Is a long and painful one, so it would appear!
However, if there is one thing that doing the marathon has taught me, it's that I am a pretty determined person when I need to be, and it's just as well!
I haven't run a single step since marathon day. In fact, I have barely done any exercise at all. It soon became quite clear to me that the hip injury wasn't going to miraculously heal itself, and after an unsuccessful attempt to go on a little walk in Wales a few weeks later (which resulted in me turning back after half a mile and literally being in tears from the pain and frustration by the time I got back to the cottage) followed by a few physio sessions, I gave in and saw a specialist.
I had x-rays, CT scans and an MRI, and the conclusion of those left me in complete shock. Turns out I need three operations - two to fix the injuries I was carrying and one to fix the underlying cause. I needed my knee cleaning out, and also have a labral tear in my hip joint, caused by the ball part of my joint being worn into a slightly deformed shape meaning it tore the cartilage in my joint. Then biggest of all, I need an operation called a tibial osteotomy, which essentially means breaking my tibia in order to re-set my leg at a different angle so that it will be kinder to my hips and knees going forwards. Turns out my leg is all out of alignment which places too much stress on those two joints! I was a bit of an emotional wreck after hearing this, probably compounded by the fact that the pain I was experiencing in my hip was making it almost impossible for me to get a decent nights sleep. It seems to be my default sleeping position to end up on my right hand side curled up, which results in a very deep aching sensation right inside my hip strong enough to wake me up. The act of moving onto my back and straightening my right leg out to ease the pain would often cause so much discomfort it would take me a good hour or so to settle down afterwards.
All of the specialists (not only the surgeon but also the various physio's and radiographers I saw) were quite shocked when I told them that I had picked the labral tear up before the marathon, but had done it anyway. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not but I do seem to have a high pain threshold, which can only be a good thing given what I have ahead of me! The specialist I saw was also quite shocked when I told him that the previous knee specialist had chosen to do nothing about the floating bone in my knee, which if you recall from my previous post on the matter, I had pointed out to him as he hadn't even spotted it from the scans. Hindsight is a marvellous thing, but you would not believe how much I am kicking myself, because if you read that post you might recall that I was uneasy about his lack of action but chose to just trust him and go with it. It is entirely possible (quite likely in fact) that if I had sought a second opinion and had a knee arthroscopy back then, I would not have picked up the hip injury at all. Basically, my hip has been compensating for my knee which has been a major factor in where I find myself today. When I get my act together I am contemplating making a complaint against him to be honest. I felt brushed off at the time, but as I didn't like his bedside manner very much and was worried he hadn't spotted the bone chip, I was relieved to not have to go back and see him again. I am too emotive on the subject now, but lets just say it feels a bit like he played a part in altering my London Marathon dream from one of running the whole way and aiming for a specific time, to finding myself with a serious injury which should have led me to withdraw two weeks before. I always knew the marathon would be a painful experience but there was no need for it to be quite as painful as it was!!!
