I don’t think I’ve ever had a Doctor tell me exactly what I want to hear, that is until Monday. And his diagnosis was like that last sip of coffee where all the caramel has collected—heavenly. I’ve been battling a hip injury for a couple of years now, more so described as chronic pain than an injury because I don’t really know exactly what happened to my hip, but when I run it just plain hurts. And in the weirdest of places too, right above my hip bone and some days it even feels like the pain migrates to other areas. My first few years of college I just sort of ran through the pain; I was just getting started with my running anyway and wasn’t training too intensely just going the distance. However, all of that changed last fall when I started training with the track team. My intensity and mileage upped significantly (and I loved it!) but so did the pain. And because I am so stubborn and tend to have a high pain tolerance, I still ran through it.
Part of my thinking, ok, most of my stubbornness was spent turning the pain into a metaphor and I believed that if I was able to just run through it and keep going, I could tackle the pain in my heart and move past it as well. That was until January hit. By then I’d had probably too many indoor workouts, my body was beaten and stressed, and my hip just gave out. I finally caved to the trainer’s office because for the first night after a run, the pain made me cry. And it wasn’t any outside or emotional pain, it was definitely radiating from my hip. I knew the tears were a sign that I to stop, to humble myself and get it looked at.
To make a long story short—my outdoor season was over because I spent the next few months seeing several doctor’s, getting X-rays, an MRI, and fighting the insurance to figure out what was wrong. And finally, finally I have an answer! I spent Monday morning in a sports orthopedist’s office where my revelation appeared. He said everything looked great, I have very healthy joints and muscles, however when he proceeded to poke and prod at my hip (something none of my other doctors have done) he hit the spot where the pain radiated my entire being. (I might be dramatic here, but it hurt!) And his diagnosis—Iliac Crest Chronic Apophysitis (not near as serious as it sounds) which is deep, tiny muscle tears right above my hip bone that have tried to heal but are now covered with scar tissue because my body has stopped trying to fix itself.
Funny how our bodies are wired to do that. Something hurts, or is sick, or isn’t in sync with the rest of the system and the system fights back trying to synchronize itself once again. It fights off the bad and runs off the pain. And the human body is always like that. When one thing is off be it physical, psyche, heart, or soul everything is off. When we are not whole our lives tend to fall apart because we need inner balance. Our humanity, our life is based on the body’s longing to be whole. I believe that is why I ran so hard even through all of my hip pain. My heart was broken, my soul was searching, and the only healthy way to fix it was to physically run out the pain. Yes it hurt, but I was finding balance.
This stubborn (or Iron as I prefer) does go deep because at some point my body just got used to the pain and stopped trying to fix it. So really, I’ve been running with torn muscles for a while now. However despite the knowing and still feeling the pain, I get to run—doctor’s orders. Basically to heal my hip I have to get deep tissue massage to the area and not the feel good kind either. It’s the kind of massage that will leave me bruised and in more pain because essentially, I have to reinjure the muscle and trick the body so it will heal. And if this therapy doesn’t work, he gets to do some cool injection treatment of my own blood into my hip which will trick my body into thinking there is an injury, therefore turning on healing mode. The reason I get to keep running and am not sidelined is because this is a type of injury where I need to feel the pain. I need to know where it hurts, I need to work my body to get it better.
So when I asked him, “Does this mean I can still train for the triathlon or do I have to rest and heal for the next few weeks?”
He replied, “You sure can. And in fact, I encourage you too. Go for it. This is one of very few injuries where I can tell you to run through the pain. It will help the healing.”
I ran to be free; I ran to avoid pain; I ran to feel pain; I ran out of love and hate and anger and joy.
-Dagny Scott
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