MRI Day

Part I

It's 5:30AM. I'll be leaving for my MRI appointment and followup with Dr Cutter in an hour. My giant melon head is chock full of emotions.

I'm nervous, anxious, worried. What if he tells me no activity at all? What if I can't run for months? What if I find out I'll never again be able to run like I could a year ago? What if I lose all my running friends during the time I'm out and after when I can't keep up with them?

These are all absolute worst-case scenarios. From the research I've done, my case is fairly mild. The logical, rational part of my brain knows this. And I have faith that my running friends won't abandon me. They're my friends first and foremost, and my running friends after that.

But still.


I'm optimistic. This injury didn't suddenly happen at Erie Marathon Mile 8. My hips have been tight and sore for months. Various feelings and symptoms from the summer make a lot of sense in hindsight. This has been slowing me down for months. Fixing it will fix a lot of what has been bothering me. Even without the PT that I'm sure is coming, a few weeks off from running will give me a chance to heal, an opportunity I haven't taken since I started this BQ quest early last year.


I'm relieved. All week I've been in suspense. I just want to know what's happening, what I need to do, what I can expect. For the most part I function well in uncertainty and ambiguity, but this is a little different. I'm very fortunate that my followup with Dr Cutter is immediately after my MRI session. I don't know if I could wait another week.


My friends are wonderful. Everybody checked on me last night, offered well wishes and encouragement. There is a lot of positive energy floating around out there on my behalf this morning.

Anyway, time for a shower and to head off to Shortpump and then HCA Sports Med.



Part II

Two stress fractures - one on each side of the pubic symphysis. The one on the left is bad, the one on the right is not as bad.  This put a tremendous about of strain on the muscles attached, so they're pretty damaged as well.

For four weeks I have to avoid anything that causes pain, which is basically anything that uses my abs or involves kicking. Aquajogging and elliptical are out. Cycling last week didn't hurt, although I'm worried that it will now that the hip tightness that was holding everything together has loosened up.

This is not completely worst-case scenario, but it's pretty close.

I'm still working through this. I don't have any good prose today. Maybe later.