One Last Time, Then I'm Done Talking About It

I'm tired of talking about my hip. Just saying the word "hip" makes me shudder. I don't like complaining, and I assume no one else wants to hear it. I'm just fucking done with it. But the truth is...it's not healing well.

When I was given my initial prognosis of 3 months, I thought they were crazy. I figured 4-6 weeks, tops. Yet, here I am, over 4 months later.

I still can't lay on my left side.

It's still quite sore.

I have a wierd ball-thing that moves about my hip at will. Creepy.

It swells up after anything more than very moderate activity.

The skin is still completely numb.

And did I mention? There's a fucking ball-thing in my hip!

So I did what any man would do: waited 4 weeks too long to get myself to the doctor.

I finally went in yesterday to see if there was anything they could do. At one point, there were 3 doctors in the room looking at the ball-thing. One of them declared, "I don't know what the hell that thing is." Way to inspire confidence, doc!

They sent me down for x-rays to see if they could see anything. As you can see above...nothin' (except my dong). Which is a good sign, really, because it means it's not a calcium deposit or a piece of bone. They talked amongst themselves for several minutes and decided that it's likely a remnant of my alien hematoma that hasn't been absorbed. But they're not sure.

The main issue is that the ball-thing (yes, I'm still calling it that because we still don't know what it is, and it sounds better than "hip-testicle") is causing a lot of irritation to my hip joint, which is exacerbated by any sort of repetitive activity. Like cycling. Fuck. I also have a wicked case of bursitis, which is actually pretty low on my list of concerns at this point.

The doctors put the brakes on me (pun intented) for another 4-6 weeks.

I went back this afternoon to get some steroid treatments to the area, but I'm pretty sure it's not the kind of steroid that will make me faster. I also got some ultrasound and massage to try to break up the remaining scar tissue.

They made me wear these shorts

And then they put this thing on my hip
It's got anti-inflamatory on side and saline on the other. There's a small battery built in, and the current draws the anti-inflamatory into my tissue. Kinda cool, actually. Unlike those shorts.

On the bright side, they performed several tests and determined that I've lost no strength or range-of-motion on my left side. Shit, I'll take what I can get!

So, obviously, racing this weekend is out. RADIUS has always been one of my favorite race formats (I don't care what you assholes think!) and I was excited to make my "big comeback". But, alas, it will have to wait till next year.

Hopefully this is the last time I'll have to bitch about it.

The plan now is to keep putting in "junk miles" to keep some semblance of fitness so I can hang with the cool kids on the MTB trails this fall.