My Hips Don't Lie

There are very few things that feel as manly as having and old war wound.

Get a bunch of guys together for any period of time and you will inevitably find us comparing scars, injuries, and stories from our past that people tell us we should be ashamed of for how stupid they were but we are actually still proud of. 

I love playing this game as much as the next guy because this is one I usually win. I was a pretty clumsy child who really liked the idea of being a daredevil. Well, I liked the idea of being known as a daredevil more than actually being a daredevil. 

But as cool as it sounded to tell people I was limping around because of "an old track and field injury" it lost it's appeal when it actually started hurting. A lot. All the time.

It was my sophomore year of high school and I was in the middle of my first season running track. I had only recently fallen in love with distance running a few months before so I knew almost nothing about injury prevention. So when I complained to my coach about a constant throbbing pain starting in my hip and shooting its way down to my knee I had no idea what to expect. 

"I'm pretty sure your issue is your IT band, or iliotibial band if you want to know the fancy name for it."

"That's terrible. How did I get an iliotibial band? Will icing it get rid of it?"

"You don't get rid of an ilitibial band, Kyle. It's that really long tendon that connects your hip bone to your knee and can sometimes get inflamed if you don't stretch it right or you put too much stress on it."

"I knew that, just making sure you are staying current the latest innovations in first aid" I said as I twitched the hair out of my face to look cool.

"Whatever. Go sit down and take an Advil."

Coach was right. Not only did I have an iliotibial band (one on each leg as it turns out) but it had become inflamed and was extremely painful. It set me back several weeks but it eventually got better and I was able to continue running through my senior year. If that were the end of the story then the moral of it all would just be to not be dumb and stretch the way you are supposed to. But it didn't end there.

Over the last seven years since the original injury I have made enemies of that huge leg tendon on at least five different occasions. It always happened the same way. Life would get in the way of maintaining a consistent running schedule and I would get out of shape. Then I would muster up the determination to get it done and I would slowly work myself back into the pattern of hitting as many miles a week as I could. It can be a long frustrating process to struggle so much to do what you know you used to be able to do with very little effort so when I finally got to a place where I felt strong during a run I would suddenly have the motivation to push just a little harder than I was used to. That's what it is all about isn't it? 

Then out of nowhere I would feel an odd discomfort running up my left leg. The next thing I know it hurts to walk, sit, stand, and lay down. And it would be like that for no less than 6-8 weeks.

A few months I ago I repeated this pattern of injury, except this time it hurt worse than it ever had before and kept increasing in intensity. I was super frustrated because I had been doing everything I knew to do to prevent this injury. I was careful. I took it slow. But it didn't work.

I finally went to the doctor to tell a professional about the injury I already knew I had. They agreed with me. I did indeed have iliotibial band syndrome. But then they told me why I had iliotibial syndrome.

There are apparently these fluid filled sacs in your joints called bursars (in case you were wondering how many gross sounding words I could throw in a sentence). I happened to have an inflamed bursar in my left hip which was putting unnecessary pressure on that big unfriendly leg tendon I had come to know so well. Then they told me something that had never occurred to me before. 

They said that all of those times I had felt the pain in my leg were because I had never dealt with the source of pain in the first place. I had felt the effects and just waited it out. I would sit and wait for however long it took for the pain to go away and as soon as it did I would slowly go back into my routine only to feel the pain again a few months later. 

And so here is the point of it all: I thought all this time that I was somehow failing as a runner because I kept falling into the same injury when really I was failing because I never dealt with the source of the pain itself.

Isn't life like that? 

We feel like we have been making the same mistakes over and over and no matter how hard we try we cannot escape going right back to where we came from. Maybe it's a sin. Maybe it's a mentality like laziness, busyness, insecurity, or doubt. Have you ever felt like a total failure because you keep doing the same dumb thing over and over even when you try as hard as you can to do differently?

If I have learned anything from this it is that reoccurring points of pain almost always have a source. It is a hidden source that is hard to find but when you hit it you know very clearly that it is the epicenter of all of your issues. Science tells us that pain is a neurological response to something that needs your attention. The problem is that when the pain is gone we stop paying attention to the real problem. It is easy to remember to deal with our anger issue right after blowing up on someone but sometimes we can think the issue has been dealt with because nobody happened to tick us off that day.

I met with my physical therapist this morning for the last time (I hope). It has been a hard two months of exercises and stretches that have been specifically targeted to the source of the pain and to getting strength back in the rest of my leg. Right now the majority of the pain is gone but my therapist warned me that this is the most dangerous part of the healing process because he knows my tendency will be to jump back in and assume the problem is taken care of when really it has just been put back into hiding ready to strike at any moment. I have to keep working it out even when on the outside everything is fine. 

Our lives are full of points of pain, pitfalls of thought, or habits we always find ourselves falling into. We could beat ourselves up for always making the same mistake or we could take those points and get to the root of them. We can look and pray and seek and we can find why the tendency to fail in a certain way is so prevalent in our lives. My therapist told me that for the rest of my life, no matter what shape or level of fitness I am in, that my IT band will always be a point of interest and concern. Not that it will always be a point of pain that holds me back but that it will always be a point that demands my attention. Paul had a thorn in his flesh. Jacob and I have a pain in our hip. Either way, it is a reminder to me to keep "working out my salvation" by never thinking I am above an injury or relapse into an old habit. And if I keep at it, I will be able to finally put it to rest. 

Because just like Shakira says, "my hips don't lie."