This feels like deja vu. Like been there done that and was hoping to never do it again. We are in fact right back where this entire blog started. The only difference is that now instead of my right hip we are talking about my left hip. All the emotions that were around last time have come flooding back with a vengeance that I am not sure I can handle this go round. I am going to try and keep family and friends out of my emotional mess (unless you decide to read this). I am going to try and suffer alone, BUT I am still going to write on this blog. Will it get posted to FB? NO....never but I have to have some outlet of getting my thoughts out. I look at this way...if you are reading, you chose to come to this site and read. I am going to be as blatantly honest with all my feelings and not give 2 shits about who has a problem with that! But aside from this blog and my bathroom and walk in closet where I commonly break down and cry, I will hold myself together and pretend to be happy so as to not alienate everyone around me.
Being injured and depressed is very lonely. Nobody wants to be around someone who is sad and complaining (hence why I will try really hard not to be that way...except on MY blog). When you are no longer fun talking to or being around you start losing friends like crazy. Don't believe me?? Try it out. Complain on FB and how life is not fair, your are sad, something and do so for a few weeks. Watch your friend number go down. It used to bother me but then I just figured I don't want to be friends with people who only like me when life is great. Being in pain and no longer being able to do the physical activity you are used to is..... horrible. Especially when that was my biggest source of stress relief. Not being sure if you will ever be active again and what this means for my future is even worse.
It feels like nobody understands. I am not saying that statement it true I am just saying that is what if feels like. Most of my close friends are very very active people. Try for just one minute to imagine getting an injury that threatened to take all that away and leave you with nothing but pain. You might think you would handle it fine...no big deal. If so, good for you. I on the other hand found myself sitting on the stationary bike this morning at the gym and one minute I was praising God that as least right now I still have some means of exercise and another minute I had thoughts that I shocked even me!
So here is all I know right now about my pain. I already blogged that my weekend running caused my pain to get a lot worse afterwards. Monday I called Dr. M's office trying to get an appt. He was booked but I sent a begging email to his clinical assistant and next thing I knew I had an appt on Wednesday. They didn't even take me up on my offer to pay twice as much for my appointment if they would get me in. I was just told, "of course he will fit you in on Wednesday." I got to the appointment and they took X rays before he came in. When he walked in the door and shook my hand (he always shakes your hand) I just looked at him and shook my head and said, "three years in a row I break in the fall and end up in your office." He first looked at my X rays and within one second said you have a pincer impingement. No CAM impingement. Right hip looks good. Left femoral head actually looks "perfect" to which I responded, "I like the word perfect." I told him the two places my hip hurt. He moved my hip around for about 30 seconds while rattling off some numbers to his assistant. He called me kiddo at least twice...which I thought was sweet. Made me feel young even if he is only 2 years older than me. At some point when he was moving my leg I asked if I could have a steroid shot. With the recent cases of meningitis following steroid injections all there supply was pulled off their shelves. I actually already knew this b/c I overheard him getting angry (in a nice way) with someone on the phone b/c the doctors were not told it was all being pulled and they had patients (like me) scheduled to get a shot. I even offered to take my chances in the meningitis department if he just gave me the recalled stuff. He said it was gone. Someone had removed it ALL! So now I go back tomorrow and get my shot by his physician assistant. I asked if he thought it would help and he said, "I think so." I asked what to do in meantime and he said cross train, take weekend off after shot and then run next week. That is such a nice thought Dr. M but unless this steroid is a miracle cure, I CAN'T run. He might say I can but I physically can't. He said after the race give it a month and if still a problem we will need to do "more." We didn't discuss what that "more" was.
I can pretend all I want that I don't know what the "more" means, but I know. See I didn't have this pincer impingement on the right causing my labral tear BUT I spent months reading up on labral tears and most are caused by some sort of FAI (femoroacetabular impingement) which is made of of CAM impingement and Pincer impingement. I know ALL about it. Last time I tried to convince myself I was lucky b/c I didn't have this causing my labral tear. When this current injury started I refused to let myself even think about labral tear. Okay I thought about it but I wasn't about to say it out loud b/c I felt like that would be jinxing myself. I knew I did not have a stress fracture when I got my bone scan but deep down I wanted one. I know they don't hurt as bad and I heal very quickly from them. Still I knew it wasn't that. By Monday I could not deny that my symptoms feel much the same as my labral tear. Pain when you roll in bed. Sharp pain when you lift your leg. Trouble getting in and out of your car. Stabbing pains when you go from sitting to standing. The worsening limp. The inability to run. It is all the same. Not as much pain on internal rotation of my leg this go round and now pain along the great trochanter but otherwise same.
This is my "worst case" leg scenario. It's a path I don't want to go back down. Nobody questions a stress fx. With the hip however it is like one big ? for a lot of people. There are some who think these diagnoses don't exist or don't cause pain (those people are wrong and have clearly never experienced this). There are many differing opinions on treatment options. Insurances deny a lot of this stuff. Nothing is clear cut. You read about it or God forbid end up on some hip pain blog (like I have been addicted to in the past and made a huge mistake reading thru last night b/c still part of hip impingement group of facebook that I haven't looked at since my surgery) and you don't see ANY good outcomes. All you read about is active people now doing NOTHING but living in pain. You read about surgery and then months and months of recovery. I had surgery and I recovered super fast. Would I get that lucky twice??? I don't know. I would like to think so. I am smart enough to know that if this impingement is causing my problem it will NOT go away without surgery. Surgery is the "more" Dr. Maiers was talking about. Intensive PT is an option and always recommended first but along with that is nearly stopping all sports activity. If you give up doing everything you love and do intense therapy you may be able to minimize the pain and carry on with life. What kind of life is that????? I need to be active. I am only 36 years old so that is not much of an option for me.
Okay I am tired of typing. I'm sure I will be writing down my random thoughts a lot more now that I need this outlet again.
Will do a parent teacher conference update tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment