. . . from a Maine road it started . . .

Before we get too involved in this blog thing, I should probably explain what happened to start all of this craziness.

So, in the summer of 2014, I did this crazy solo traveling adventure in Ireland (You can read about it on my other blog, Tales of a Solo Traveler). I went on the whole adventure for the travel, but ended up getting in good shape -- something I'd almost given up on having the motivation to achieve. Here's some pictures pre- and post-trip for comparison.

Left is before and right is after.

Landing back in the States and back in the grind of my normal school year (I'm a teacher, so the academic calendar is really the only one that matters to me) caused some challenges to my continuing to be active. I kept hiking, and joined as gym the rains returned to my Pacific Northwest home. As part of the motivation bandwagon, I also stated doing 5Ks. Nothing crazy, and about one per season.

Left to right, top then bottom: Four on the Fourth (summer 2014), Run Like Hell (fall 2014),
Resolution Run (winter 2015), Bridges to Brews (spring 2015) -- A 10K!

By the time the next summer came around, I made plans to visit my super pregnant best friend in Boston. As had become out tradition, we planned to do a road race on the 4th of July back in her home town in Maine. I'd done the race the year before (4 miles on the 4th of July), and thought I'd easily be able to complete it again, and maybe even shave a few minutes off of my time now that I was in better shape. Being seven and a half months pregnant, my friend offered to run the race with me. Now, here's where I should have said, "thanks, but no thanks." See, up until my friend got pregnant, she was a marathon runner. Yes. 26-point-whatever miles of running. For. FUN.

With her pregnant belly, she knew she wasn't going to be in this race for speed, but we figured my slow run and her pregnant run would be about the same. Maybe we were right, but I certainly didn't factor in the HILLS and the frost heaves left in the rural Maine backroad. So, I spent four miles running (RE: heavy impact) up and down hills (RE: incline and decline) and on domed roads (RE: right leg was about one to two inches higher the whole race).

By the end, I wasn't only exhausted, but starting to feel an odd tightness and pulling in my hip/groin area. Here's some before and after pictures. You can already see the discomfort in my face.

Left is before and right is after

Over the next couple of weeks, I continued to feel tightness in my hip/groin area, which started to increase to actual pain as I flew back Oregon where I live. After I got home, I noticed that the odd tightness that was slowly turning into pain had spread to my lower back and began to move in spots into my abdomen. Just to rule out something like appendicitis, I went into urgent care about a week after returning home -- three weeks post injury. After a battery of tests -- urine, blood, and an ultrasound -- the doctors determined that I did not have anything wrong with my organs and ruled the problem "likely muscular." My general practitioner (GP) set me up with some exercises, and the advice to wait and see. So, I waited for the next two weeks, did my exercises, and kept up walking/jogging. Unfortunately, the pain only increased, and then spread. By mid-August, about six weeks post injury, I was in pain from my upper back down to my toes. My feet and toes were tingling, and my muscles were in so much pain from tightness that I kept myself medicated on Advil and struggled to sleep through the night. Finally, my GP referred me to a physical therapist (PT) and allowed me to also see a licensed massage therapist (LMT). After another delay of a couple of weeks -- the soonest either could schedule me for an appointment -- I started my "therapy" treatments.

Fast-foward six months to the end of January 2016. I was still going to both my LMT and PT, the pain had receded back to its original point -- my hip/groin and lower back. Those areas were still tight, and both my LMT and PT agreed that we were past the point of just assuming muscle issues. Two weeks later, (the soonest I could get an appointment) I went back to my GP who referred me to an orthopedic specialist and ordered a round of X-Rays. Two weeks later (the soonest I could get an appointment), I met with the orthopedic doctor who did some strange stretching tests, decided it was likely not a joint issue (but that we should have tests just to rule it out), and sent me for more X-Rays and a dye-contrast MRI. He threw in a cortisone injection, just for kicks, and because he also believed my issues to be muscular.

Jump another two weeks (we're now at mid-March of 2016, for those keeping track). I went in and had the dye-contrast MRI. Such a weird experience. The medical assistant had me lay on a X-ray machine, then the doctor came in, numbed the area, suck a GIANT needle in my hip to inject the medicines and dye, and used the X-Ray machine to ensure he got it all in the right place. The medical assistant had to wheel me in a wheelchair to the MRI room. They set me up with some headphones playing soft rock and spent about 20 minutes taking pictures of my hip.

The whole process was much less stressful than I thought it would be, but I was bruised and sore for the next few days, causing me to limp. The unfortunate side effect is that my left hip started hurting while I was limping around, and continues to hurt to this day. I was told that I'm favoring it too much now . . . lovely.

The next day, March 18, I went in to see the orthopedic doctor, fully expecting him to verify what he told me he thought he'd see. Unfortunately, we were both disappointed. He showed me some of the films of the MRI, and pointed to a spot where the dye moved past a small triangle shape. He explained that the dye's ability to move past that spot indicated that there was a tear in my labrum -- the cartilage that sits in between the top of my thigh bone and my hip joint. The only solution to this problem is surgery. As someone whose most invasive medical procedure was getting my wisdom teeth out, the prospect of even arthroscopic surgery is pretty terrifying.

Another two weeks later, I finally got in to see the recommended surgeon. He verified what the orthopedic doctor had diagnosed and quickly went over the procedure.

The long and short of the story is that I'll need to have the surgery if I ever want the pain to go way, and I do want it to go away. Since I'm a teacher, I decided to put off the procedure until school is out for the summer. Admittedly, I'm lucky that I get this opportunity away from work, but the down side is that my whole vacation time will be devoted to healing. I'm looking at a month of crutches and a hip brace. Thankfully, I have wonderful friends who are offering to go out of their way to take care of me, but it still sucks to have this burden -- on me and them -- to deal with. Especially since I was planning another epic European adventure that will now need to be postponed a year.

Well, that's the backstory. Now, we go forward. T-22 days until surgery.

While in the merry month of March . . .

On March 18th of 2016, I learned that need to have hip surgery to repair a labral tear on my right hip. Up until this point, the most severe medical procedure I remember was getting my wisdom teeth out eight years ago. For me, even arthroscopic surgery sounds terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. So, I did what any other person of my age would do -- I asked the internet for answers. Medical websites like the Mayo Clinic and Web MD helped give me a better sense of what to expect in terms of the hard facts of the procedure and recovery, but I still wanted the human element. What does it actually feel like to go through something like this? Will this all be worth it?And the real question: how will I get through it?

So, I started my search for blogs. In the age of social media and the world wide web, I thought, someone has got to have a blog about this experience, documenting it for prosperity and popularity sake. Unfortunately, the experiences I found were few and far between, and usually involved some special circumstances. I'm just a regular person. I teach high school English and like to travel. This summer, I hoped to travel to Scotland and Ireland for a month and spend some time with my niece and nephew in the States. But, all of that was put on hold, and I've been scrambling to reconfigure myself for the last six weeks. While standing in the shower, it hit me that I could provide the documentation that I'd been searching for, if not for me, then for someone else. And here we are. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with this, but I'm going to try to use this blog as motivation forward. I want to be able to finish the final post by saying I'm back to normal . . . or at least as normal as I every was. Keep your fingers crossed, and your hopes positive.

Welcome to my recovery blog.