Little Helios

This summer a stray dog was brought into the vet clinic that I work at. A client of the clinic had witnessed the dog being hit by a truck and brought him in. One of his back legs was fractured in two places. One front leg was swollen and painful- plus assorted scrapes and road rash. We all fell in love with this sweet natured little dog who wagged his tail whenever we walked by even though he was in pain. Policy is to hold strays for 72 hours before euthanizing in case they have an owner who is looking for them. The lady who brought little stray in (as I had started to call him) was trying to raise money to send him to a specialist to have his leg fixed. The $3500-$4000 surgery was too much though. 

So here he sits in our clinic with all his broken bits and pieces. The owner of the clinic decided to do what she could for him instead of putting him down in the hopes he could be fixed up and adopted out. It had been a week since he came in. He underwent a 5 hour surgery and had cerclage wire and an IM pin put into his femur to try to let the bone heal. He did poorly under anesthetic and stopped breathing several times, but he made it through the surgery.

We all cheered the first day that he put weight on the leg and took some tentative steps around the enclosure. So he continued to stay with us at the clinic doing physio therapy and going for short walks. I started to have a hard time thinking of him going home with anyone but me. After some long talks Adrien and I decided that he was the dog for us. He would always have a funny leg and a limp but we were fine with it. He had the pin taken out of his leg just over a week ago. When we x-rayed him this week to see how the leg was progressing I was devastated. His femur had collapsed into itself. His leg looked like a broken bag of potato chips, it was hopelessly broken again. He needs to have his leg amputated. Adrien and I had another talk with lots of looking online to find out more. We both knew he was still our dog and gave the go ahead for surgery.

Adrien has chosen the name Helios for him- Helios Gracie is one of the founders of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He was small in stature and found that many moves required brute strength and so developed a system of techniques that allowed a smaller and weaker opponent to defend themselves against someone larger and stronger. 

His surgery will be next week while I am away. We are worried that he won't do well under anesthetic again., and the vet thinks it's better if I'm not a part of his surgery. I know he is a little fighter and 3 legs won't keep him down- but I don't think it could hurt to have our kung fu family sending some of your fighting spirit thoughts his way next week. 

Some "you" time

I finally went and saw a podiatrist and had an official diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. I had my feet cast for some very expensive orthotic inserts and all this only took me about 3 years or so to do. Now that I've gone and done all this I am really kicking myself for not doing it sooner. It actually took less than an hour-I'm sure I could have fit that in somewhere, I mean I'm busy but not that busy. 

I think as I am getting older and some of the nagging pains I've ignored for such a long time seem to have progressed into full blown chronic problems I wonder why I didn't make time for myself somewhere along the line. As a colored belt and into Sihing and then the year into grading I always pushed myself hard, and honestly really didn't train smart either. Some of my problems are not the result of kung fu but are aggravated by training. While it is important to push yourself to progress it's also important to make sure your going to be able to train in a few years as well. I think it would be safe to say that more than half of the students actively training in kung fu- if not more- are dealing with ongoing injuries or pain. So what's that old saying? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...How true it is. Take care of yourself, learn to listen and recognize when something is out whack with your body or your health. Fuel your body with good food. Stretch, don't be afraid to take it easy for 1 or 2 classes if you've got something going on, trust me it will be worth it!