Friday, May 11, 2012

Is this the beginning of a problem or just the beginning of a journey?

As most people know, 6 years ago I suffered a freak accident that led to the complete rupture of my Achilles tendon. Now I say freak because in everything I have heard and read, women have this happen less then men and that most are over 35 when it occurs. So I was not the usual patient that my doctor deals with. Also, most happen in sports (basketball or tennis type activities) not to Pom Pon coaches demonstrating kicks that she had done 100s of times.

So, after a trip to the ER, a temporary soft cast with crutches that were too big, an eventful night at camp with 24 girls, a 2.5 hour drive home on my own, frantic calls to find a surgeon (to this day I still am in shock that Beaumont told me it would be 6-8 weeks to get in to see someone despite everything), to finding an amazing doctor out of Crittenton who repaired it within 4 days. The next 10 weeks involved casts, braces and more pain then I thought possible for an injury that was completely painless when it happened.

When I started my running journey, the first question I had was for my primary care doctor about whether I could even do this. He said it was healed and at this point was stronger than it was prior to the accident since the metal coil around it would hold it together. I have not spoke to my surgeon since I was released from his care so I went with this recommendation, especially since I have had no pain in a LONG time.

This is week 5 of training (I am actually on the end of week 7 of the conditioning program but only because I started on week 3 since I was there already and did not want to go backwards) and I am having pain. Not on the side that was repaired, no, it is the OTHER side. It is not over the top and I can still run and move but it worries me since I have done surgery once and have no desire to try that one again. Crutches while teaching was hard, I think with 2 little kids it would be close to impossible.

Having a doctor out of Henry Ford led me to check out their resources. Turns out that in their whole body preventative approach they have designed an assessment for runners. So after some emails with the head of the PT department, I have an appointment for a complete assessment. I am hoping he will tell me I need to a)change how I run, b) get an insert for my shows or c) stretch differently to help this out. I am praying it is not d) STOP RUNNING, this won't work.

We will see on Tuesday what is going on!

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