Late in the evening I feel it, a twinge here, a stabbing pain there but nothing I haven’t experienced before. This time it’s my lefthand side though. My piriformis, mid and mini glute and my ITB are all having a little dance together, whilst collectively singing some kind of “pain symphony” – “probably just my neglect of post running stretching, coupled with 4 long journeys in the van” I thought to myself. “Give the running a miss today and see how it feels in a couple of day, that usually works”.
As the week went on, so did the pain. It was manageable during the day whilst I was working, but I began taking Ibuprofen and Paracetamol in the evening to get some rest. Increasingly the need to dampen the pain encroached into the day too and by mid-week it was clear I needed to take a full course.
As Sunday morning arrived there had been small signs of improvement. In fact I was toying with the idea of going for a run, I mean it had been over a week now since I last laced up my running shoes. Most runners will recognise this feeling and all those who have been injured, will also know that going back too soon is the worst thing you can do. It will only prolong the recovery. With this in the forefront of my mind, I chose the sensible option and said “just give it a couple more days or so Terry, it won’t do your fitness any harm to rest a little”. Instead I wandered into the garden and began some pre-winter repairs. A couple wooden stairs needed replacing (turned out to be 4) and the old decking needed to be taken down. This culminated in a new paved walkway being required so the office had a less hazardous access and thus some 20-35 kilo paving slabs were carried down the newly repaired steps. A job well done.
WTF!!!! – it’s 1am and I can barely move, let alone sleep. The “pain symphony” had moved up an octave or two and was now playing with the entire posterior chain orchestra. OUCH….
I didn’t sleep a wink all night, the Ibuprofen and Paracetamol didn’t even touch the sides and I had tears rolling down my cheeks. THIS HURTS. I rose from the bed like a crippled old man and dragged myself down the stairs to make our morning coffee, get my sandwiches ready for work and empty the dishwasher. “movement will help”, I thought. It didn’t.
The next few days was a complete “rinse-repeat” and I kept convincing myself that the week before everything began to fade and this weekend I was going to do nothing at all. If, by Monday next week, it isn’t any better I’m contacting Bupa and my GP.
Monday wasn’t any better, arguably it was worse, so calls, emails and patches requests were made. By this point I was a whole week into having no more than an hour or two of sleep and my patience was dwindling. Thursday I was sat in front of a senior nurse practitioner; (I won’t tell this story in writing as it will be a whole blog of its’ own, but suffice to say the lack of sleep, high levels of pain and the unprofessionalism of this person resulted in a pretty frank consultation) and a referral letter to see a specialist was agreed upon.
It’s now Tuesday evening, I’m gingerly traversing across the carpark of Spire hospital towards the entrance. This is a level of care and compassion I’m not accustomed to at all. Personal details completed and 10- minutes later I’m sitting across from an experienced orthopaedic hip specialist reading a list of bullet points of the events leading up to my being there. He listened, examined and swiftly sent me for an Xray. Upon my return he delivered his working diagnostic. “First off the good news”, he said “at this stage we’re not looking at surgery. However, we are now looking at 2 working theories, for which we will need an MRI. Sadly I’m away for a couple of weeks so it may be 4 – weeks before I can see you again, because I need those results first so we can decide what course of action/ treatment we can take. In the meantime you’ll need to take some stronger pain relief because, quite clearly, what your currently taking isn’t touch the sides” With this we signed off the MRI screening documentation and were on our way.
By this point I’d now gone over 3-weeks without sleep and it was taking me the best part of 2-3 hours to get enough movement and drugs into my body, to enable me to work. At the time of writing this today I’m now 5-weeks in. The pain dulls just enough with overnight codeine to give me about 5-hours restless sleep and my MRI is due this coming week. After that I’ve got another 2 weeks to wait to see the specialist again, at which point we should know precisely what we’re dealing with. I clearly haven’t run now in 5 1/2 weeks, in fact I can’t even walk the dog at the moment. Being self-employed means I have to prioritise work over everything else and the steady rocking action of my job in addition to the drugs I have to take, do have a releasing effect for a good 5 to 6 hours, after which tiredness takes over and the pain kicks back in, usually with a vengeance.
What I have learned during the last few weeks is how grateful I am to have a body which is fit enough to get through all of this. Having time to reflect and listen to what it is telling me, has made me understand the important things in life are not the trails I run or the hills/ mountains I climb, nor are they the wonderful places I get to take a walk. No it’s to look after my health and wellbeing, to listen to those quiet inner voices before they form a symphony and to do the right thing when it’s need.
I has also taught me how amazing it is to have a wife, family and friends. People who have been by my side every painful step of the way, and continue to be so despite my grumpy and exhausted outbursts. They have been my grounding rocks, beacons of light, and bottomless pools of hope throughout and for this I am truly blessed.
So when the world offers you time to reflect, no matter how that manifests, be grateful for it because it will always teach you something of immense importance and for me, this time around, it has been a wonderful lesson of seeing what you already have, because what I already have, is more than enough.
