Betrayal

I've always been able to rely on my body to do what little I asked of it. When I started running marathons several years ago I asked for more, and my body responded at first with a stress fracture but then by complying and running happily and for the most part healthily. Little things would pop up and go away on their own. I'd have minor health issues that would, in short time, go away with little fuss or bother. My sister has health problems, my brother has health problems, my mother has a ton of health problems, but I've only had high cholesterol and post-menopausal issues. This year has been different.

First there was the knee problem. My knee had acted up before, several years ago, but cutting back on running for a few weeks made whatever was wrong disappear. Mysteriously and magically, it just didn't bother me at all. Until this January when it got too sore to walk on, let alone run. After an MRI and diagnosis of femoral-patella dysfunction and a torn meniscus I had 3 months of physical therapy. That helped, although the meniscus pain continued on.

Then my stomach started hurting. Not eating hurt. Eating hurt more. It hurt in the morning and woke me at night. I started eating less to try to ease the discomfort. The silver lining of that was I lost weight, so I lived with the problem and decided it was stress related.

When the weather got warmer I started having hot flashes again. During the day they were just a nuisance but at night they'd wake me over and over. Woken by hot flashes, kept awake by the stomach pain.

The topper was the depression. I've been sad before, hurt and angry and disappointed at changes in my life, but never before have I felt the crushing anxiety and despair that I've been feeling for the past two months. That finally sent me to a doctor to get fixed. Two weeks ago I started taking an antidepressant for the first time in my life. After a couple of days I was infinitely worse, then seemed to turn a corner and started to feel, on a limited basis, almost human again. At the same time I started taking a powerful antacid, assuming that my stomach problem was caused by the stress and depression.

The first week of tri training I tweaked my lower back by doing mule kicks. I took it easy for the next couple of weeks, watched my activities, and it seemed to go away. By last Saturday I was feeling fine: my back felt good, my knee felt great on the short run, I was happy to be on the team, I was feeling much better than I had for weeks. Then I picked up my tri pack and tweaked my back again.

This time it was worse. While driving I could feel the spasms in my back. Sitting hurt, standing hurt, activity hurt more. I did the long bike ride on Sunday and although it didn't hurt too much while cycling, it ached when I finished. But I figured it would get better and go away on its own.

The stress from that made my neck hurt too. So I had the lower back pain, and I couldn't turn my neck. Nice.

Last night at our workout we were scheduled to run, cycle, run, cycle, run and repeat until it got too late. From my first steps I knew my back wasn't happy but I decided to gut it out. I ran out for 5 minutes, turned and ran back. I changed to cycling gear and tried to get on my bike. I couldn't even lift my leg high enough. I just couldn't move. Forlornly I stood there and realized my workout was done. My back ached and the depression returned in a rush. As coach after coach asked me what was wrong, I could only say through clenched teeth, holding back tears, that it was my back.

Today it's still causing severe pain. Driving just sucks, sitting at a desk hurts like hell. I need to go see someone. Last night one of the coaches, a chiropractor, gave me a stern talk about how it's not going to get better by itself. In fact, although I might make it through the tri I would certainly have the problem again and again. She said there was obviously an underlying problem that probably stemmed from when I originally hurt it (20 years ago) that hadn't been corrected. She said, and I'm paraphrasing, I need to fix the immediate problem, repair the damage, build up and correct whatever had failed in the first place. That won't happen just by wishing and hoping and magic.

So I'll take tonight off, tomorrow off, and I insist on doing the 1 mile open water swim on Saturday. I may not be able to run afterward, may not be able to cycle on Sunday. I don't know when I'll be able to get in to see someone, I'm not even sure who to go see.

I think I'll just sit here and cry now.