Injured Athlete Syndrome

As I was out jogging this morning-that's what I do these days, jog, not run- I almost decided to call this the Superman Syndrome, but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate.

I woke up this morning and decided I was fed up with being injured. I was no longer going to allow myself to be "the injured athlete". This concept applies to our daily life as well, and you might recognize it. I learned about this in Cultural Anthropology (which I took during my rehab from surgery several years ago). When we are injured, either physically or emotionally, we tend to define ourselves by that injury. For example, I'm an injured athlete.

When you define yourself that way, you view yourself differently and treat yourself differently. I found myself much less aggressive, much less confident. Usually when walking across campus, I make eye contact with strangers, nod or smile and say hi or good morning. I don't shy away from eye contact, that makes one look weak and vulnerable. When you make eye contact with someone, you're being bold, direct. You're saying "I'm not afraid of you....and by the way, good morning."

I noticed fairly quickly after tearing my hamstring that while limping across campus, I had a hard time making eye contact. I stared at the ground and wondered if people were feeling pity on me or wondering what was wrong with me. If I looked at them, would the pain in my leg and the frustration of not being able to go very fast manifest itself on my face as self pity or desperation? I mean, when you're limping around, people stare. Try it next time you're injured or hurt. Look at people. They're looking at your leg. And if you're not wearing a cast or using crutches, they're wondering if it's a congenital deformity. (Ok, I do it.)

I actually had two TSA agents at the airport ask what I did to myself. And how. That's pretty bold. But I guess it gets it out there and they can laugh about it instead of staring.

So anyway, the last couple weeks I've been playing the "injured athlete". This morning I was frustrated by my lack of training, complaining that I have now missed out on three weeks of training. I was feeling sorry for myself. Then I realized...it hasn't been 3 weeks. It's been 16 days. And to have my injury and be jogging and cycling within 16 days is fairly good.

Ok, that's it. You are not an injured athlete. You are simply an athlete that has an injury. There's a difference, so knock it off.

That got me feeling a little froggy, so I also decided, while we're getting tough here, that I was just not going to be injured anymore. I'm done. Done with my injury. I'm going for a jog (ok, obviously I don't jog, I run, so just saying I'm going for a jog is keeping my injury in the back of my mind, but not letting it control me).

I guess one thing that really set me off was that while my hamstring (the actual injured muscle) was healing fantastically, there were all sorts of secondary issues that would pop up, seemingly every time I noticed my hamstring getting better.

One thing I noticed after regaining my ability to walk with a semi-normal gait pattern, was that my foot was rotated laterally with every step. Odd. I made it a point to work on internal rotation of the hip and also to stretch out my external rotators so they wouldn't pull on my femur. That got better. Then suddenly it seemed I was developing a bunionette on the lateral side of my foot. This caused a great deal of anguish being as my first thought was that I was starting to develop the genetic issues that some of the women in my family have with their feet. I had this crazy thought that maybe those issues would've developed sooner had I not been relentlessly pounding my feet into submission for the last few years. And of course now that I was no longer slamming them against the ground, the bunions and claw feet, hammer toes, whatever, were now all going to take over my life.

I decided that might be slightly ridiculous and that I'm obviously just still walking a little funny.

I started slow jogging on the treadmill...which led to a couple other issues. I developed a weird, tight pain behind my knee and my hip flexor began leading a massive riot. I stretched, massaged and just rode the bike the next day. Felt great. Making awesome progress!

So this morning I set out for my first jog without the crutch of a treadmill that I can set at a certain speed and be sure I don't exceed it (which apparently my body wants to do because I kept running into the front of the treadmill). I walked for a little bit and then started up. It wasn't more than 20 seconds before my body tried to hit it's usual stride. We weren't ready for that. I slowed down. The muscles in my leg started guarding and I tried to relax. I spent the next three miles focusing on relaxing my leg and hip muscles while running. I could feel the tightness in the back of my knee and it was a little sore. As I approached my apartment, I stopped to walk.

What my leg did at that point was a little shocking. Mind you, my running gait probably looked ok. I wasn't in any great amount of pain, it was just more of a nuisance twinge, and it wasn't in the injured muscle itself. But when I stopped to walk, my leg did the strangest thing and I couldn't help but look down and watch it try to walk. It looked like my knee was dislocating every time my foot swung forward for the next step. Dude, I watched the doctor test the stability of my knee. My knee was not injured. This I am sure of.

With every step forward, my lower leg would catch midway, swiftly kick outward (laterally) and then track back on and swing forward. I kid you not. Oh boy.

I continued walking and after a few minutes, it normalized and I went in the house. I messed around with it and have come to this conclusion: my semimembranosis has transformed itself into a snapping turtle. That's right. A snapping turtle now lives behind my knee. I shall name him Fred.

After pulling out my old anatomy book, doing some movements, palpating, and some internet searching, I realized yes, snapping turtle it is. Welcome to my leg Fred. I hope you don't plan to stay long.

Actually it's a snapping tendon. And being that it did not suddenly just one day develop unprovoked (I have believed since the day this whole thing happened that it was the semimembranosis muscle of the hamstring group that was the injured one) and it was caused by an injury, most likely doing some strengthening exercises (which are still quite limited for me) and stretching will make it go away. In the mean time my tendon is either catching on the medial condyle of my femur or catching on other tendons. So it's snapping around. One professional website for doctors mentioned that this can make the knee look like it's "subluxing" which basically means dislocating but re-locating itself back into place. This was a relief...as it's not really doing that.

Anyway, not being able to really push myself in exercising has caused me to become quite cranky. Luckily I live alone and most people do not have to deal with the wrath that comes with this. I, however, must put up with it all day long until I am asleep. It's annoying. I'm irritating myself and wish I would just go away. My ability to tolerate anything is so badly diminished that just merely being awake drives me nuts.

After my little jog this morning I figured I'd be in a better mood. Then I was irritated about having to give someone a call today for the lab, and I wasn't planning on talking to anyone today. The call actually went well though. Then I had to do laundry, which always sucks. Then when I cut open my seedless watermelon, I saw a seed right away. That set me off. Then I took a hot shower and my apartment was humid afterwards...did not like that at all. There was hair all over the bathroom and I didn't have any ice cream. Life is just rough.

Fortunately I have an appointment for a hair cut tomorrow....which will either make me or break me. It's a new place, I'm being brave. And I'm chopping it all off. It's going, I'm done. It's now halfway down my back, and even when I straighten it and make it look good, it still drives me nuts (since before the injury, so don't worry, I decided this when I was still rational). So I'm cutting it to shoulder length. I will have before and after pics. And hopefully it will not be a disaster that causes me to spiral out of control and eat a ton of ice cream and brownies.Because I don't have the ability to burn that off right now.