Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Before getting pregnant, I thought naming our baby would be extremely easy. We started talking about baby names years ago, even before we were married. I think if we were having a girl, we'd have been done months ago. Naming a boy on the other hand, has proven much more difficult.

Imagine how many times in your life you say or write your name. It's kind of a big deal. I mean even on a day full of nothing, you probably have to say, write, or hear your name at least 10 times. 3000 times a year maybe? 54,000 times by the time you graduate high school. And that's on the low end of my estimate.

Nicknames, middle names, inherited names, names that flow, difficult to say names, names that rhyme with dirty words, initials that don't spell out something funny like "BUF". There's a lot to consider.

But I think Liz and I have finally come to a decision. We'll be keeping it a secret until our boy is born. Now we just have to continue to mull it over and decide if the decision we've come to is the right one.

Oh, and continue to keep it a secret, that won't be an easy task either. We've heard stories of people who start calling their baby by their name before their born, and then accidentally say it around other people. We are totally the kind of people to do that. We'll try and be careful.

I haven't blogged very much in the last month, and I don't know why. I guess I don't feel like I have much to blog about lately. After my last post I have decided that I really don't care about my injury.

Let me clarify that. I have decided that I am going to do what I want no matter if I get it fixed or not. Granted, it hurts. But some activities hurt it more than others. So far I have run 20 miles in the last 4 days and the only real pain I've had during this time is in the groin soreness immediately after, or the morning after, running. At a comfortable pace, the stomach pain is barely there.

Running is an activity that doesn't aggravate the injury as much as Soccer. Soccer may be out of reach for a while just due to the twisting and turning involved. I actually tested my ability to sprint today and the pain is far less than it was this Summer. So things are improving, I guess that's good.

I am still going to pursue getting the injury corrected, but I've decided this will not stop me from doing what I want to do. I refuse to let my body dictate my life's activities. In fact, I am a firm believer in the exact opposite, that your diet and physical activities will dictate how your body feels. The days I feel the best is when I eat healthy and exercise. I think at this point it would be easy for me to throw in the towel, become fat and lazy, and stop running or working out. Not happening.

So with that said, here's what I want to do. I've talked about it before and if there's anything that annoys me more, it's someone who talks the talk and doesn't walk the walk. I want to participate in an ultra marathon. That's any event farther than a marathon distance of 26.2. Now is as good a time as any.

The one I had in mind was the Lake Hinson 24 Hour Race. What I love about it is the concept of testing your mental will along with your physical. The race is a 1.5 mile loop, and you start at 8AM one morning and you run/walk however much you feel like for 24 hours, and it ends the next morning at 8AM. The reviews I've read call it a tailgate party with some running. I haven't signed up yet, but I don't know what I'm waiting for. It's in September, so it'd give me plenty of time to train.

I have to set a goal in the race because what's the point without a goal? It certainly wouldn't be to win. The winner last year finished just under the world record, going 163 miles in 24 hours. For me, I'd have 2 goals. The first would be to travel AT LEAST 50 miles, and the second would be to never stop. I could take a minute or two break for food or drink or to stretch, but I'd want to continue to move the entire time. I'm under no delusion that I'll run the whole time, so the "continue to move" would be running and walking. I'll have to come up with a game plan to prepare myself for what I'll do.

Back in college, I participated in Relay for Life which was a decent introduction to this kind of race. It started at 6PM and ended the next morning at 8AM. Apparently the point was to have a team and pass a baton or something, I didn't like having to do that. I walked the entire time without stopping. I even ran 9 miles with some friends as well. In those 14 hours I traveled roughly 27 miles according to my pedometer. Without that experience, I think I'd scoff at doing a 24 hour race, but to me, it's possible.

Some stupid injury is not going to stop me from doing what I want to do. I want to run.

I have a confession to make, I've been living the last few months angry. It probably doesn't make sense to some people because I'm really good at burying it. After all, life is going so well with a baby on the way. Life is great, but when it comes to athletics, I'm really angry. I have a sports injury and it's turning out to be more formidable than I expected.

You may not remember, but back in early June, I hurt my stomach somehow playing in a soccer game. I mention it here as an issue during the marathon training. Well that stomach pain has actually gotten worse. I didn't mention it in the post, but it was a combined pain, some in my groin and some in my lower pelvic abs. I gave it a month and a half to heal itself, when that didn't happen, I went to the doctor in July to see what he thought. I got an x-ray with nothing found, and the doctor said to see a sports therapist.

"Garbage" I say. I don't need some a sports therapist, I workout enough and know what to do for exercise. So I kept running and just "dealing" with it hoping it would heal. Well October and November rolled around, and with the pain in both groin and abs getting worse, I saw the doctor again who surprised at it not having gone away, recommended a MRI and a meeting with a surgeon.

I got the MRI done last Friday and that was an interesting experience. I learned I am *not* claustrophobic, in fact, I really enjoyed it. I had headphones on, and it was slightly uncomfortable not being allowed to move, but there's something to be said for staying completely still for 1 hour. It was very relaxing.

Then on Monday I saw the surgeon who gave me both good and bad news. I'll start with the good news first, he verified that I do in fact have an issue with my pelvis area that the MRI identified. I'll actually quote the diagnosis here:

There is parasymphyseal bone marrow edema. Mild fluid signal intensity is seen within the pubic symphysis. There is asymmetry of the distal aspect of the rectus abdominis, smaller on the right than the left. A cleft sign is seen at the inferior parasymphyseal region consisting with a partial tear of the origin of the adductor musculature. 

Constellation of findings suggesting symphyseal instability, consistent with the term 'sports hernia'.  

Super, sports hernia, that's exactly what I thought I had, but here comes the bad news. The surgeon takes off his glasses and looks at me all serious, and says "I don't know anyone in our area that can perform this surgery." Apparently this is not a common enough injury to have trained, available surgeons to fix it.

After a 20 minute conversation with him he describes a surgeon from Philly that comes down every January, flies in professional athletes, and does 20 of these surgeries a week. A quick google search of this Philly surgeon shows this is not a viable solution and he may be more of a crook. Ironically enough, the surgeon I was talking to actually said he thought it was a sham because he didn't know what the Philly surgeon does to fix it and it's expensive.  The Philly surgeon doesn't accept insurance and charges $15K up front. And if you know me well enough, I scoff at such a proposition. I would happily cut off the lower portion of my body than pay $15K. Get real.

So this is where I am angry. There is no next time in life. There's no "oops", fix it, and do it over again. No eraser on the end of life's pencil. How many times are you 30? To think I will never be able to kick a ball in soccer like I have in the past because I tore whatever, is INFURIATING. I run because I'm young and I can. I play soccer because I'm young and I can. To think that something I could do so easily a few months ago has been completely shut off to me, is MADDENING.

I didn't do this to myself. I didn't go out and do something stupid. I played hard in a soccer game on June 1st, tried my absolute damndest to score goals on a random night, and ended up tearing my stomach/groin.

Now granted, I have not tried very hard to find another solution. I talked to 1 surgeon, but in talking to him, and reading the reviews online from people with a similar ailment, my hopes are completely crushed. It sounds like "living with it" is what a large majority of people end up doing. I'll start calling around and seeing what else I can do, but I might have to face the fact that stomach/groin pain will be a staple in my life.

So what can I do physically right now? I can run but not very fast and not as far as I used to. Right now, if I run any faster than 8 minutes a mile, the stomach pain is too much. Which means sprinting of any kind in a sport is too painful to handle. That limits me in running the bases or playing outfield in softball. Also, if I run any farther than about 8 or 9 miles, my groin pain is too much and I have to stop. To be honest, I haven't tested the distance part too much, but I will soon. I refuse to allow my days of marathon running to be over.

Soccer? I might have to concede that that's a thing of the past for me. The twisting action of kicking a ball causes a sharp pain in my stomach and it's way too much to take just once, let alone 50 times in a game. I just can't take that.

So... angry, upset, furious, any other synonyms you can think of? That would describe my attitude right now when it comes to my body and sports. Throw  dejected and hopeless in there too. I got no happy ending in this blog, that's all.