry. Once school started in September, I became pretty busy and really wasn't able to actively race. Unfortunately, I let the blog lapse through the Fall semester, and I feel like I've let down all of those people who have been so supportive over the past year. I'm determined to get back to racing and raising awareness as soon as I can.

However, this may not come to fruition as soon as I may hope. On January 7th, I went snowboarding in Pennsylvania. I had the unfortunate experience of hitting a tree on my 5th run of the day. I sustained two tibial plateau fractures, a transverse tibial fracture, an avulsion fracture of my femur, a grade 3 sprain (complete tear) of my MCL, and microfractures of the patella. I really did a number on my knee, and having AS makes matters for that knee even worse. I'm now more than 6 weeks into the initial recovery phase - I will need to be non weight bearing for 12 weeks - and things are best case scenario. I've started physical therapy this past week, and my therapist seems to think I will run again! That's great news, considering the severity of my injuries. Things are looking up again.

The blog has come back to life. I'm going to post at least on the days that I have physical therapy (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and I hope to be back to at least riding my bike over the Summer. I'm aiming to ride the Twin Lights Historic Ride this September in the Atlantic Highlands. Monmouth County, NJ is a great place,  and I'd love for nothing more than to have my first event back from injury be a ride through the hills near the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. I'll bring more info to everyone in the coming days. Also, I'd like to treat everyone to something special in the coming weeks: my x-rays from January 7th. I happen to have everything on CDs, and I think it would be pretty neat to put the films up on the blog.

Hope everyone is well, and I'm glad to be back to posting.
Stay healthy!

-Tim

Hey everyone. It's been a very busy fall, and I'm sure a lot of you are surprised to hear from me. I discovered just how tough it is to balance a full schedule of engineering classes, be active in extra-curricular activities, and keep up with my health. I've always had trouble with balancing my schoolwork, and I finally seem to have my act together this semester. Little by little, I've been able to balance more and more activities and events. Sometime in the middle of the semester, I unfortunately stopped going to the gym, as I felt I was having trouble with squeezing in workouts and doing well in school. My body definitely felt the consequences of losing an exercise routine. I discovered that simply keeping up with my stretches is not enough to keep my body feeling good. The stress of college hasn't helped out much with that either. However, I'm rededicating myself to making time for fitness. I know that once I get back in the gym, back in the pool and running again, I'm going to want to race again. I need this, and I know that the Ankylosing Spondylitis community needs my help. I'm starting to finally find a total balance in my life, a balance between all of the things I love and enjoy. Exercise and racing need to be a part of that balance, and I've decided to run the Big Chill 5k here at Rutgers next month. I'm getting over a really bad cold, but I hope to start running again on Friday, and maybe post a fairly decent time in December. I'm just glad to be back working on maintaining my health through fitness, and glad to be racing to raise awareness again. You will definitely be hearing more from me very soon.

-Tim

Haven't posted in a very long time; I've been so caught up with schoolwork that I've barely had time for workouts, never mind blog posts. I've finally gotten into a routine at school (it's about time, it's October), and I'd like to make regular posts on the order of two to three a week, at the very least. The Two If By Land, One If By Sea went better than my wildest dreams; I'll post my time and the results. My university's newspaper, The Daily Targum, highlighted my awareness campaign today. I had an article as "Person of the Week" and I'm honored that they chose to write about me and help me to get the word out. You can click here to read the article. I'm keeping it short and sweet today, since I'm really busy, but tomorrow I'll update in-depth on everything that's happened since my last post. I just wanted to check in and let everyone know that I'm still here and still working to the best of my ability. Hope everyone is well and check in tomorrow for the latest!

-Tim

Here comes the Two If By Land, One If By Sea. I've been real busy at school and I suffered a minor setback this past week. After complaining about "allergies" for the first part of the week, I realized Thursday night that all of the OTC allergy medications weren't able to tame what I had. After a brief doctor's visit on Saturday, and one prescription for Augmentin later, I'm finally feeling better. I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be better in time for the race, but once my symptoms started to clear up fairly quickly, I knew I'd be able to compete. I know that I may not be 100 percent for race day; if that's the case, I'm going to take it slow and steady, at my own pace. I've promise myself that I will finish. I owe it to my family, to my friends, to the readers of this blog, and to everyone with AS. I can't say enough "Thank You"s to the people who make this possible for me and who are always there to lend a helping hand. This goes double for my brother Tyler. Ty and I suffered through all 6 hours of the 100-plus degree Virginia heat in July and, after a last minute change of plans, agreed to jump on board at the last minute for Sunday. I can't thank him enough.

In other news, I attended the first meeting of the Rutgers Triathlon Club last night. They all seem like really cool people and their coach is awesome. I spoke to him after the meeting and told him all about my story and what I do. He actually got into tris by doing adventure racing first, so he knows exactly where I'm coming from. I think it'll be cool to train with them a few times a week and do a few 5k races this Fall, so stay tuned for more about that!

Finally, I have really great news. The article was published in the Staten Island Advance today! If you live on the South Shore of Staten Island, you'll get the article. Everyone else that's interested can check it out here on silive.com. Finally getting out the good news about Rigid Racing!

Hopefully I'll be able to update once more before the race, and let everyone know about those pre-race jitters. Thanks again to everyone who helps make this possible and remember, even if you feel like the whole world is against you: Stop. Take a deep breath, and another if you need it. Repeat after me, "I can. I will."


-Tim

Things have been really busy again, with getting ready for school, packing up, moving in and starting classes in the past week. I've finally started to settle into the new routine and was able to make it to the gym yesterday. I've decided that I really need to set a schedule for myself so that I can stay healthy, do well in school, and still accomplish the goals I continue to set for myself in the realm of adventure racing and raising awareness for AS. Tonight's the first Rutgers football game of the year, so I'll be able to relax with my friends and hang out at the game. Hopefully, I'll be able to hit the gym early tomorrow morning before any Hurricane Earl-related weather shows face in the area. I'm really excited for this race and I'm feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of the 10k. I don't plan on running all of it, but I will definitely try to crank out at least half. Even with walking it home, I think my final time for the race is going to be halfway decent. Also, to help stay in shape over the winter months, I might be doing some training with the newly-formed Rutgers Triathlon Club. A friend of mine, who lived on my floor in the dorm freshman year, got into doing Tris and helped get the club started. I spoke with him at the involvement fair here at school, and I really look forward into swimming and spinning workouts with them!

-Tim