Denaye Giroux Blog: Dealing With Injuries

For anyone who has ever ridden a dirt bike, we all know that it’s not if you crash it’s when you crash. So I thought this week I could vent about what seems to be a never ending injury streak that started last season.

Let’s start from injury# 1 at round two of the women’s nationals in Calgary. I hit a soft spot of mud on one of the upper straights, my bike stopped and my body kept moving, which resulted in getting the handlebars in my stomach. I remember getting the wind knocked out of me and I so badly wanted to pull off because of the pain, but I didn’t want to lose any points so I kept going. When I got back to the rig I lied down for a minute and noticed some blood on my jersey. When I lifted my shirt up I noticed a hole that went deep into my stomach. My Mom took me down to the paramedics and we got it patched up for the second moto. After the second motos were over I went down to the hospital to get stitched up. When I got there they wanted to see how deep the hole went, so after four different doctors came in, they cut the hole bigger and stuck a tube down the hole into my internals. They decided to keep me over night to make sure nothing inside was affected. I was stitched up the next morning and cleared to go with no internal damage.

Injury# 2 happened at the Western Canadian Amateur Nationals in Raymond. During moto two, I was in the lead heading over a smaller uphill double with the landing on the downside of a hill. My rear tire must have clipped the top of the landing because I remember going head first over the bars, rolling down the hill. After laying there for a minute to catch my breath I then attempted to get up but couldn’t really move my left shoulder. The paramedics took me back to the trailer and my Mom took me to the hospital shortly after where I found out I separated my AC joint, leaving me out for four weeks.

Injury# 3 happened at the final round of the Saskatchewan Provincial Series on September 8th, 2012 in Regina. I had been back on the bike for about two weeks, so it wasn’t like I was out there doing crazy fast laps or anything. It was the third lap of practice when I was taking a different line to go around one of the girls heading towards a double. Committed to doing this double, I was going pretty fast when I hit a small kicker before the jump which threw my left foot off the peg. By this time I was already at the take off. My foot had got caught between my footpeg and the ground when it snapped. It happened so fast, I didn’t fall off the bike or anything, but I thought instantly that I must have shattered my foot.

I rode back to the pits and had to get Brendon and Shawn to pull my boot off. I sat there for a while and started to feel pretty dizzy. Brendon ended up taking me to the hospital. No broken bones showed up on the x ray, and I was told it was just a sprain so they gave me some crutches. Not really thinking anything of it, I went to the Awards Banquet that night, went to work the next couple days then decided to go back to the hospital at home a couple days after because the swelling kept getting worse.

I spent about two minutes with the doctor and an ultrasound was done. I was booked in for surgery the next day after I was told I ruptured my Achilles tendon! It was completely torn apart so they cut six inches up to sew it back together. The Achilles tendon is the biggest tendon in your body; it controls your foot movement and you can’t walk without it. Recovery time is usually about one year. The tendon on my left foot is shorter now so the goal is to stretch it enough so that it feels about the same as my right foot. If I push it too hard too soon it will snap again, and if that happens it won’t be good and I won’t be able to ride a bike again. I’m not willing to take any risks with this injury.

I’m not trying to be a Debby downer nor am I trying to get sympathy, I’m just saying that in our sport anything can happen. We have all noticed an increase in injuries these past years, but the question is, how bad do you want to succeed and what are you willing to do to get there. Are you going to let an injury bring you down or build you into a better person?

Taking it one day at a time,

Denaye