Just thought I’d jot down why I haven’t ridden my bike in 3 months and what’s been happening. The past 3 months have definitely SUCKED to say the least, frustration ....anger.....tears.....guilt. ...annoyance.... are all adjectives that come to mind. I’ve had 3 separate MRI’s, 2 injections, an XRAY, 2 ultrasounds and a nerve conduction test and they still can’t figure out what is wrong. The upside is I am presenting the hip gurus with an intriguing and interesting case and feel somewhat of a freakshow! Last night I had a surgeon ask his 2 Western Bulldog doctor mates to come see this 25yr old girl and how weird her symptoms are, I had them all gathered around examining me and their only comments where “mmmmm......interesting..... that’s bizarre...that’s weird.....” So I guess the attention is kinda nice!!
So a quick backtrack on how it began. In Feb we headed out on our Saturday 150km ride to Buchan, hilly yes, hard yes, but I’d done it the past couple of weekends and was feeling really fit. Headed out and from the first pedal stroke I had a niggle in my glute which is when I should have turned around, didn’t and by the time I got home some 6 hours later I couldn’t lift my left leg over the top tube to get off. Rested a few days, raced Otway Odyssey 100km the next weekend in pain, then continued to do some training for the next 4 weeks but having soreness in left hip.
Went and saw a myotherapist and masseuse who both diagnosed it as illopsoas tendonitis, complete rest and massage would have it healed in 4 weeks. No dramas, except that turned into 10 weeks.
Teaching is a freakin hard job, especially when you don’t have any way to release your frustration and ‘switch off’ after work. By now I was struggling to work, couldn’t participate in teaching my Prac PE classes and every little thing the students did was magnified by about 100 and I was losing my shit in the class. Lucky to have a wicked awesome supportive principle who gave me time off to sort my self out, this meant a trip to Melbourne (4 ½ hr drive) for an ultrasound on hip to see how bad the tendonitis was. Alas, no tendonitis was present, ripper, but what the hell was wrong with me then?
Needed to see a doctor at VicHouse Medical Clinic but unfortunately they were all booked out for the next week, so I decided to make a stand for myself and declared I wouldn’t be moving from this seat in the waiting room until a doctor would see me. My puppy pleading eyes, low cleavage top and chaining myself to the seat did nothing to sway the male receptionist into sweet talking a doctor. Dammit, What the hell am I going to do?
Stayed the night at my good friend Ailie’s house, who is a triathlete (soon to be ironwomen) and she called up her physio friend, who came around to examine me on a Saturday morning. She said it was very interesting indeed and borrowed her doctor friends referral pad and wrote me a referral to get an XRAY and MRI, thinking it could be a laberal tear or FAI in the hip. Couldn’t be done until later in the week so I headed back to Castlemaine for some R & R. Back down to Melbourne for the XRAY and MRI at Olympic Park, then to see a doctor there. Doctor said the MRI and XRAY were all normal, a tiny laberal tear but it wouldn’t produce my symptoms. (By this stage I had an aching pain in my groin and was unable to lift my left leg more than 1cm off the ground, hip flexion did not exist) His next thoughts were a bulging disc in my back. Instead of having to pay another $380 for MRI which I would get $0 back at Olympic Park, we jumped in a taxi in peak hour and headed to Coburg where I could get $300 back. MRI showed up nothing, and the doctor told me to stay in Melbourne for the night and to go see his colleague in the morning for more tests. Now, mum and I had had to wait 3 hours in between appointments and decided to hit up DFO and made some purchases, which we decided to leave at Olympic Park as we thought we would be returning there that night. However, we didn’t get out of Coburn until 7pm (having left C’maine at 6am) so mum had to head home and I slept on the coach at Ailie’s. Next day went to Olympic Park and got a cortisone injection and a local anaesthetic in my hip joint. Other doctor did some movement tests which were interesting-internally rotating my knee caused pain in my hip yet my hip was anaesthetised..... weird indeed, the hip joint was numbed.... this lead to them thinking it is not the hip that’s the problem, but referred pain.
Now this is when I really lost my shit, exhausted from lack of sleep on a wonky couch and desperately wanting answers the doctor told me he didn’t know, I would have to wait until next week to hear from the other doctor as he wasn’t even my doctor, and that I could jump on the bike for an hour and spin the legs over. Completely flabbergasted that this doctor who had just seen I couldn’t lift my leg more than a cm off the ground has told me to go out for a spin...... There’s lots of things I would have liked to have said at that moment but instead I just cried. Doh.
Walked out of Olympic Park loaded up with bags and no answers I just sat in a park and sobbed, then jumped on a train and headed back to Marlo town. Had to wait another 4 days to hear from the doctor who then decided I needed a nerve conduction test at the Melbourne Neurological Centre in a week. Waited another week, jumped on the train and headed back to Melbourne. This test friggin caned, they put these pad things on you then electrocute you with this little probe, which was uncomfortable to say the least, but to test the nerves in the back he put a needle in the muscle and then asks you to contract that muscle. Frig, the amount of pain this was causing I was laying there thinking well at least I know what it is now, there has to be something wrong with my nerves. Evil electrocuting doctor then advised me my nerves were in excellent condition.....a relief but still no answers....
Boarded the train back to Marlo and waited another 4 days to hear back from my doctor who said he would try to get me into see a hip surgeon specialist...waited another 4 days and was advised I would be seeing Dr. David Young a hip guru.
Another train ride back to Marlo for some more waiting.
A few days later it was back to Melbourne (waited 2 hours in waiting room) then Youngie had a look at me and said this is totally weird before getting called back to theatre for an emergency so it was another 3 hour wait in his rooms. This is when he saw me and showcased me to his other doctor friends and asked me to stay until tomorrow. Back at 7.15 the next morning, waited until 9.30 to see him, where he asked me to wait until 1pm to go get another MRI, this time on my abdomen and another injection, this time into my illopsoas tendon. His 2 thoughts were either endometriosis which was compressing my illopsoas, or I’d torn my illopsoas.
Over to Vic House and waited until 1pm for a MRI on my abdomen and pelvis, which luckily showed no endometrioses. Then I was injected with an ultrasound guided local anaesthetic into my illopsoas for pain relief and to note any changes over the weekend. The doctor administering the injection was the same doctor I saw about 6 weeks ago who did my first XRAY and he couldn’t believe it was still going on! Once I had this I waited in the waiting room for the girls to sort out my payment and when I went to the front desk to pay my left leg collapsed from under me and somehow I managed to not full flat on my face in a room full of people. Turns out the anaesthetic had leaked into a nerve in my leg and consequently my leg was now numb. I had to sit and wait until it wore off. Unable to walk they called a taxi and a mere 90 minutes later it arrived, to drive me around the block to my other doctor. There I waited another hour for another taxi to arrive and we headed straight into peak hour traffic into southern cross station to make the 6.30 train home. I finally arrived in Marlo at midnight, and once again returned home with no answers. My hip was sorer than when I left and is now the sorest it has ever been even though it has a local in it..... another weird factor to add to the already extreme strangeness of this injury. Also bizarre is that my left quad (bung hip side) is heaps bigger and stronger than my right, but my left calf has signs of wastage....go figure. Well that's what's been going on, hope I dont sound like a sook..... but I'm hoping to have some answers on Monday and Part 2 of this story will hopefully only be a 1 sentence story!
