Finding Patience Thru Injury
On March 4th 2023, I was unlucky enough to suffer an injury to my left arm. As backcountry hunters our health is one of the largest keys to our success every year. Learning that I had broken my arm and would require a minimum of 8-12 weeks of down time filled me with a lot of emotions: annoyance, worry, frustration, and disappointment. Annoyance at myself for putting myself in this position. Worried at how this would affect my job, my finances, and my overall health. Frustration that I would be stuck at home, basically worthless, forced to be still, and inactive. Disappointed thinking about damaging my hunting opportunities for the 2023 season.
Seeing my x-rays was shocking. The break wasn’t a full displacement (meaning the bone did not snap in half or separate) but instead looked like a gnarly rock chip on a car windshield. The fractures splintered out in multiple directions along my left Ulnar about halfway between elbow and wrist. The doctors informed me that it was a very significant injury, but because there was no displacement surgery was not immediately necessary. If I was patient enough for those first important 4-6 weeks post injury, I would likely avoid a need for surgical repair. My arm was immobilized in a fiberglass splint wrapping from the base of my fingers, around my elbow, and back to the top of my hand. The splint was monstrous, extremely uncomfortable, and very irritating. It was so fat I had to cut the sleeve off a sweatshirt just so it would fit. The first week was terrible, pain levels were very high, and I got my first taste of what I was going to be up against for the foreseeable future, which was concerning.
Patience. Something that has never been a strength for me was going to be tested repeatedly during my recovery. I’ve talked before about how being patient as a hunter is something I work on every time I am in the woods and I am proud to have improved immensely from where I was a couple years ago, but I have never had to be patient at home, mentally and physically, like this. Typically, I am in the gym every day after work, pushing myself physically for the mountains and mentally for those really sucky moments I know I’m going to face during the course of a hunting season. Being unable to be in the gym doing what I love to do in preparation for what I am truly passionate about was going to be a new kind of mental challenge I had to face head on.
Once the pain levels were manageable, I really did my best to steer my sulking, piss poor attitude into a new and positive direction. I had to find something to focus on, something I could work to improve, something to challenge myself in a healthy way. Patience. There it is again, seemingly a constant theme as I continue to grow as a person and a hunter. Stubborn, younger me would have pushed myself more physically in the gym and risked a possible set back, but a new, more patient me did what I could without risking a setback and diminishing my chances of recovering on my current timeline. As hard as it was to go to the gym most days and just walk on the treadmill, ride the bike, or maybe hit some stair climber I knew that was my best chance to potentially salvage a spring hunting season and be ready to go by fall. A setback weeks into my recovery would have meant surgery and a way longer road to recovery which I could not afford to happen.
Focusing on my end goal of being healed as quickly as possible got me through the recovery time. I did everything my Occupational Therapist told me and suggested I do for mobility work once I was cleared to do so. I was still in a splint, but this new one allowed me to flex and move my elbow and wrist. I set 6 alarms per day on my phone to remind me to do my exercise routine for those joints. I dedicated myself to protecting my arm, working my elbow and wrist joints, and hitting high incline treadmill walking every day. I decided preparing my legs and lungs for steep hiking and walking was going to be my best route to improve myself for hunting season, while I did everything in my power to ensure my arm healed. Finding goals to strive toward changed everything mentally for me. I am a routine-based person, and this injury dismantled my usual routine completely. Creating a new routine around my injury was the jolt of positive energy I needed.
As I am writing this on the 15th of May, I am on my second full week back to work, hitting the gym every day, and prepping for a spring bear hunt over Memorial Day Weekend. All that patience truly paid off as my recovery time was about 2 weeks quicker than what the doctors and therapists expected. Now I am ahead of schedule and feeling better and stronger by the day. Still making smart decisions at the gym and home but pushing the boundaries more and more. Playing the long game and being patient put me on a path to a successful 2023 season when more stubborn, less patient decision making could have spelled disaster for 2023. Now that I am coming out the other side of this situation I can really look back and see the positives that came from having this injury.
This was just another test, another hurdle, and another obstacle for me to overcome. It reinforced how important patient, thought out decision making can be in life and in hunting. Sometimes you need to sit back and play the long game, and other times you need to push forward and be aggressive. Reading cues within yourself and within the animal you are targeting can be the deciding factors on whether you are successful or not. I know that my patience has improved drastically because of this injury. In the end, I didn’t miss out on much to start the 2023 hunting seasons. Yes, I could have done more shed hunting, more turkey hunting, and more spring bear hunting, but maybe I gained something more valuable: perspective, focus, and patience.
immediately following er visit. first splint.
About 3 weeks post injury date. Fiberglass Splint.
doing as much as I could at the gym. trying not to get too sweaty under the splint.
molded and removable splint for final 3 weeks. still immobilized but able to go harder and get sweatier at the gym. this was the final stage before being cleared to remove the splint and get back to normal activities.
turkey success wearing my splint. dedication to healing, patience, and focus allowed me to be able to accomplish this.