Eeyore and Tigger - another injury update

My title for this post is easy to explain, for most of my running life. I have approached my running with the boundless energy and excitement of Tigger (Optimist)

However for the last few months (ok, maybe for most of this year), my blog reads more like the thoughts of an Eeyore (Pessimist).


I know it is probably because of the injuries but whether I like it or not, the last few months have been a bummer so you can ignore the rest of this post or read about my latest injury update.

You see, I had a doctor appointment this morning. When my ankle didn't seem to be healing fast enough, late last weekI decided to get a second opinion, granted I waited almost to the end of the week to make sure I could still do Surf the Murph. I went to a Doctor I have gone to in the past, I should have gone to him right away but I really didn't think I had hurt myself bad enough to warrant a visit to any doctor, let alone one who I trust to treat my running injuries.

He took x-rays of the ankle and they came back clean, no fracture showed up of any sort a few pieces are floating about the ankle but nothing that he was too concerned with. He thought one of the chips might be recent but thought it still looked a few years old. He did show me a few issues I have that many other runners would have which of course I can't explain but suffice to say it was cool. Nice to have a doctor who appreciates runners.

As to the ankle, he also diagnosed it as grade 2 sprain and thought I had strained a couple of ligaments. Unlike the other doctor that I went to he was able to rotate the ankle and press on a few spots and cause me pain, fairly significant pain. I felt so much better to know it wasn't in my head. When the other doctor, poked at my ankle without causing me significant pain, I was thinking I was being a wimp. He rotated it and was happy with the stability and then pushed and poked and then he hit the hot spots, he asked me a few more questions about how I did it. He asked if I rotated to the outside or inside, I said I wasn't sure, what I remembered was it rotating in and then reacting and it rotated out. He concurred and said that I had sprained the deltoid ligament and was tender (minor sprain) at the anterior talofibular ligament. He also said 3 months is what it would take before running would be pain free, not 2 months. I did not ask him if I should be running on it (guess who asked me that when I told her about his diagnosis, yes the same person who asked me all of the other questions that I failed to ask, my wife :-). I am not sure what his answer would be so I figure I can do so with care. As to rehabbing it he said, standing on one foot, eyes open and closed, repeat, raise up on toes, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I also asked about my calf muscle and he said he thinks I tore the gastrocnemius, he wasn't so sure about the plantaris tear or rupture but based on where he was able to cause pain figured that I had injured the gastrocnemius, his comment on it was that it would haunt me unless I did a lot of achilles stretches, in case I missed his comment, he repeated achilles stretches a few more times.

So time to cut myself some slack for all the negative thoughts and instead it's time to get working on a rehab training program.