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Making My Teen Mad (Again)

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Here I go again…doing the parenting thing…making my teen mad.

My oldest daughter loves exercising.  Maybe “loves” is an understatement.  Workout freak probably describes her better.  She’s participated in martial arts or sports since the age of 7.  She’s very active.  That’s her thing.  And competitive, sometimes to a fault.

Almost two months ago she started CrossFit.  She actually delayed her start by a month because she got hurt at the beach and ended up in the ER with stitches on both knees.  That’s another story.

This week, she got hurt again, trying to max out on a lift, push jerk.  That lift involves getting a barbell with weight up over your head.  Most people stop attempting a max weight after 1-2 tries.  Not her.  She tries 4-5 times, especially if she “almost” got it somewhere along the way.  Did I mention her competitiveness?

Long story short, on her last attempt on this push jerk max, things went wrong. The bar ended up across the upper portion of her back/lower portion of her neck and basically pushed, practically slammer, her to the ground.

I watched the whole thing. I kept waiting for the weight to roll off of her, down her back or forward over her head.  It didn’t.  It stayed on her.

I think she ended up in a sitting-ish position with the top half of her body bent forward by the weight.  It did finally roll off of her at the bottom.  She turned over to her back, groaning, not moving much.

I heard her pain in the sounds coming from her throat.  Her wide eyes and short, choppy breaths screamed pain…

SCARY!

My mind is racing…how bad is it? 115 pounds landed on her 95lb body…on her spine.  Her back.  Her neck.

SCARY…

I got beside her, squeezed her hand.  She kept groaning.  She couldn’t quite control her breathing.  I spoke as calmly as I could, instructing her to slow her breathing.

B-r-e-a-t-h-e, exhale sloooowly.  It took a while before she managed that.

She finally relaxed, still in pain, but eyes not so wide, breathing more regular, groaning stopped.

Thank goodness. Some of the scariness went away.  She could handle the pain. A good sign right?

We let her lay there a while longer.  She calmed further.  I asked her if she could move her feet.  She said, and showed me, she could.

Thank goodness.

What hurts? Neck and back and stomach she says.  Slowly, we helped her sit up.  Then she stood and walked.

Less scary.

I took her to the ER even though she didn’t want to go.  She didn’t want the doctor to tell her she couldn’t exercise.

Too bad.  We’re going.

They checked her in pretty quickly, asked what happened, took x-rays, talked to her alone, gave her some pain medication, and told me the x-rays showed a “slight” compression fracture of her T8 vertebra.

Slight fracture?  Any kind of broken is not “not broken.”  Slightly broken is still broken!

The ER staff didn’t seem all that concerned.  Apparently this injury really shouldn’t cause her much of a problem now (maybe when she’s 60 and getting osteoporosis anyway), she should be fine, but…

“NO lifting until you have no more pain” the doctor tells her.

Even in pain (8 on a scale of 10 she says), she still gets upset about rest instructions from the doctor.  I love her competitiveness, but not so much in situations like this when I’m not on board with what she’s fighting for.

Not much later she’s telling me about how she can rest for the next 3 days, then do the “big” end of the month workout on Saturday as part of “graduation” from the CrossFit class she’s in.

Um, broken spine bone…no

Hey, broken pinky finger or something…whatever.  Go ahead.  Try it if you want.  Knock yourself out.  Don’t cry and complain when it hurts.

Broken spine bone?  No way.

The next day, she sits on the side and watches as her class works out.  I can tell she doesn’t like it, but has more or less accepted it.  Later that same night, her sister works out with the teen class.  She comments about how she’s joining them soon.

Me…“Not next month.” (“next month” was less than a week away)

She doesn’t see why I won’t let her.  She tries to argue the decision with me for a minute, then stops, obviously mad.  So mad that her talkative self sits in silence next to me for a while before she finally leaves and waits out the last half of the teen class outside.

Tough cookies.

I just saw you almost get seriously injured.  There is NO reason to rush back into things.  There is NOTHING riding on you continuing to train next month.  Your competitive sports season doesn’t start until 7-8 months from now.

You’ll get fat and out of shape you say.

So what? Fat and out of shape for a month or two is nothing.

If I let you continue training and anything goes even the slightest bit wrong before this injury heals, we won’t be arguing about sitting out a month or two.  You could end up never, ever being able to do any of the physical activities you love so much ever again.

You’re thinking about next month.  I’m thinking about the rest of your life. CrossFit is not the only thing you do.  You have so much more ahead of you.  So much more you do.  I’m not willing grant an early return to training so you can gain a few weeks now, but risk robbing you of doing these things you love so much for the rest of your life.  You go right ahead and be mad because I love you.

Teenagers.  Such a challenge.

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