so, it's been a while... again

i have been avoiding writing this particular post... call it denial if you like.

so, last time i wrote i was recovering from torticollis. and one week later i was suffering from mysterious pains in my thigh... not quite the knee, not quite the groin, but something that radiated from the knee-ish area upward to the groin-ish area and across the front of my thigh.

so, after a few days of icing and ibuprofen and no running, i went for a test run to see if it was any better... and barely made it ten paces before i had to stop.

then i went to see the doctor, who couldn't quite be sure what the problem was because it didn't quite fit any of the typical muscle injuries that she was aware of... she referred me to the sports medicine clinic... however it took a week to get an appointment to see the sports med docs, and in the mean time i was told to have some x-rays done, oh.. and no running.

finally got to see the sports med guys yesterday... so it has now been a little over two weeks since my last run. for the most part, my leg's not bothering me... except when i forget and do things like dash across the road to avoid oncoming traffic... then it hurts.

so, sports med doc number one pokes and prods and twists and hmmms for a while... looks over the x-ray results which say that aside from slight indications of the beginnings of osteo-arthritis in my right hip, there's nothing to see... then he calls in someone else to help him out.

new guys pokes and prods and stretches and twists a little more vigorously until he hits a spot well below my knee that causes me to yelp loudly as i pretty near pierce the examining table with my clenching hands and feel like i'm going to throw up.

then he breaks out the ultra-sound machine and his handy bottle of blue goo.... and we take a look inside my leg. very cool...

and there it is, clear as day... a tear in my sartorius muscle, below the knee... no where near where i have been feeling pain all this time.

and thus have i been introduced to the mysterious concept called "referred pain."

no fun.

so now i'm wearing a knee brace and am scheduled to start physio some time this week.

however, even if the physio and brace miraculously cure what ails me within the next week or so, i will not be able to make up all the time i have lost... and i will not be ready to run the Marine Corps Marathon in 4 weeks time.

i will continue to support my team in their training, and will cheer them on come race day.

i have deferred my registration in the marathon until next year (so i will still run it!! just not this year...). and all of the money i have raised so far will still go to support the work of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

thanks for all your support.

poor me, yay me!

so... about two weeks ago i woke up with a stiff neck.

five days, much ibuprofen and ice packs and heating pads and a massage later... i wound up in the emergency room getting grilled by the intake nurse about how many of the symptoms of meningitis i had been ignoring for five days.

fortunately, in the end i didn't have meningitis... even though i did have a lot of the symptoms.

i had torticollis (persistant and painful muscle spasm in neck and shoulder).... so they sent me home with some hefty narcotics... and i slept for four days.

upon awakening from my drug induced stupor, i found i could at last tilt my head enough to drink from a glass again... and look from side to side with no pain.

and have since set about trying to catch up on 9 missed days of running.

it's amazing how hard it is to gain fitness and how easy it is to lose it.

i had run 14 miles with little distress a few weeks ago, and now i'm struggling to do 10 again...

sigh.

trying to remain patient with myself.

and, i have enough time to make it up before my race.