Why I sleep on the bathroom floor

I'm alive...barely.

Can't believe I haven't updated in over two weeks. So much has happened.

My fight has been cancelled. In the beginning of April I took a kick in the ribs during sparring. It hurt and my doctor thought it was most likely bruised. I continued to train, the pain got worse. I started having trouble sleeping, lying down was difficult, I couldn't pull myself up to a sitting position. Sneezing, laughing, taking deep breaths all became difficult. My trainer suggested I think about pulling out of my fight. All I could think about was all the hard work I've done over the past several months. The hours I've spent training, the injuries, the sore muscles. Last Wednesday during my morning class my trainer was watching me struggle through routine moves. After the class he pulled me aside and told me that he just couldn't let me fight. I reacted by crying, which really isn't fighter behavior. His rationale was that it appears my injury has worsened. He worries that if I take another good kick or punch before I'm healed I risk a complete break and the puncture of a lung.

It still broke my heart. The next day, at the recommendation of my boss, I called a pain management doctor we refer a lot of our patients to. He thinks I've cracked my rib but couldn't confirm which one so he did a nerve block on T3 - T7. If you've never had a nerve block I would describe it as uncomfortable. Not especially painful, considering the pain I was already in, but lying on your stomach while someone sticks a needle in your back is not my idea of a good time. The block is designed to wrap around the rib and you can feel it, very weird, and not pleasant. It helps block a lot of the pain. The issue with that is that it helps you forget your injured until you start doing a lot of activity and are quickly reminded by the shooting pain.

The people I fight with have been awesome! Very supportive and have been quick to remind me that I'm still part of this great group of people and I will be that more ready when our next fight comes up in six months.

Today though when the email went out removing my name from the fight list and showing my replacement, I'm not going to lie and say it didn't sting. Because it does.

The doctor asked me to take three months off of training. I agreed to five days, lol. I also agreed that I would take it down a notch in training to give myself time to heal. That's not too hard to do because the fight is in a week and the month after we tend to take it easy at the dojo.

I took a few days off to go up north and visit my family, which I will blog about later. I came home Monday evening and planned to get back to the dojo to Tuesday, however, fate had other plans. Tuesday evening I developed a horrible case of the stomach flu and until today haven't been able to drink or eat without severe and violent repercussions. As of today I haven't worked out in a week and a half and it's killing me.

I will still be attending fight night. My trainer has asked me to help corner and I'll do that. It's still going to be hard though. Everyone still wants me to go to the carb loading session the night before. I'm not really sure I"ll be carb loading since I won't have the opportunity to work it all off the next day. As much as I'd like to stay home and feel sorry for myself, I won't. It's unsportsmanlike and doesn't set a good example for my kids.

In the meantime I'm working on getting my energy back and finding ways to make up to my husband for everything he's had to do this week while I've been living on the bathroom floor.