Surgery

I’ll cut right to the chase, as some Law student who calls Biology a pseudoscience accused me of waxing lyrical in previous posts (lawyer me that one, Frisky F ;) ). 
 
I have been out since July - no running or cross training. I have not been able to do consistent aerobic exercise without having knee pain, and it has completely changed my lifestyle. I eat less, sleep less, and go for walks to get some sort of blood flow going. I am a tablet of Metamucil away from becoming Mister Rogers circa 2000. I have never endured a more trying five months - I  am living my worst nightmare. 
 
I have been seeing world-class therapists here in Windsor and have been doing so many glute exercises that I can probably crack open three walnuts at once. Yet, there has been no change in pain levels. So, I have no choice but to fight this injury with more fire - I'm getting arthroscopic surgery.
 
The date: December 14th
 
Location: London
 
Passengers in the Cyrmobile: so far, two (three more seats available – come see me recover from anaesthetics as you may be able to convince me to buy you dinner pretty easily).
 
Recovery time: 6 weeks to 3 months
 
Surgery efficacy rate: 50/50
 
I met the surgeon today, and after reading my MRI, he told me I have patellar tendinopathy. That was always what we thought, but it is nice to know that nothing else is going on in there, and it is nice to have the diagnosis confirmed. The pain has been pretty severe at times, so it got me worried that its cause was something more sinister. 
 
According to the surgeon, the injury could go away by itself in several more months, in a year, or in a few years. It is curable with rest and physiotherapy, but surgery often accelerates the process. Since arthroscopy is non-invasive and relatively low risk, and since I was able to get under the knife this fast, I saw it as the best option. 
 
So that’s where we are. I am optimistic (thanks Warren Buffet) and I try to approach this challenge with a positive outlook, but I can’t help being nervous. Living as a non-athlete has been an interesting experiment, but it has strengthened my conviction that, health willing, I will never quit running. I hate this loss of structure and I don’t feel like myself – running has become a huge part of my life in these last five years. 
 
Plus, it is very hard to explain to people who are not in the sport (or sport in general) what I am dealing with. It’s not that I am missing out on making the Olympics. It’s not about the Olympics – it never was. What I am missing out on is trying to crack the top 10 at U Sports XC. It’s travelling to new places for training camps. It’s running on new grounds with new people. It’s logging 100 miles in a week and smugly posting on Strava about it. It’s going for a run with my sister and my two little bros when I get home for Christmas. It’s putting Angus Rawling in his place, dammit (which seems increasingly hard to do)! 
 
I love this sport, and the people in it. I am meant to run. I don’t know how fast, and I don’t know how far, but I am meant to run. 

So let’s end this.

AC