Surgery and Recovery

 It's been a while, I know, and lots has happened since last I wrote my RR from London.

A month or two before London, I started having issues with my right foot dragging while running. No pain or any indication that anything was wrong. Just before Easter, I had a run outside with hubby when I noticed my toe was feeling weird and when I turned the shoe, the whole big toe area had scraped off! It wasn't happening all the time by then, but this was the turnaround point of the issue. While it was happening once in a blue moon, now it started happening on and off during the runs. I only had two long run weekends left for London (back to back LRs on both days, like 16/12 and 18/14) and I still ran them well but shortened the run/walking to 30/30 seconds to accommodate the issue. And as you read, I finished London so success on that.

The week before we left for London, I started seeing a chiropractor and PT for the issue. Both and many friends kept telling me that it was the back and I kept saying, it isn't the lower back, I would know. Weirdest shit was that I had no pain, no feeling whatsoever that the issue would start. My leg would just turned robotic and "rusted" after X minutes or hours, then after X seconds. While getting treatment for everything from the middle and lower back, to the leg and glute, nothing helped and the problem got to the point that I could only run 5-10 seconds before the issue arose. I walked a lot instead and was still doing around 25mpw during this time, hoping the PT, chiro, massage therapy, would help and to turn the corner. That never happened.

Then it started affecting my walking. At work, we would go to lunch on All Hands Day and my whole leg (up to my hip) would start having issues walking after 5-10 minutes and I would stop controlling my foot after that if I continued walking/limping. So I knew something else was going on. No one could guess right!

Finally, the ortho thought to send me to do two MRIs. Lower back (sigh) and hip. The MRIs were the worst experience in my life. The back one wasn't bad (30 minutes, done). But the hip one needed to be wrapped in an unbending burrito contraption and was right after the other one. It lasted 40 minutes and I think the last 10 minutes I spent them crying. It's a miracle I was able to finish it. I left and went directly to the restroom to vomit.

Normally, IU releases results in 5-12 hours. Mine took almost two fucking days for the hip, one more day for the lower back. Hubby had a dinner the night the hip one came out and I was all nerves. I opened it and just started reading. "The hip is intact..." OK, good, now fucking what? "...except for a small tear in the hip labrum". I started crying; crying from relief! I was no longer the weird case no one could figure out. My leg wasn't weird. I was just torn. And I know exactly when it happened because I fell and since then I never felt 100% right.

For my meniscus tear, I got into surgery within 5 days of diagnosis. That didn't happen in Indy, mostly because of the timing and because I wanted the best hip surgeon in Indy. Ortho appointment was a week later and she told me, do you want the best hip surgeon? Hell yeah! Here is the guy within IU that only does hip scopes all day every day. OK, I called and the receptionist was like the surgeon is busy until November. WHAT THE FUCK, it's late July!!!!! I could not wait this long, but only said, OMG, that's so long. I think she heard my sadness because she said, the NP has one in three weeks, yes, please!

When the NP saw me in August, she did additional X-Rays in every position imaginable and in addition to the tear, I had a FAI (not going to write what FAI means, it's too long). Basically, it's a genetic bone growth (or maybe it was there since I was born) that impinges on your body. This was believed to have impinged on my labrum until either the fall tore it, or the fall made it worse. The surgical notes seem to indicate that it was also impinging on my psoas which makes so much sense. Of the three types of FAI, when they opened me, they found it was the Pincer, instead of the Cam which is what was initially suspected:

When she booked my surgery, I thought she was going to say November like the lady told me so I had a plan of workouts all set for the next three months, but she said September 18th. Yay!

To prepare for the surgery and to be in the best shape I could be, I needed to find something I could still do without affecting my ability to do it and it needed to be something that would get me some good endorphins since I couldn't run. I knew I could do Pilates as I've been doing it for 11 years and have my own Pilates studio in the basement. But Pilates cannot compare to running, so I picked kickboxing; my first love and what I used to do before I was a runner 20+ years ago. I did one workout and I could actually jump, kick, and do HIITs during it so I picked my program (Turbo Fire) and did all the workouts I could until the day before the surgery, with 1-2 Pilates workouts a week. I couldn't do this for my last two surgeries so I was in better shape this time around. However, the downtime for this one is much longer than the others. I mean, I was running after my hysterectomy in 3 weeks and after the knee meniscus repair in 20 days. This is not one of those.

Even though I had no pain, just a dull ache on some days, the NP recommended we tried a steroid shot three weeks before the surgery in case it would help with running. It didn't. Most people can run after the shot, I could not. I tried, but was dragging the foot a bit over the pavement from the start. I suspect the tear is where the hip needed the most support to propel itself forward or maybe the impingement of the FAI in the psoas was impeding it. A tiny part of my brain wonders if I can run after the surgery, but there is nothing wrong with the hip, so there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to.

Surgery went well. They fix the labrum and shaved the FAI, while also removing part of the bursa (the impingement and tear created some bursitis). I have to be on crutches for 3 weeks with only 20lbs of weight in that hip until today, Day 14. Now I move to 25% of my weight for two days, 50% for two more days, 75% for two more days and then I get to let the crutches go next Wednesday. So excited!

I've been working from home and will do so for 2-3 more weeks. I cannot run or jump for 3-4 months and no bending more than 90 degrees for a few more weeks. PT is going well so I have my goal to try a run in mid to end of December which will be 3-3.5 months since the surgery.

I can't wait to try.