Sometimes things just don't work out the way they're supposed to. Sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong.
The past weeks have been a bit of an unexpected experience. After the longest stretch of rest I've taken in 5 years, I came to the realization that my leg simply wasn't getting better. At all.
The next course of action was to seek additional medical assistance. I managed to get an appointment with a sports physician at the hospital across the street from CUW. Upon going in for my appointment, however, the experts seemed just as perplexed as the AT's back at school. They took an X-Ray of my lower leg, which showed nothing abnormal. No stress fractures, no other bone issues. Next I was sent for an MRI. When I took these scans in for the docs to see what was going on all they could say was that my leg looked "healthy."
I took this as confirmation that there was actually nothing seriously wrong with me. No one could explain the pain I was feeling or how to treat it. The docs suggested sending me back for the same physical therapy that had already failed after causing me so much unnecessary pain and frustration, followed by a test for "compartment syndrome." This test would have involved sticking me with very large needles and making me run on a treadmill as hard as possible for 15 minutes. They assumed that test would come back negative since I didn't actually present the symptoms of compartment syndrome, but they wanted to do it anyway. They planned to follow that up with a blind surgery, the purpose of which they could not even explain to me. I was utterly astounded at how eager these so-called "doctors" were to abuse me with no real plan for fixing anything.
Having had enough of this, I chose to shun the medical industry once and for all and just started running again.
After a week of resumed training at 4-5 miles per day, I realized that it wasn't getting any worse. In fact it is getting better. Running, rather than causing the pain as everyone had expected all along, is actually healing me. I'm getting stronger every day, and the pain now seems barely noticeable.
Last weekend I went to Lapham Peak with a group of my fellow runners. I opted for the tiny Blue Trail rather than the 9 miles of hills that the other guys hammered out, but running trails again was a major moral victory for me. Knowing that my leg can survive that type of terrain is proof to me that my body is not falling apart but simply needed to be woken up, reminded about what it was designed to do. Dark clouds threatened most of that day but the rain never hit us. Driving home late in the afternoon we caught sight of a brilliant rainbow spread across the eastern horizon.
The past weeks have been a bit of an unexpected experience. After the longest stretch of rest I've taken in 5 years, I came to the realization that my leg simply wasn't getting better. At all.
The next course of action was to seek additional medical assistance. I managed to get an appointment with a sports physician at the hospital across the street from CUW. Upon going in for my appointment, however, the experts seemed just as perplexed as the AT's back at school. They took an X-Ray of my lower leg, which showed nothing abnormal. No stress fractures, no other bone issues. Next I was sent for an MRI. When I took these scans in for the docs to see what was going on all they could say was that my leg looked "healthy."
I took this as confirmation that there was actually nothing seriously wrong with me. No one could explain the pain I was feeling or how to treat it. The docs suggested sending me back for the same physical therapy that had already failed after causing me so much unnecessary pain and frustration, followed by a test for "compartment syndrome." This test would have involved sticking me with very large needles and making me run on a treadmill as hard as possible for 15 minutes. They assumed that test would come back negative since I didn't actually present the symptoms of compartment syndrome, but they wanted to do it anyway. They planned to follow that up with a blind surgery, the purpose of which they could not even explain to me. I was utterly astounded at how eager these so-called "doctors" were to abuse me with no real plan for fixing anything.
Having had enough of this, I chose to shun the medical industry once and for all and just started running again.
After a week of resumed training at 4-5 miles per day, I realized that it wasn't getting any worse. In fact it is getting better. Running, rather than causing the pain as everyone had expected all along, is actually healing me. I'm getting stronger every day, and the pain now seems barely noticeable.
Last weekend I went to Lapham Peak with a group of my fellow runners. I opted for the tiny Blue Trail rather than the 9 miles of hills that the other guys hammered out, but running trails again was a major moral victory for me. Knowing that my leg can survive that type of terrain is proof to me that my body is not falling apart but simply needed to be woken up, reminded about what it was designed to do. Dark clouds threatened most of that day but the rain never hit us. Driving home late in the afternoon we caught sight of a brilliant rainbow spread across the eastern horizon.
