Note
(injured)
Well, it's done, surgery complete. After 1.5 years of troubles and therapy and setbacks and anticipation, I finally got some of it all behind me. This has been really tough. Orienteering became such a huge part of my life and I was making so much progress as an athlete, and right when I finally felt like I was getting to the point that I'd have my first breakaway season, it all came crashing down in 2013. For those that don't know, I was diagnosed with Femoral Acetabular Impingement (FAI), or commonly "hip impingement". Basically my bones in my hip joint genetically grew odd-shaped instead of the sphere shape they should be, so ever since my teenage years that odd shape has caused wear and tear on my hip tissues (labrum especially) and eventually led to the pain imstarted feeling just before and during the World Military Championships in 2013. Gave it several months of rest, and then I went into the sports doc in early 2014 since the pain just came right back and was thinking it was a sports hernia, but then was diagnosed with FAI. Tried several months of physical therapy to no avail. Then had to wait a long time going to different specialists, injection, scans, etc and also to get an appointment for surgery. So finally on 28 Jan the surgery was compete. An arthroscopic / minimally invasive procedure to reshape the bone to stop the impingement and repair the tissue damage. It went well, except for the fact that a bone outgrowth on my femoral head that was undecteable in the MRIs scraped a labral pothole of sorts in my joint and is unrepairable. Surgeon says I will be able to recover to the sport, but the permament damage probably means a hip replacement for me later in life. Oh yeah, and I have similar bone geometry problems in my other hip too, so I may have to go through all of this all over again eventually for the other side. Needless to say the whole ordeal is extremely frustrating. It's just the way my bones grew. But I'm really grateful this problem was identified. Just 15-20 years ago FAI was an unknown issue and people were being mis-diagnosed. My recovery has been much better than expected so far. I haven't needed to take the most severe pain relief medicine and pain has been very minimal overall. I'm tired, dreary, and sometimes dizzy, and I've never felt so busy doing so little before (like spending 4 to 6 hours a day on a CPM leg movement machine), and like seems to move in slow motion on crutches, but reading other people's blogs a bough thier own FAI recoveries makes me feel very lucky. But the thing that makes me most happy is to know that instead of waiting for surgery I'm finally on a path to a more permament recovery. The surgery is behind me, not ahead of me, and that feels wonderful. My hope is to get back to this sport that I love so much. Losing orienteering was like losing a lot of my identity. Getting back to the sport is a goal that motivate me to keep pressing forward and to make good choices each day. I have to think about my recovery as a long term project and not rush it. The better I heal now the longer I will have to orienteer the rest of my life. That said, my hope is to start oriwnteering again sometime this summer if all goes well. The CTOC A meet is a hopeful target for my first national appearance after the surgery, but that might not happen, so I'll be happy if I just have at least one A meet before the end of 2015. But I don't think I'll be racing at the same level I was before until next year. So 2016 is when I hope to get back on track and pick up where I left off. Getting back on board with the military team is one of my main goals. Scoring in the 70s on a blue course is still the primary objective having come so close a few times now. Eventually I'd like to get into Ski-O too. But it really all comes down to getting my life back again. At the moment I can't fly, I can't run, I can't ski...there are a lot of "can'ts" on the list. Even absent of achieving any of those more lofty goals, just eliminating the "can'ts" will be a huge boost to my health and happiness, so I'm just really grateful I'm on the path for making that happen now. Thankfully at path has been made a little easier by having the great surgeon and physical therapy staff I have, having the tremendous wife, family, friends and church Friends I have, and also having the blessings from God through it all. I really look forward to being out there in the open runnable woods again with all of you orienteers who are out there. See you this summer I hope!