Too Hip To Be Square

After a strong but very painful run last night, I woke up this morning barely able to put weight on my left leg. My hip is out of control. It's been getting worse over the last month, and when I realized that there is no way I can keep running on it and deny that something is going on, I called my doctor. I asked for a referral to a sports medicine guy and told the nice nurse what doctor not to refer. In the past I have seen one Ortho doc for my knees and shoulder. I saw him for the first time as a young teenager. He's done surgery on me and helped me get back into playing shape for softball or whatever sport I was playing at the time. So when my knees both flared up badly after a 12 mile walk two years ago I went in. I wanted to walk the Green Bay Marathon (I had yet to take up running) a month later and needed to be fixed. He looked at my knees and said that I have j-tracking in both knees and serious cartilage issues (they sound like a meat grinder when I bend and straighten them), but that he would not do surgery. He told me that I should just wait until they are bone-on-bone and get them replaced. Here's the kicker:

He said, "Rebecca, you are in your thirties now and you're a mother. You should just become more of a couch potato. You are never going to be an athlete again"

Let me tell you, that did not sit well. I was shocked and angry and scared that it might be true. But I knew that I wasn't going to let it be true. I didn't walk that marathon, but I did start running a couple of months later (for the first time since my first knee surgeries in Jr High) and completed the Fox Cities Marathon a couple months after that. My knees don't give me much trouble anymore...a little soreness sometimes, but it seems that I strengthened the right muscles by running and now they work better.
My nurse was a little horrified by the story of what that doctor said and consulted with a doctor to find me the right sports doc. I hope he doesn't encourage me to take up needlepoint....my arthritic hands couldn't handle it.

I go in on Monday, and I won't be running until then. I'm praying that it's just some bad inflamation and a cortisone shot will be all I need. With the next marathon in September I can't afford more than two weeks off from training.

I was just starting to feel better about my day when my three year old told me that I have whiskers like Daddy.