Very 'period' to my area of study, but not quite specific in this case. First of all, I'm not dead (add Monty Python reference here), and secondly, the portion of my anatomy in question isn't my abdomen, but my right foot. Specifically, an area less than an inch square.
I'm not at all sure when the actual instigating moment was, but at some point last year, I must have stepped wrongly off a curb (whether walking or running) or somehow leaned a little too far to the right-- a not unusual circumstance in these days of uneven pavements-- but then quickly righted myself and moved on. That moment probably is what turned into a small bout of tendonitis-like pain across the top of my foot. So I paid attention and gave my foot a rest from running over the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend by using the cross-trainers at the gym instead, which didn't produce pain. Returned to running after the break, and all was well. Cross-trained, stationary cycled, and ran on treadmills over the Christmas holidays-- no problem.
Returning to the U.S., I went for a 12-mile run the day after I got back (both to get back to running and to blow the travel-induced cobwebs out of my brain). Run went fine, but my foot was somewhat sore by the end of it. Hmm. Did my speed session as usual two days later: foot sore again. OK, so applied RICE (a common acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation-- the usual first steps one takes when faced with a potential injury) and stayed away from running for several days, missing my scheduled tempo run. By last Sunday, the foot felt fine, so I headed out for my longest run ever: 14 miles. First seven miles, no problem. By the start of the second half, foot started feeling a bit grumpy. By the end, it was seriously sore-- but by the time it hit that point, I was a mile from home and had two options: finish the 14-miler, or walk home (tired, increasingly cold, and sore) from where I was.
I finished the 14 miles. But I knew my foot was NOT happy with me. So off I went to my doctor on Monday, who had my foot x-rayed: nothing broken. (Yay!) She also gave me a recommendation to a sports medicine orthopedist, and by dint of a lucky cancellation, I got to see her on Friday.
Turns out that the patellar tendon attaches to a very small area of the outside of the foot, and chances are it's that which is unhappy, along with some teeny tiny muscles in that area. (It's really rather odd: nothing is swollen to the naked eye, no discolouration, no outward sign of injury, and you can bang on my foot all day without my reacting until my foot is twisted in one particular fashion...THEN you can induce pain in the area.)
Here's where the "lesson" comes in, though: the injury itself isn't actually the most important issue here. The greater concern is what might happen to the rest of my body as it strives to compensate for this small area as it heals: the sports doc was very clear that we need to address things as quickly as possible so that I don't get really hurt somewhere else (in my left foot, my right hip, or wherever else) due to my body's reaction to this very small injury. (Not surprisingly, my calf muscles are very tight on both sides, my ankles rather stiff, and she seems to think I need flexibility and strengthening work on both ankles and hips.). So an immobilizing boot for walking, NSAID cream for the area (I didn't even know NSAIDs-- think Tylenol or ibuprofen-- came in topical form), and physical therapy are in order. (Plus, I hope, a gait analysis and whatever advice I need to make sure this never happens again: new/different shoes? Orthotics? We'll see.)
It fascinates me that such a small area can affect the whole body so very profoundly: if ever one needed an example of everything being connected, here it is.
I did ask about the marathon, which is scheduled for March 20-- she looked at me levelly, and said if I responded really well to physical therapy, then maybe, just maybe, I can see about increasing mileage. But at the moment, she'd call the race "questionable": "Right now, I doubt that you could walk it," she said. Ouch, but I do so appreciate medical folk who realize that I want to know the real deal, not some tiptoeing around the issue-- the doc's office is actually the group of ortho specialists for various local professional teams, so they're used to talking to athletes. [Funny moment: the doc's fellow came in to chat with me and examine my foot at first, so I told him my athletic story-- triathete and dancer, training for first marathon, used RICE already, etc.-- while he looked at my x-rays. We chatted sports, he had me do various things, then as he left he asked casually, "What do you do for a living?" and I told him. That gave him pause: I don't think he'd anticipated "I'm an English professor" as my answer. Hee.]
As disappointing as it would be not to do the marathon, I've actually decided to look at this as a good thing. First of all, it's temporary, fixable, and if the treatment means I get to strengthen weaknesses I hadn't realized were there, all the better. Secondly, I'm still able to train: swimming and biking are fine, and I can do deep-water running in the pool. So no need to go insane from enforced immobility, even if the walking boot thing is a maze of velcro and a pain to take off and put on getting in and out of cars (I can't drive with it on). This is all excellent: a stir-crazy WT is NOT a happy WT.
But it's the third benefit that intrigues me the most: this injury forces me to slow down-- not that I've ever been a speed demon in terms of racing, but in the sense that I tend to operate quickly in general: I think quickly, I speak quickly (just ask any of my students!), I walk quickly, and I move quickly. With this, I literally can't do some of those things, and that enables me to work on being more mindful of exactly what I'm doing as I'm doing it. I went to yoga class yesterday-- a beginner class rather than the more advanced one I'd signed up for and usually go to-- and my fabulous teacher not only graciously allowed me to switch classes, but nodded in understanding when I explained that my yoga at the moment seems to be about that increased mindfulness, about feeling exactly how everything is connected and what parts of me are affected by each pose, listening to the quieter voices within. (Chuckle: she remarked, "You need a blog!" and I laughed and told her I already had one-- here it is, T!)
So the lesson here is not, in fact, about anatomy-- or not just that, at least. It seems to be a much longer-term one about listening and feeling. 'Twill be interesting to see how it progresses.
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