Stopped In My Tracks

At the beginning of October, I had officially caught the running bug. I mean, I had been running for awhile, but had finally reached that point where I looked forward to lacing up my running shoes. I wanted to get out on the road and leave any stress behind for 40-60 minutes.

And then in mid-October, while out for a typical mid-week short run, I noticed a pain on the outside of my right foot. I usually have little aches during a run, and most of the time they go away after a few minutes. It wasn’t super painful, so I continued on for the last half mile or so. When I got home, I took off my shoes and noticed that the outside of my foot and my heel were still hurting, so I stretched as I usually do, and then grabbed an ice pack to ice down the sore spots.

The next morning, my foot still hurt. I decided to play it safe and stick with the RICE protocol until it was feeling better. (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) I tried to run a couple of times in the next two weeks, but each time that pain came back.

Late last week, I noticed that I couldn’t even walk around much without my foot hurting more and more. I finally gave in on Saturday and visited an urgent care, where they took x-rays and recommended I see a specialist. In the meantime, I was to wear an oh-so-sexy black and white shoe and stay off my feet as much as possible.

Yesterday, I saw the specialist. Even though the urgent care said the x-rays looked good, this doctor was less convinced. He saw a shadow on my fifth metatarsal that could be hinting at a stress fracture. To complicate matters, the area of my foot that hurts the most is the exact spot for a common type of stress fracture, but also a common spot for peroneal tendonitis. Which is it? We’re not sure.

Say hello to my inner foot!

I explained to the doctor that I wanted to run again as soon as possible. No – I needed to run again as soon as possible. The last three weeks have been torture. I finally settled into an activity that I really enjoy, and now I can’t do it. I can feel my legs tightening up, itching to hit the pavement. I put shoes on and I want to break out into a run.

And my mind is handling this poorly, too. I’m cranky. I’m short tempered. I’m depressed. I had found that running was a fantastic way to get rid of stress, and now that stress is trapped again. When I’m frustrated at the end of a long day, I want to go run to blow off steam. Oh wait, I can’t.

We don’t know for sure if it’s a stress fracture or tendonitis, so the doctor recommended an MRI to get a better look at what’s going on and (hopefully) rule out an existing or imminent stress fracture. Once we have a better look at what’s going on, the doctor said he’ll put together an aggressive treatment plan to get me running again.

If it’s just tendonitis, I’ll likely go to physical therapy for several weeks, and could possibly be running again in a few weeks. Or maybe just walking. I’d even be okay with walking if my foot was strong enough to get me through the 4-mile race I have on Thanksgiving Day. I can keep up the required pace by walking. (Did I mention I’m registered for two races in the next three weeks? All that money may be gone now.)

If it’s a stress fracture…well, we’ll hope it’s not. The options for how to handle that aren’t pleasant, and most guarantee I won’t be running again for months. If that happens, I’m going to need an antidepressant prescription with my treatment plan.

My MRI was this morning, and we’ll go over the results on Monday. In the meantime, my footwear has received an upgrade:

This really looks like an early Iron Man boot prototype.

It’s too bad this couldn’t have been the left foot. I can’t drive in this boot, so any driving involves getting to the car, taking the boot off (which is a multi-step process), switching to a shoe, driving to my destination, and then putting the boot back on before getting out of the car. Which limits my desire to want to drive anywhere unless it’s absolutely necessary. But we’ll really hope this doesn’t require a cast, or I won’t be able to drive at all for weeks.

So for the first time in my life, I’m cheering for tendonitis. It’s the lesser of the injuries, and would be a welcome diagnosis compared to the hell of a stress fracture.

We’ll know more on Monday. Hope for tendonitis.