A running focused blog, when the guy that’s supposed to be doing the writing, can’t run – rather sucks doesn’t it.

Finding the motivation to write has been mostly nonexistent.

The Injury

Whatever I did to my left knee rototilling back on May 10th, I haven’t run since. Hell, this injury wasn’t even related to running.

It seems like a lot of my injuries aren’t related to my running, but usually happen when I am working around the house. I wonder if we should get rid of the house and get an apartment. Somewhere that I don’t have to do that dangerous thing called yard work. After all, that seems to be when most of my injuries happen — doing yard work.

I’m not going to bore you to tears with all the whining I have done since then, because it doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things going on in the world today to anyone but me. Well, maybe TheWife who has to listen to me piss and moan about not running.

Physical Therapy

The good news is that I have been doing PT for my shoulder and hamstrings. Actually, I screwed my knee up the day before my first physical therapy appointment.

Yeah, the PT noted that my left knee was messed-up, but without the doc’s orders, couldn’t really make it officially part of the treatment plan. Even though it was the thing that was the biggest problem. Rules are rules after all. That didn’t bother me all that much since many of the things for my balky hamstrings also were helping the knee a little too.

Plus, I had to let the flare-up from hyper-extending with a double-gainer twist calm down to see what kind of damage I did to my left knee while rototilling.

Earlier this week, I went in for my second visit and the knee was doing better and the PT noted that in her report. The shoulder is doing better too.

Unsurprisingly, the hamstrings have had a chance to calm down and heal after a couple weeks of no running. The PT jokingly told me that my knee injury was a good thing for my hamstrings because they had the chance to heal. Whereas if I hadn’t had the injury, I would have been running long before she wanted me to.

You know she was right. I had told myself that same thing a couple of times. If it weren’t for the knee, I would have been running.

But even though the knee was feeling better it wasn’t feeling right. I got orders again from the PT not to run until she sees me again on June 10th. Which I figured was going to happen and with how the knee was feeling, I was certain that I wasn’t running anyway. Even though I threatened to go running that afternoon.

Which earned me “the look”.

Then she said something that got my attention. That I might want to consider seeing the doc after the next appointment if the knee isn’t doing any better. Yeah, a great idea and one that I was thinking about too. But it is nice when someone else validates your thinking.

Grumpy Knee

A couple of days later, I was doing a walk for my workout and the knee got damned grumpy. On that wonderful pain scale, it was hovering right around a constant 5 on the way back. Most of the time, the knee had been in the 2-3 range (acceptable), with an occasional tweak if I moved wrong to 7-8.

It was at that point I decided to call to make the appointment to see the doc about my knee. I wanted to do it before I finished the walk (before I had a chance to change my mind – I hate going to doctor’s offices), went through the triage process, and ended up getting an appointment for the next day.

I guess they thought it was interesting or maybe I sounded pitiful enough that I needed to be seen sooner than later.

Seeing the Doc

Just after lunch today, I got to see the doc. She evaluated my knee, we discussed what happened, and how I was feeling, and agreed that X-Rays would be a great idea.

I brought up how much my left hip was also bothering, me and that the PT had discussed that my left pelvic region had some pretty significant issues. Something that I had been compensating for, for so long that I didn’t notice that it was a problem.

Now that I knew it was a problem, I need to know what is going on there as well. Since I was going to have an X-Ray, anyway, ordering a few more to look at the hip seemed like a good idea to her as well.

Her initial thoughts were along the lines of something with the meniscus or a bad arthritis flareup. Both of which would require PT as the first course of action. If the knee continues to bother even after PT for a few weeks or if locks, then she will order an MRI to get a good picture of what is going on in the knee.

Hurry up and Wait

Now, it is a question of hurry up and wait.

At least I know that the doc is on my side and is trying to get me back to running. Even though, there is a hint of anti-running bias in some of the language she uses. However, I am used to that from the medical establishment who are not runners or old farts themselves

That is where things stand as of tonight.

Just a quick update on what’s going on.

Yeah, I am still smiling and at some point this year, I will get back to running regularly. Like they say, “Someday I will stop running for good, but that time is not now.”

This is just another temporary setback, prior to me getting out and running once again.

After all, I have these bad boys sitting on the dresser waiting for their maiden voyage.