This is probably not of much interest to anyone except people who know me in real life, but here it is for anyone who is interested – it’s just a more convenient way of getting information out than sending numerous duplicate emails.
In July last year my knee felt sore after a run. Gave it a couple of days rest and it seemed OK. On the next run, the pain came back – this time it didn’t go away with rest. Off to a physio for treatment. It improved somewhat. It was close enough to 100% by City to Surf day to think it might get through the run, and it looked like doing so for a while. At the bottom of the big hill I was on track for a PB. At the top of the hill though the knee was no good. I was a walking (limping) spectator for most of the 2nd half of the race, the ultimate frustration. While officially I “finished” (a long time after I’d hoped), I didn’t “run” the event really. After another couple of months of only ever partial recovery, it was time to see a GP, who sent me to a “sports physician” who ordered a MRI scan then sent me to a surgeon. All of this took a maddening amount of time.
On November 22, by which time I’d intended to have had it fully cured, I finally went to to a nearby hospital and had an arthroscopy to repair a tear in my right medial meniscus (the bit of cartilage on the inside of the knee joint between the 2 leg bones). The surgeon declared it a success (a raging success in fact, a complete repair with minimal loss of the all-important cushioning cartilage) but warned there would be some recovery time, that I should not walk long distances at first and should not run for 2 months. A big thanks must go to my Dad who came to visit and assisted me in the first stage of recovery so I didn’t have to do much.
A few more physio treatments, as recommended by the surgeon. The post-surgical stiffness and soreness in other parts of my knee joint slowly fades away. But the pain in the original spot on the inside of the joint returns, or remains – perhaps masked at first by a lack of activity and by anti-inflammatory medicine. Hello, the 2 months are up, I should be running, what are you still doing there, knee pain? Physio suspects some persistent inflammation from the operation or original injury. Voltarin helps it, and enables me to walk further, as well as work a bit on a cross-trainer I have at home – like a stationary bike but with no seat, lower impact to the joint than walking or running. But the Voltarin doesn’t cure it. A visit to a GP for something stronger to smash it on the head. He gives me Mobic. That helps too, but no more really than the Voltarin. Meanwhile the physio throws all manner of strength tests at my knee and declares it pretty robust, completely recovered from surgery. He says I can start jogging a bit. I start doing slow 100 metre jogs with rests in between. It seems not to aggravate it too much but the cause of the pain is clearly still not cured. Then the Mobic runs out. Over a few days the pain becomes worse than before the operation. Now even walking half a km aggravates it. Next visit to the physio, he recommends contacting the surgeon, and obviously discontinuing any running. I have an appointment for March 2nd, but bring it forward to last week. Surgeon is surprised I still have pain considering the awesome job he allegedly did. I need another scan. More maddening time to wait to see what’s going on. The scan will be next Friday. Then another appointment with the surgeon the week after that. If I have a stress injury, like possibly a stress fracture, it will eventually come good but will just take a lot more time. Not good. The half marathon in May is already all but abandoned. Now even this year’s City to Surf (August) might be under threat. Unthinkable. The amount of time not running has seriously done my head in. If you don’t get the kind of buzz I do from these events and don’t have the motivation for them that I do, you won’t understand, but never mind. If there is no stress injury, I’ll get an injection of cortisone. That, unlike a tablet which is diluted throughout the entire body, really should smash any remaining inflammation on the head.
In the week since I saw the surgeon, I’ve stayed off not just the running, but the cross trainer and walking any further than necessary as well. The pain has reduced dramatically (which I have no doubt is due to my reduced activity), but there is a residual “something’s not quite right” feeling that has been there for more than 6 months now. And this reduced activity is doing absolutely nothing for my general fitness which I need to be as good as possible when I do eventually start running again. Nothing worse than starting from a “total unfitness” base.
There is another aspect to this whole thing. On occasions I have received prayer for healing of this problem. It has been just as effective as all the medical treatment I’ve been getting, as in not very. An example of the kind of thing mentioned in my previous post in that so far the God I pray to has chosen not to answer in the affirmative, either by providing the kind of treatment that works, or by otherwise intervening in ways that some parts of recorded history indicate that he can. Another prompt to ponder the age old conundrum of an all-good, all-loving and all-powerful God in the world in which some things are not as they should be. As I’ve said – more coming on this topic later. The topics of this post and the previous are just 2 things, by no means the worst, that have caused me to ponder it. My problem of course pales into insignificance compared to those of many others, it just happens to be my current personal experience of the world/universe/life being utterly not as it should be.
I hope that I will soon get a complete cure. In the meantime I still can’t run. Therefore I can’t maintain anywhere near the level of fitness I would like, nor put in the training required to run well in future races. I also can’t continue learning hang gliding, which requires running (see some earlier posts). I can’t even take off significant weight to enable me to run faster when I can run and to make learning hang gliding easier (this is despite regularly starving myself lately and depriving myself of many good things – I have a remarkably efficient, metabolism-slowing, energy-conserving body). Therefore, I am not happy (about this part of my life). I hope I can report something better soon, but it is anything but a “sure and certain hope”. I do have something like that kind of hope about other things though, which is good.
Astro's random writings 