Finally!

You'll understand the title by the end, I promise.  On the way home from DWD yesterday, I texted Kathy to ask if she wanted to run today--10 miles in the county.  She said yes.  I didn't feel too beat up from DWD, and I've been itching to get out on our course.

Last night, I noticed my right hip flexor was a little sore.  I massaged it with Therbo before I went to bed.  I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that it was bothering me a bit as I walked, and also when I turned over in bed.  When I got up, it was still pretty sore.  I'm sure that I did something to it during DWD (climbing cracks of doom and going through streams will do stuff to you).  But I decided to try it out on the run.

When we first took off, I was acutely aware of it.  It hurt.  But my stride wasn't affected.  It hurt a lot worse going up hills.  As the run went on, it got a lot better.  It was sore again after.  I got back under the robot and also had Tim massage it.  So it's very sore to the touch.  That, I can deal with.  What I don't like is that it hurts every time I raise my leg.  Now, it's nothing like the groin strain I had back in 2009.  I couldn't even walk with that.  But, because I've had so many catastrophic injuries, I am constantly afraid it's happening again.  I've had many things like this crop up--a hamstring and a quad last cycle.  But it always scares me and I fear I'm going to have to take off for months.  Tim assures me it will be gone with a couple days of rest (which were scheduled anyway--I have to go to Washington, DC this week).  It's funny that I'm starting to have issues with my hip flexors.  My left one was so sore for several days after Eugene, and now the right one.  My body just keeps finding new ways to hurt.

Speaking of hurting...let me get to the title of this post.  Back to my run with Kathy.  First, I love running with Kathy.  She is one of the nicest people I know, and we're very similar in some ways.  We'll run through anything.  Kathy doesn't just run races, she races them.  She gives it all.  And I know that we are so much alike in that way...both very competitive.  As a funny side note, we both had on running skirts today.

We took off and, other than the right hip flexor...I just felt kind of blah.  My legs were tight from DWD, but not that sore.  However, they WERE dead.  Just...no zip.  Kathy always worries about slowing me down (and she shouldn't), but today I was pushing it to keep up with her.  Not only were my legs dead, but that overwhelming feeling of whole-body fatigue is something I just can't shake ever since my surgery.  Doesn't help that I hardly ate yesterday and had nothing for breakfast (did take a gel, though).

It was raining a slight drizzle the whole time...actually made it nice and cool.  I haven't run with Kathy in several weeks, so we had lots of talking to do.  The miles, despite me not feeling that great, just clicked by.

At mile 3ish, we stopped to use the bathroom.  I was massaging my hip flexor and then it hit me:  My abdomen doesn't hurt.  Well, that's not totally true, I still have some soreness from the incision on the right side.  But the sharp, stabbing pain beneath my ribs and the left-sided pain were just not there.  I wanted to say something to Kathy.  But I feared that doing so would jinx me.  After all, it was only 3 miles.

When we got to 5 miles, I became aware that I STILL didn't have any pain.  I wanted to tell her so badly but told myself I had to at least get more than half way through the run before I announced it.  We chatted away, and when we hit the 6 mile mark, I said "Kathy.  I have to tell you something."  I'm sure she thought I was going to blurt out something awful, but I quickly said:  "This is the first run, since last September, that I have run with absolutely NO abdominal pain."  For the life of me, I can't remember what Kathy said...it was one word that was close in meaning to "awesome," but I can't remember what word she used.  I will.

Anyway, it was nice to have Kathy there to witness it.  There I was, soaked in the rain, dead legs, totally exhausted, struggling to keep up, a right hip flex talking back to me, and I was smiling like a LOON.  When we got to 9 miles, I thought to myself "Okay, this time it's real.  I'm going to make it an entire run."  And I did.  I finally am getting better.  Finally!

 Not that long ago, I had resigned myself to never running without that pain again.  Even with my TENS on, I could always feel it.  I couldn't imagine that I'd ever run without that device and be completely pain free. I believed what those doctors told me--that I had some condition that would never go away.   I hate to admit it, but for a while, I gave up.  I told a friend tonight that people in this situation have to give up/resign themselves to it because it is SO EXHAUSTING to know that something is wrong with you--that you are broken--and no one (as in physicians) seem to be able to help you, and they don't all necessarily care that they can't.  After that brief relapse, though, I got right back to it, with the help of my mom and Tim, and finally got the care I needed.  If you are ever in this situation, do not simply accept what they tell you.  If you're not getting better, it's time to change the treatment course.

Now, I'm not going to proclaim that I'm healed.  I may have a little pain for a while (she DID scrape my liver), but I'm confident I'll NEVER have that stabbing pain again.  Thank God that is gone.

Oh...and our DWD team WON!  They left us out of the results, though.  They assigned our bib number to the wrong team.  I've emailed them to correct it.  Now it's back to obsessing about my right hip flexor...but I'm oh so much happier to do that than obsess about that abdominal pain!