I'm trying to be positive. I really hate doctors. I really don't trust doctors. I'm generally very very healthy, so I'm surprised with the amount of bad doctor experiences I've had, but I've had my share.
I'm not even worried the news will be bad. Really, I'm MORE worried that the doc won't know what's going on, that he'll misdiagnose it, or that he'll insist on calling it shin splints. Thing is, it WAS shin splints, but I know what shin splints feel like, and I swear this is no longer it. This basically hurts everywhere but where the shin splints were hurting, and I'm afraid that treating it like shin splints (like I have been doing) will not help, because that is not where it hurts anymore.
Actually, the latest is that my leg feels stiff and unstable, like I'm constantly walking with a peg leg, but one that's not overly sturdy and may slip out from under me. It's not even so much that it hurts, it's more like it just DOESN'T WORK. And that, my friends, is a very frustrating feeling.
A little funny story I forgot to tell, though - the day of my last run, the three miler that left me in agony afterwards, happened to be the husband's poker night. I completely forgot until he was leaving (after he let me take his last 2-year-old hydrocodone, which incidentally, didn't seem to do much). So there I am - unable to take more than three steps without bringing tears to my eyes, crawling to get around because walking is too painful, and starving. No way was I cooking myself dinner, so I ordered pasta from LaRosa's. (This was also when the chiro told me to take in extra fuel!) When I hobbled to the door to greet the delivery guy, my ninja cat took off running down the stairs. So naturally, I made the delivery guy go pick him up and bring him back. :) (Yes, he got a good tip!)
Shooting guns and cooking seem to be decent enough substitutes for the mental escape that running usually provides. Swimming is all right. I used to really like swimming for exercise, but I think that since I've discovered running, swimming is tedious. I like to go fast (well, faster than walking), and swimming - even if you're good at it - is soooo slow. It doesn't help that I seem to go when the water aerobics class is making all manner of waves in the pool, and I swear that trying to swim through old lady waves feels like the pool version of a treadmill, except more futile.
But I'm trying to get better at it because I'm reconsidering my one-time goal of getting into triathlons. Why not - at least that way I can still be training for something right now, which helps! The Cinci triathlon is in late July, and the sprint tri is 400m swim/12 mile bike/3.1 run. That really doesn't sound like a lot on paper....but holy crap. I biked 10 miles today and my legs felt like jello. I can't imagine running after that....yet! Right now I'm swimming 400 in 11-12 minutes, which is still faster than some of the slowest swim times posted in the tri last year, but it's still pretty slow. A friend is going to give me some pointers, though. And I'm going to see if getting a decent race bike - used, maybe - is financially doable even with the money pit I'm walking on right now. A boys' mountain bike that was $40 on craigslist will get me around, but it's not a racing bike. I'd love to see how fast I am on a bike that's made to go fast.
Biking outside, btw, is and probably will be the closest substitute to running that I've found, at least in terms of cardio+fresh air+making me feel happy.
AND, this morning before my ride, I caught sight of the poor neglected arm warmers I hadn't had a chance to try out, and decided to break them in. Love them. Warm and comfy (even though I could've used an extra layer, biking is way colder than running) and cute! Look how cute!! (Ignore the bedhead. I didn't even comb my hair because I was about to plunk a helmet on it.)
Hope you get some definitive answers today!
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