Archive for November, 2011

On Friday afternoon, a few hours after the doctor called with the test results, I walked over to the hospital to get a copy of the MRI report for myself. I wanted to see exactly what it said.

What is said was “The femur demonstrates normal signal intensity without bone marrow edema…”  Normal.

Seeing this conflicting information in black and white, I couldn’t help but wonder about the hierarchy of medical knowledge: Does a radiologist reading an MRI make a more accurate diagnosis than a doctor looking at an MRI…or vice-versa? It seemed possible that a radiologist’s specific experience and education might produce a more reliable assessment.  And if that was the case, perhaps I could consider splitting the difference in remaining rest time – cut it from two weeks to one.

To be clear, I genuinely like, respect and trust my doctor, but this was a first for me: opposing views on a major medical test.  So I posted the situation on Facebook to see what people thought.

Within minutes, I received a barrage of emphatic replies, totally well-meaning of course though largely dismissive, as if I was being childish or irresponsible for considering anything other than my doctor’s original plan.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there with the radiology report in hand, personally acquired from the Medical Records dungeon of Hahnemann Hospital, that says my femur is normal.  Wouldn’t it be natural to wonder about this?  I would think it’d be strange not to weigh it out.

Anyway, as the replies swarmed in, the general consensus was clearly unanimous, so I wrote “Thanks everybody, got it, I’ll stick to the original plan” but the replies continued, some with INTERNET YELLING and it was getting me down in a big way – like I’d killed a puppy or something – so I deleted the post to make it stop.

My takeaway was this: 1. Radiology reports can be wrong so I should assume mine is because 2. Doctor’s opinion > radiologist’s.  OK, case closed.

On a lighter note, I neglected to mention that on Wednesday night, while I was strapped to the table of the MRI machine, feet taped together, clutching the emergency “let me outta here” bulb while those deafening clangs filled the room like a scene from a sci-fi movie (albeit an enormously boring one), I farted.  Twice.

And while it was happening (god, I really did fight to keep it inside), I had a genuine worry that the passing of gas – or more particularly, my vibrating butt – might ruin some of the images, rendering them blurry and unreadable.  In fact, now that I think about it, maybe that’s what those spots were on the MRI: artifacts introduced from letting ‘er rip.  Fartifacts.

I think I’ll ask about this on Facebook…

Oh, before I do, please everyone, do me a huge favor and don’t tell me in a comment anything like “better safe than sorry, why risk it, you really should take the full two weeks, what’s the hurry, don’t rush it, definitely follow your doctor’s advice, please be careful…” or anything along those lines.  It will only make me want to kick you in the face.

No fracture, whew.  The report from the radiologist won’t be available till later today or Monday, so there’s a slight possibility the diagnosis might differ, but “stress reaction” is the doctor’s determination.  EDIT: just heard back from the doc, the radiology report doesn’t even say stress reaction!  But the doc thinks I should continue as planned, so I will.

It’s a spot on the upper third of my femur that I’d already noted on the MRI yesterday, so it wasn’t a surprise (I kept it to myself since I don’t know shit and didn’t trust my observation).

On the left is my hoo-ha. Many thanks to Kristin for providing hours of hoo-ha humor.

This is a not such a bad result; since it’s only a reaction and I’ve already completed 17 days of rest, I only need to take off 2 more weeks.  I can handle this, no problem! (FYI, stress reaction is the precursor to a stress fracture, run on it long enough and it will become a full-fledged sfx.)

After my 2 weeks of rest are over, I’m to start at 25% of my mileage (working off 90mpw) and increase around 10% per week from there.  I love my doc.

The doctor btw, is totally cool with the mileage volume I was doing, never once raised an eyebrow or suggested I alter it.  Today, I asked him about my theory, if it could have started with a simple muscle strain that grew from lack of attention.  His response was “Absolutely!”  though not because of muscle pulling on bone as I envisioned (a la shin splints), but because the muscle tweak started affecting other muscles and that would have altered my gait.  So mechanical, but situational.

It’s wonderful to get that confirmation, it means I don’t have to worry about this happening again, there’s nothing inherently weak or that needs changing.  I just have to deal with it earlier – if I can’t find the problem myself, call the doctor at the start.

As for the next 2 weeks, I’m not going to join a gym.  He wants me to avoid lower body stuff anyway, so I figure I’ll do my pilates and yoga dvds just to feel like I’m doing something.  Lost fitness is not a pressing worry since I have the winter to regain it, though my friend Jackie has put the notion of the Surf City Half on February 5th in my mind, so I’m toying with that.

The other cool thing about the timing of this is that in a month, I’m going to Vegas for the Half and would have gone whether I could run or not since it’s going to be a huge gathering of beloved forum pals.  But here’s the deal, some of those crazy pals will have spent their morning doing another full marathon, then hopping on the plane to run Vegas (it’s a night marathon).

My friend Matt is one of those doubling kooks, but he’s doing the Vegas Half for his second race.  He plans on going reeeeeal slow (like 9min/mi) since he and the rest of those crazy cats will be hurting.  This works out perfectly for me: I don’t have to worry about fitness loss or pounding my legs – it’ll be a fun and funny run with someone I adore.  I imagine lots of alcohol will be involved.  Good times.

I’ll close with more thanks to everyone for following this soap opera.  You kids are great.  Later, gators.

First off, a big thanks to all who responded to my question from Sunday’s post, both here and privately.  I received so many informative stories and experiences that went far beyond the initial question but were all fascinating.  What I learned from it is that there are tons of variations for symptoms, pain levels and layoff time, thus you really can’t compare anything.

Walking around these past few days, feeling like a healthy normal person again has been troublesome for my emotions.  It’s one thing to be sidelined when you’re in pain, you know full well that resting is the sensible thing to do.  Once you feel good again though, it’s like “How can I possibly need more weeks off?  It can’t be that bad”.

I admit to asking my friends in the 3:20 thread that, if I didn’t get an appointment and have a diagnosis by the end of the week, would I be an ass to try a test run on Friday?  I got a good mix of answers for yay and nay, but in the end, I was hugely relieved when the insurance came through yesterday so this isn’t even in my psyche to consider.

I would have chickened out anyway.  I haven’t even run across the street in two weeks, that’s how paranoid I am.  Besides, from all the responses to my question in the last post, I know full well that just because it doesn’t feel like anything doesn’t mean shit. It was just me being hopeful for a day.  Since then, I vacillate through hope and resignation every few hours.  It keeps me busy.

Last night, I prepared myself for the worst and figured out the gym situation.  The swankier club in my neighborhood has a trial month for $30 so that should cover most of the remaining time off, should it come down to that.  FYI, today is my 15th day of rest.

The MRI is at 5pm today and I’ll have the full report on Friday morning at the doctor’s appointment.  In the meantime, they’ll give me a disc with the images.  I’ve been Goggling MRI images so I have a clue about hot spots and how they appear.  It seems pretty straight forward on bone: if it’s a dark image, there’ll be a light spot and if it’s a light image, there’ll be a dark spot. Please, let there be no spots.

Btw, I have to apologize for dragging this thing out, I had planned not to post anything till Friday when I had the final word but I’m going a little stir-crazy from waiting (the last two weeks have been all about waiting), writing a post is a cathartic time-waster.  I’ll be back in a couple days with the dealio.  Wish me luck.