Two Follow-Ups: Team Ortho and my Non-Stress Fracture

FIRST: TEAM ORTHO:

Last Sunday, I posted a rant about Team Ortho. It brought up some issues from the past year, but it was mainly about issues with an upcoming race: the Minneapolis Marathon.

Well, on Wednesday, the news came out that the race was cancelled. (Because of my initial post about this, I immediately got a Facebook message, a FB comment, 3 tweets, and a text message as soon as it was announced - thanks friends!) This happened just 10 days before it was supposed to take place. Not a big surprise.

As noted in my post last weekend, Team Ortho submitted an application to have the race 30 miles south, but there were issues with that route and it wasn't going to work. What a mess. I feel for those people who had registered and bought plane tickets to come to town and race a late-spring marathon. I'm done ranting now. Check out my first rant about this from last week if you're wondering why I'm so annoyed. (I updated that post a few hours after I originally posted it, so check out the bottom if you missed that before.)


SECOND: MY NON-STRESS FRACTURE:

Just like with all the friends contacting me when the Team Ortho race was cancelled, I had many more contact me when I posted that an MRI proved my leg was 100% fine, so the doc thinks I have a herniated disc (or other disc issue). THANKS FRIENDS! I had a lot of good comments on a Facebook post about it, a few tweets, and about 8 longer FB messages with tips. Thanks!

My leg still hurts, but the pain is lower than the initial pain. (It was partially due to the fact that the pain was moving lower that I wanted the MRI.) I still need to make sure I'm not walking TOO much, and I need to make sure I'm sitting properly (as mentioned in Wednesday's post). But overall, I'm happy to know what the cause of this pain is, and that I'm not hurting anything in my leg.

I tried doing some leg exercises at the gym this past week. Light weight 1-legged leg presses and eccentric quad work seem to be OK. And my eccentric heel drops are fine too. Hammy work might hurt it a bit, and (oddly enough) the adductor and abductor machines seemed to hurt it a little too. I've cut out certain core exercises that might strain my lower back a bit too much. In 9 days, I meet with my PT, and I'm working on a huge list of exercises to ask "is this one OK to still be doing?"

Robert, my acupuncturist at Magna liked hearing the news because it's info he can work with. So on Thursday, he really targeted my lower back:

He had more needles in my legs, arms, and head too.

My back felt a lot better for a few hours, but then I kinda abused it by walking a lot with my boys on Friday as we went to the gym, out for pizza, to the Science Museum, and to the library. I've got to try to be more careful about that. And when my PT mentioned moving CAREFULLY and keeping the lower back straight, I didn't realize how hard that would be as the full-time stay-at-home trophy-dad. It's IMPOSSIBLE to be perfect about my movements when getting my boys in and out of their carseats, getting Charlie in and out of his crib, and generally just anytime we're out and I'm trying to wrangle them. Dang. I'll try to be more cognizant of it.

Oh, and here's a random issue: 2 days ago, a pretty big and totally unexplained bruise appeared between the 2 sore areas on my leg (below where it used to hurt, and above where it currently hurts):

Happy long weekend!