Bad news for my half marathon aspirations

Before I left on my hunting trip on the 7th I had an MRI done on my left leg. Severe pain in my lower calf/achilles tendon area had kept me from running for around two weeks.

I didn't hear from my P.O.S. primary care physician for the duration of my hunt. I got back on Monday and called them first thing Tuesday. The nurse told me "we just read the results today", which absolutely spun me up. Anyway, she told me that I had a stress fracture in my upper left tibia and that they were going to set me up for an ortho appointment ASAP.

Well thanks for that. That little piece of information would have been good to have before I hunted the rocky hills in Missouri.

If you think I'm being too hard on my primary care physician, understand that this is the same one who read the results of the MRI on my right ankle and told me "If you were a pro athlete they would tape it up and tell you to keep going, but I would suggest you not run. It's up to you". No ortho appointment, no recommendations and my right ankle is still jacked up.

Anyway, obviously I knew I had some shin pain about 4" below my left knee that feels a lot like shin splints. I guess I know now what's causing that pain, but I'd been running with that. Now that I know the source of that pain I know I shouldn't run with it, but still, I want to know what's causing the debilitating pain in my lower calf. The pain isn't really bad day to day, but the pain is unbearable when I run.

I have an ortho appointment today at 12:30. I swear, the first medical "professional" that tells me it's reflected pain is going to find out just how frustrated I am with the entire medical field right now.

I know at this point I will not be running the entire half marathon. I may not be running it at all, but I will most certainly be walking it at least.

 

I think you're safe, Christine. Your mag-lite reputation most likely preceeded you.

 

Well, that went better than I thought. It also went worse than I thought. The orthopedic specialist seemed very knowledgeable and very good. Not only do I have a significant stress fracture in my upper tibia, I also have a tear in my upper achilles tendon. That most definitely explains the lower calf pain.

As to the right ankle, he said that there is one of two things going on. Either I've got a piece of bone or cartilage floating around in there or there is a fold in the synovial tissue. Either way, the only solution is surgery. We agreed that it's best to leave it as is until it gets to the point that I just can't keep going with it.

He gave me a boot for the left leg and said I HAD to wear it for at least the next four weeks. I told him "Doc, it's deer season and I live for deer hunting." He told me that he did too but he STRONGLY recommended that I wear it all the time and even went as far as to tell me that I was an idiot if I didn't.

I asked him if I could walk the half marathon and he said, "I'm strongly recommending that you don't do that." I'll consider it, but I didn't do all of this to not participate.

So…….. does anyone know where I can get an orthopedic boot camo dipped?