My life for the last six months has been a bumpy ride on the roller coaster. Two fractured ankles, weeks of physical therapy and an organized community event of 300 people later, I’m finally getting back to normal life.
Last six months, my poor blog has almost been sitting orphaned. But no more. I don’t have many recipes to share, yet, as I have not been cooking much beyond the basics for almost 5 of those six months. While I have started cooking full-time again, the dreary, snow filled days don’t allow many photography opportunities to a camera challenged person like me.
It all started when I had this sudden pain in the ankle that I assumed to be a simple sprain. It had happened once before, in June, on my left leg and the doctor had suspected tendonitis. It happened during a Zumba© sessions ( I am also a certified Zumba© instructors, and love taking classes). It had been OK after three weeks or so. Now this was the other leg, and I didn’t really have a ‘reason’ for the pain. It appeared one fine morning, out of the blue. I assumed it was tendonitis as well. Labor Day weekend was a nightmare.
Two weeks of hobbling and extreme discomfort finally forced me to go for an X-Ray. The crack showed up pretty clear. The dapper, dashing, smiling doctor put me into an enormous boot cast. He told me that in three weeks, I should be able to walk without the boot.
Happy, I slowly started planning for the event-of-the-year for our local Indian organization with a huge team of dedicated and extraordinarily talented volunteers. It involves a very colorful cultural program, food and a lot of dancing. I love teaching kids Bollywood dance numbers every year. This year wasn’t any different, yet it was different. This time, I didn’t have my feet to dance with. Instead, I used my hands and mouth to explain what I wanted the kids to do. It was fun.
I followed all instructions to the T. 10-12 hours of constant resting. I work from home for most time, so if I wasn’t working, I was sleeping.
Three weeks later, I went back to the doctor. He checked my ankle and told me that it was healing well, but it would be another couple of weeks before I could put weight on it. Meanwhile, I informed him that my other ankle was bothering me a tiny bit, so maybe he could take a look at it too?
That’s when he gave me the lovely news. It was a fracture as well. But just not any fracture. It was a refracture. Remember all that hobbling I did in June thinking it to be a tendonitis? Well, that had been a fracture too! And now it had re-fractured because it got overloaded from supporting my leg in the boot.
And there began the worst three weeks I have had in a long time. Pain killers, sleeping and depression went hand in hand. As a fighter, I don’t have much patience for taking things lying down. So finally, beginning of week three, I got up, and decided to simply start getting back to normal life. I landed at the Physical Therapy place, crutches and all, and asked them to help me get back to my feet.
They did. I have an extraordinary team of Physical Therapists. It’s a long road to recovery still, but I am mobile, and guess what….the Diwali Event was beautiful,and a huge, huge success. The children danced with all their heart, we had a blast, and I even joined a group of ladies on stage to dance!
Sharing stories of personal discomfort can be challenging, and makes me uneasy. I couldn’t bring myself to write about any of this earlier…..but I think it’s important to share some things, specially as the reason for my fracture is appalling lack of Vitamin D which stops absorption of calcium in the body, leading to bone density issues. My case is really minor, but coupled with strenuous high impact exercise routines, wrong shoes and possibly lack of proper warm up for some of my routines might have caused the stress that eventually led to the cracks.
An adult on an average needs about 600 IUs of Vitamin D a day. In deficiency case, that can increase upto 1200 IUs. If you don’t get any sunlight at all, then even a dose of 2000 IU might be recommended (check with a doctor to ascertain your daily dosage need).
I have started looking into foods that are rich in Vitamin D. Of course, the best way to get Vitamin is sunlight.
Where is the best place to get the Vit D supplements? Well, the easiest place to find them is milk fortified with Vit D. The best place? The sun light. Sadly, New England and Sun are not on talking terms for most part of the year.
Still, the world-wide web throws up excellent resources when it comes to giving info. My research has led to the following 12 ways through which we can get our daily dose of Vitamin D.
1) Sunlight : While officially, you are not supposed to step out into the sunlight without wearing sunscreen, but I have it on authority of a very good doctor friend who shall not be named that 10 minutes in bright sunlight between 10am to 3pm twice a week pretty much takes care of the Vitamin D requirements. Those who are dark-skinned might want to increase it to 15 as melanin obstructs in Vit D absorption. Any more than that, and you have to plaster yourself with sunscreen. And no, standing next to a brightly lit window won’t work. Step out and expose your arms, legs, face, neck.
2) Canned Tuna and canned sardines are a great source of Vitamin D.
3) Fatty fish: Salmon and mackerel are considered Vit D superfoods and are double goodies because they also give you the much-needed Omega3 for a healthy heart. Another great fish in this list is Swordfish, giving 566 IU of Vit D per serving ( source)
4) Portobello mushrooms: These are easily available in grocery stores and highly nutritious too.
5) Milk: That has been fortified with Vitamin D.
6) Fortified orange juice
7) Egg yolks
8) Beef liver
9) Cheese
10) Cod Liver Oil
11) Yogurt
12) Cereal that has been fortified.
As of now, I have started stocking up on Vitamin D and started on weight-bearing exercises to build up my bone strength. And feeling stronger by the day.
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