Today we are going to talk about the time I randomly woke up with four broken bones in my ankle. I still don’t know how and when the break happened. This will also be a lesson about how avoiding and ignoring problems does not make them disappear.

The result of avoiding the problem

One day I was walking normally and the next I was in the doctor’s office. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything that might cause this to be broken?” she asked. “Absolutely not, I just woke up like this,” I replied.

She said she was going to send me for an X-ray just to be sure and gave me a temporary cast to stabilize it on the way home.

A few hours after the x-ray, she called me back to say there were four broken bones in my ankle.

I was confused. I had not worked out, had an immediate accident, or engaged in any activities in the previous weeks and months that would cause this. Honestly, I just thought I slept wrong.

Well, I didn’t sleep wrong. This is because of not dealing with a problem correctly the first time.

When it all started

Confused, I started raking my brain trying to figure out when this could have happened. Was this an old injury from my competition days that was now finally broken into pieces? Am I developing some type of weak bone condition and this just happened on its own?

And then it hit me. There were signs.

Two years before this diagnosis, I woke up and felt pain shooting through my ankle. Three days passed and I was still limping around inch by inch and the pain was constant. I was left with no choice but to head to see the doctor.

The orthopedic specialist determined it was probably a strained ligament or other internal irritation. He did not order an x-ray or MRI—likely because I said I did not have any recent injuries—and instead he gave me a cortisone shot in my ankle.

Masking the problem

Boom! With the shot, the pain was gone.

Well, it was not gone, it was masked. The cortisone shot made me feel zero pain, but it didn’t heal anything. So, off I went to add more wear and tear to the ankle until one year later when the cortisone wore off.

When that shot wore off, the pain was back even greater than the first time. I went back to my orthopedic specialist, and he gave me another cortisone shot. This time, however, he said that he would need to examine this further if the pain continued after this injection.

So, off I went (again) to run and prance on my busted ankle for another year. And, guess what? The shot wore off a year later. The pain was WORSE and I now had even MORE damage than before.

Fixing the Problem

So, six days after my X-ray, I was in surgery to remove broken bones, and another bone spur, and repair ligament damage. Two years after my initial pain, I was in surgery. This felt like a major setback.

Moral of the story: Fix the problem the first time. When you feel symptoms and pain, examine things a little deeper and address the problem at the root.

In my case, we didn’t X-ray my ankle at the initial pain because there was no immediate cause of damage like an injury. What we didn’t realize was that the pain was the culmination of years of damage that went unaddressed.

If I’m honest, I was willing to do anything to avoid surgery. The temporary relief was better than the alternative in my mind. Well, I was wrong.

Don’t avoid the problem

• What are the problems you are avoiding because you’re experiencing temporary relief?
• Where are you feeling symptoms of a deeper problem?

It might be time to stop avoiding it and make a plan to address it.

If it’s a painful physical, emotional, or mental trauma that you’ve told yourself you can live with, I encourage you not to cover it up or mask it. Deal with it so it doesn’t become a bigger problem later.

It will be hard work and maybe even temporary sacrifices, but you will heal, recover, and be a better version of yourself.